WashU Medicine showcases art exhibits on a rotating quarterly schedule. On display in the Farrell Learning and Teaching Center 2nd floor Hearth, artwork in these rotating shows are medical or scientific by nature, St. Louis themed or produced by a member of the Washington University community.
2-D Exhibit
Rebecca Willhoft
The relationship between a mythological figure and a comic book character lies in the idea of an archetype. There are at least two ways to define archetypes, in terms of psychology and literature. Both are valid in their own fields and there is a great deal of crossover.
The Swiss psychologist Carl Jung wrote, “Archetypes are primordial images that reflect basic patterns that are common to all and which have existed universally since the dawn of time.”
Another useful way to look at this is through the lens of the literary archetype as defined by Northrop Frye: “a symbol, usually an image, which recurs often enough in literature to be recognizable as an element of one’s literary experience as a whole.”
For my purpose, I find these archetypal images in the works of Old Masters and comic books to combine them into one image. For example:
Titian’s Prometheus
Batman
John Singer Sargent’s Madam X
Wonder Woman
Anonymous Wall Painting of the god Horus
Hawkman
Anonymous Stone Carvings Shiva Maheshvara
Green Lantern
Leonardo daVinci’s Anatomical and Machine Drawings
Cyborg
I have just touched lightly on what is potentially an endless list. Popular culture continuously
mines archetypal stories and characters to fill our current fictions and inform our future science. Finding these unlikely matches involves assimilating and combining images and ideas from different areas in art history, cultural traditions, beliefs, and practices, giving them new meaning. The gods, kings, and heroes of our collective history are remade into ordinary people with extraordinary abilities, often through technological invention.
For more information, please contact: Rebecca Willhoft