FAMILY AND MATERNITY PERCEIVED AND PICTURED BY A MIGRANT ARTIST: PAINTINGS OF CONSTANTINE ANDREOU

Abstract

Introduction: Representations of Maternity in ArtThe r epr esentation of mat er nity in visual arts has an intertempora l and ecumenical character, and since prehistoric times to this day there has been an immense variety a nd innumerable versions ther eof (Betterton, 2006). Maternity's ecumenical dimension (Simonton, 2011) is marked by the fact that it is related to unchanging, or very slowly changing, elements, which allow us to consider them as stable, due to the relatively stable subjective human situation in terms of anatomy and biology, whereas it is always experienced in specific changing and varying conditions, clad with the corresponding ideology. Due to the position she de facto holds, for better or for worse, in the family with regard to giving birth to and raising the children, the mother is a carrier of ideology, given that she reproduces within the family nucleus the values of the social system (Castilla del Pino, 1973).Furthermore, representation of the mother in art is related to its psychological meaning as well as to the artist's social determinations (Jennings & Minde, 1996), which affect not only the material and the style, but also the ideological patterns used by him/her. Various psychoanalytic approaches of artwork attempting to int erpret the artist's unconscious - in particular in works of Futurist, avant-garde and also conceptual as well as feminist artists (Heath, 2013; Meskimmon, 2007) - have asserted the relevance of aesthetic experience and creation with the relationship to the mother, which has been established not only as the archetype of relationships with people, but also as the archetype of the first aesthetic experience (Chernick & Klein, 2011). It has been argued that the idiom, the particular manner in which a mother takes car e of the baby a nd t he experience of such handling by the child, constitutes the first human aesthetic which, when further extended, looks like the early sense of unity with the mother (Spitz, 1985). Besides, all the more recent correlations between psychoanalytical data and art are based on the explicit or implicit assumption of the ability of adults to retrogress - while remaining adults - to the mental situation of the first experiences, which are reactivated and re-experienced as such throughout the course of an individual's life, so as to operate in a layered model of mental significance (Kristeva, 1995), directly linked to the so-called visual mechanism through which, even when the r epr esentat ion of the ima ge cha nges, the representation of the feeling cladding it r emains unaltered. Thus, the deferred experience helps understand the artwork.Julia Kristeva, pioneer semiologist and psychoanalyst, reduces the entire artistic creation to the relationship with the mother, which she qualifies as the semiotic chora, coming into action in every artwork, even where the latter does not depict maternity. Irrespective of the form of the final product, the mother's body is what is preserved and restored (Fuller, 1988). Nevertheless, researchers who themselves refer to psychology in order to interpret artwork, readily admit that, no matter how detailed such an interpretation may be, it remains incomplete if it does not also take into account other cultural factors (Spitz, 1985), which, according to Yung's followers, include the group, the ra ce, the peopl e, t he historical context, the a ctua l cir cumsta nces, et c. (Newma n, 1974a). Following an analysis of maternity, Chodorow (1978) states that traits identified in the mother/child relationship are potentially present in the personality of the mothers taking care of the children and are expected in the children due to the care they receive from their mothers, but their manifestation depends on the specific organization of the family and the institution of maternity in every society.Depictions of the mother in art usually revolve around two main axes, a lthough this does cer t a inly not mean that ther e exist clear boundar ies between them. …