(Eighteenth century sandstone marker from the Ancient Burying Ground, Wethersfield, Connecticut)
I recently had a conversation with a twenty something painter I know who seems rather enamored of the idea of revisionist history. I was attempting to explain that my interest in historical gravestone carving is centered around what I perceive to be a common human need to create visual works of art which grapple with the subject of mortality and death. He was pretty much interested in beating up on dead white guys and dismissing colonial gravestones as New England kitsch.
.......so, since I am neither protestant nor of English decent, but am profoundly moved by what I see as the universal symbolism and imagery found on seventeenth and eighteenth century carved markers, I thought I'd play a little devil's advocate this week.
Obviously the colonial era gravestones in question were created by white protestants (mostly English, some Dutch) and, even more specifically, the vast majority of New England stones were created by the now demonized Puritans. Certainly the earliest slate markers in the Massachusetts Bay Colony - familial coats of arms, memento mori tableau - were based on European references, but as colonization progressed the craft developed a vocabulary of it's own, centering around the humanoid "soul effigy". Soul effigies range from crude and primitive to complex and flamboyant. They were often carved by unsophisticated rural artisans living in a frontier environment......and not everyone living in the colonies was white. Of course, the people who carved the stones were white and the few extant monuments to slaves, servants or other African Americans from the period appear to have been created by the same carvers who created the stones for the members of the white community. I have come across some theoretical references to the possibility of African American apprentices in stone carving shops, but no specific proof. I have also read theories regarding the possibility of Native American influences on designs (Harriett Marrifield Forbes in her 1927 book Gravestones of Early New England and the Men Who Made Them), but again, unless I have missed some new emerging data (entirely possible, so please correct me if I'm wrong), there is no proof of this either - only speculation based on stylistic motifs.
(Three more effigies: Brooklyn, CT 1788, Rowley, MA 1705 and Ipswhich, MA)
I am not a theorist. Some early American stone carvings absolutely resemble African masks. Some soul effigies appear to be wearing feathered head dresses (likely stylized variations on wings). Still others seem to refer back to Celtic or Roman era (a subject for another time) faces. Any or all of these influences are possible. Equally possible is the idea that icons are icons and that variations on the human face transcend culture and time.
Today I'm offering a few examples for you to consider.......
(Border designs: Simsbury, CT and Haverhill, MA)
Some examples of more elaborate, but not traditionally "western" effigy variations, all from central Connecticut.
Some "primitive masks" from Haverhill, Harvard and Lexington, MA.
...and Paganism manifests itself in the form of an earth goddess with vegetation sprouting form her head....a preview of my next entry!
