Note 454 — Chapter V · SYMBOLISM OF THE MOTHER AND OF REBIRTH

Muther (“Geschichte der Malerei,” Vol. II) says in the chapter: “The First Spanish Classic”: “Tieck once wrote: Sexuality is the great mystery of our being. Sensuality is the first moving wheel in our machinery. It stirs our being and makes it joyous and living. Everything we dream of as beautiful and noble is included here. Sexuality and sensuousness are the spirit of music, of painting and of all art. All wishes of mankind rotate around this center like moths around a burning light. The sense of beauty and the feeling for art are only other expressions of it. They signify nothing more than the impulse of mankind towards expression. I consider devoutness itself as a diverted channel of the sexual desire.” Here it is openly declared that one should never forget when judging the ancient ecclesiastic art that the effort to efface the boundaries between earthly and divine love, to blend them into each other imperceptibly, has always been the guiding thought, the strongest factor in the propaganda of the Catholic church.