This interpretation is a partial verbal description of the complex narrative contained within its more comprehensive imaginal dreamscape.
March / Vernal Equinox / Lent / Pisces the Fish
Spring begins in "March" on the Vernal Equinox, in this artist's "Months of the Year" series. Smarkusz's winter theme as a mystical dreamlike season, abruptly shifts with a calling to awaken into full consciousness, by the 'heralds of spring' loudly sounding their horns. The monthly depictions that follow March, then grow and blossom into fully conscious expressions of human activity, as spring and summer unfold. But now, on the first day of spring as seen in "March" above, a mystical conversion is taking place.
"And He shall send His angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together His elect from the four winds, from one end of Heaven to the other" - Matthew 24:31
Historically, the name of March comes from the Latin Martius, the first month of the earliest Roman calendar. It was named for Mars, the Roman god of war and the guardian of agriculture. Martius was the beginning of the season for both farming and warfare. It is a time of seasonal awakening and a call to service - naturally, socially, and spiritually.
Viewed naturally, "March" is the personification of the heralds of spring calling the couple to rise and shine to work the land - for nature and humanity to shake off the slumber of winter and "spring" into action. There is also an element of sexuality suggested by the two large fish in the young couple's lap - perhaps referring to fertility, and the other activity of nature in springtime - procreation.
Socially, the trumpeters in "March" may represent the military call of reveille (a signal sounded by bugle to rally personnel in the armed forces), and Smarkusz being "called up" for duty to march off to boot camp, in the spring of 1941. Or more generally, of being called away from his personal life and loves, to serve God and country - a higher calling from the powers that be. Vincent was not drafted, but joined (on his 22nd birthday of Feb. 18, 1941) with passion and idealism we have learned, as a reaction to the Nazi assault and occupation of his parent's motherland of Poland, 18 months earlier in late 1939.
And spiritually, the trumpeters are signaling to God's children a "call to conversion" of the spirit - through Lent....
The traditional Catholic purpose of Lent is the preparation of the believer through prayer, penance, and repentance of sins, almsgiving, atonement and self-denial. Fasting is practiced in commemoration of the forty days Jesus fasted in the Wilderness, and endured The Temptation by Satan. Red meat may not be eaten in honor of this, and to symbolize transcending the death of carnal flesh - represented by the fleshless bones of a steer and human being, having been picked clean by a vulture in the lower left of the painting. Fish may be eaten instead, as it symbolizes the body of Christ, being delivered to man as spiritual food in transcendence of the flesh - represented by the eaglelike spirit descending between angels in the painting.
These "angels" are grotesquely human in appearance and have no wings, although they do seem to float or descend. They are personafied as an older man and woman, perhaps representing parental super-ego archetypes and the idea of conscience, as the young lovers below them are rudely interrupted.
Side Note: Smarkusz first celebrated and fell in love with the jubilant party days of Carnavál, when he painted in Mexico - otherwise known as Mardi Gras in the United States. "Carn-aval" means "without meat", and so a grand party takes place as the last indulgence before the fasting days of Lent begin. The celebration of overindulgence ends on the Tuesday before Ash Wednesday - known as Fat Tuesday (Mardi Gras in French). Make no mistake, the artist was deeply reverent about the mystical sacred in his art, but he was also a down to earth party animal at heart, despite the serious call to duty away from carnal desires, as seen in "March".
Lent begins on Ash Wednesday in late Februrary to early March (shortly after Vincent's birthday), with the reminder of "dust thou art" - also represented by the bones and vulture. The eating of fish instead of red meat continues through March, and ends with the resurrection of Christ on Easter Sunday in the following month.
"Then the dust (ash) will return to the earth as it was, and the spirit will return to God who gave it." - Ecclesiastes 12:7
"March" depicts an urgent calling for the earthbound couple to awaken from their carnal slumber in order to escape mortality through everlasting life. But the body must perish, as signified with the bones associated with the woman - she is symbolically associated with the earth in this image, and ponders the body's return to dust. She alone gives life through birth and is therefore most intimately aware of what is at stake - the loss of our connection to an earthly existence. She must choose and so must he. Both are being urged to heed the call to conversion in preparation for the Rapture, when the resurrected Christ will return to earth to lift all of the faithful up with him to Heaven, as they leave their bodies behind. The artist enjoyed incorporating ideas of the mystically transcendent in his art, with the use of mythology and symbolism.
The eaglelike raptor with a fish represents both rapture by the spirit (taken away to heaven) and the delivery of spiritual food (delivered from heaven) - it symbolizes the interpenetrating bi-directional relationship of heaven and earth, between the Creator and humankind. The illustration below demonstrates the artist's use of geometric composition to symbolize the idea of such an interpenetrating duality between spirit and flesh.
The fish has other theological overtones as well, for "Christ fed the 5,000 with 2 fishes and 5 loaves" and called his disciples "fishers of men." Water baptism, practiced by immersion in the early church, created a parallel between fish and converts - "we, little fishes, after the image of Jesus Christ, are born in the water of spiritual baptism".
The "Great Month of Pisces" is regarded as the beginning of the Christian religion. Saint Peter is recognized as the apostle of the Piscean sign and is called by God to turn away from earthly desires (including women) to marry the Church. The Apostle Peter became the first bishop of Rome, and the Roman Catholic Church names Peter as the first Pope upon whom God had chosen to build His church. Therefore, "March" may also be interpreted as Peter's calling to serve the Church: “And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.” – Mathew 16:18
Smarkusz also includes the Zodiac in his "Months of the Year" series of Magic-realism paintings. In "March", the symbol for Pisces, a water sign, is two fish swimming in opposite directions but linked together by a cord that keeps them connected throughout the cycles of life. Bound by this silver cord, the fish swim between Spirit and Matter. Pisces is a sign of the duality in which the perfect manifestation of God and humanity is demonstrated.
The two large fishes in this scene also represent the sexual union of male and female, in the procreation of human kind - note how the fishes are associated with the genitals of the couple laying prostrate on the Earth. This association is another Smarkusz reference which unites the ancient myths of life's origin through Gods and Goddesses of the sea, with the modern understanding of sexual biology and the evolution of life from the ocean. The associated imagery also refers to the paradoxical connections of birth to death, and of sexuality to spirituality.
Smarkusz was a New Age conceptual artist seeking to unify the various notions of natural, social, and mythical perspectives. Only through the depth and breadth of his dreamscapes could so much (as is attempted here) and more, be expressed in a single image.
The diagram below demonstrates Smarkusz's use of composition to symbolically represent the interpenetrating natures of spirit and flesh. The raptor with a fish represents both rapture by the spirit (taken away to heaven) and the delivery of spiritual food (delivered from heaven) - an interpenetrating bi-directional relationship between Heaven and Earth, God and humanity, spirit and flesh, life and death.
BACK to The Mancent Collection gallery