THE THIRTEEN STREAMS OF MAGNIFICENT OIL, c.1940
Watercolour and pencil. 12¾ x 8in. (32.7 x 20.7cm.)
Inscribed with the title upper right. Inscribed on the reverse on the mount with the artist’s name, the title and c.1940
Provenance
National Trust bequest.
Tate Gallery Archive TGA929/4/17/15.
The Kabbalah Unveiled is a translation by MacGregor Mathers of a number of books in the Zohar, key works of Jewish mysticism. It deals at length with the nature and attributes of the Supreme Being, known variously as Macroprosopus, the Vast Countenance, the Ancient One or Kether. Of particular significance is the beard, divided into thirteen parts, from which there is a continuous stream of divine light (represented by oil) onto Microprosopus below. By gematria, thirteen signifies unity. The Supreme Being is androgynous but the recipient of the divine light, Microprosopus, is separated into male and female components.
Although The Kabbalah Unveiled does not specify how the Divine Light travels through the Sephiroth, simply stating that it ‘pours forth’ or ‘flows down’, Colquhoun imagines it as entering a female body. This may be a visualisation of the female component of Microprosopus or of Malkuth, the tenth sephira, sometimes known as the Queen or Bride. Colquhoun shows the ‘precious balm of spendour’ entering the body through various apertures, including: nostrils, mouth, nipples and genitals. It is likely that she is here making a reference to the ideas of Madam Blavatsky, who, in The Secret Doctrine, claimed relationships and correspondences between the ten openings or ‘gates’ of the body. Querying her number, in 1970, Colquhoun contributed an article to Quest magazine in which she posited twelve openings in the male body – which could be related to the zodiacal signs –and thirteen openings in the female body. The latter could be adapted to receive the spiritual influence streaming down from the thirteen strands of the beard of Macroprosopus. In her article, Colquhoun suggested that the larger number of openings in the female body may indicate it to be a more highly evolved and specialised structure than that of the male.
The colouring of the figure, with different limbs painted in different colours, derives from the theory of correspondences, a corner stone of mystical and occult thinking. The scheme that Colquhoun has adopted here is that of the King Scale of Colour. So, for example, Chokmah is the sephira that corresponds to the left side of the head and face. It stands for wisdom and, in the King Scale, it is blue. Binah, the right side of the face, is crimson.
References
Blavatsky, H. The Secret Doctrine. Theosophical University Press, Pasadena California, 1988.
Colquhoun, I. The Openings of the Body. Quest, No. 4, December 1970, pp 26-27.
Mathers, S.L. MacGregor. The Kabbalah Unveiled. Arkana Books, London, 1991. First published 1887.