GARDEN OF ADONIS, 1945
Oil on board. 7¾ x 9½in. (20 x 24.7cm.)
Inscribed on the reverse with the artist’s name, the title, 1945 and with the Paul label.
Provenance
National Trust bequest.
Exhibited
London, Leger Galleries, 1947, no. 21.
Cambridge, Heffer Gallery, 1953, no. 3.
Newlyn, Newlyn Art Gallery, 1961, No. 39, as In the Garden of Adonis.
In mythology, Adonis, who was slain by a boar, was rescued from the underworld by the prayers of Aphrodite and allowed to spend six months with her each year in a beautiful place, the Garden of Adonis. The remaining six months, he dwelt in the Underworld with Persephone. Cupid, his love Psyche and their daughter Pleasure also dwelt in the Garden.
Throughout literature, gardens are powerful symbols of female sexuality and of perfection. The Garden of Adonis is a place where people are rejuvenated and become young again; entering as old, and leaving as babies. The cycle of regeneration is continually repeated, so the Garden becomes a Platonic allegory: a place where changeless substance borrows temporary physical form during the cycle of life, decay and regeneration,.
Frazer, in The Golden Bough, describes Adonis ceremonies from many parts of the globe. These typically involve sowing crops in pots. Although they grow rapidly they then die from want of adequate root systems. These ‘gardens of Adonis’ are then sacrificed by being thrown into the sea or springs together with images of the dead Adonis. Frazer interprets this as sympathetic magic – mimicking the growth of crops and the fertilising rain.
The idea of rejuvenation is also found in The Woman of Beare (1950).
Reference
Frazer, Sir J.G. The Golden Bough. Macmillan and Co. London. Abridged edition 1922.