Feminine Power & Stonehenge Exhibition at the British Museum

Back in June I went to two exhibitions at the British Museum that aligned so well with the themes I had been exploring that it felt like a real gift of inspiration. One was Feminine power: The Divine to the Demonic and the other was The World of Stonehenge. The work I saw there has become two major sources of research and inspiration for me.

The Feminine Power exhibition asks: How do different traditions view femininity? How has female authority been perceived in ancient cultures? For insights, this exhibition looks to divine and demonic figures feared and revered for over 5,000 years. From wisdom, passion and desire, to war, justice and mercy, this exhibition shows how the diverse expression of female spiritual powers around the world prompts us to reflect on how we perceive femininity and gender identity today.

My particular interest in seeing the exhibition was because I was looking at the witches in Macbeth and imagining them from a different perspective: one of restorers of justice rather than forces of evil. I was pondering how these women, and other women in historic fiction are portrayed by male writers and the problems this poses in terms of female experience being understood. Shakespeare is a particularly interesting writer to consider within this context. Furthermore, I had been considering how women themselves have written about their own experience throughout history, particularly in the 19th century. Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre is an example of how women express their sense of enclosure in feminine roles in a patriarchal society, and their desire to flee.

Some notes and drawings I made at the exhibition.

There’s also an article specifically on the Pagan and Witch references in the exhibition which were of particular interest to me. https://www.britishmuseum.org/blog/pagan-perspective-feminine-power-divine-demonic

I was particularly struck by the words of Lucya Starza, community partner and consultant for Feminine power: “I am a pagan writer and eclectic witch with a background in Gardnerian Wicca as well as family traditions of folk magic. I have many years’ experience of practicing, writing about and teaching those topics. Ithell Colquhoun's painting, Dance of the Nine Maidens, resonates with the feelings I get when I visit stone circles on the Cornish and Devonshire moors. I believe the picture shows a woman merging with a megalith, although some people see it more as a woman draping herself over the rock. The stones seem to tingle when you touch them and the land seems to hum with magical potential that a visionary artist – or a witch – taps into. In legends, several of the stones are said to be women or girls who were turned to stone as punishment for dancing on a Sunday. Colquhoun certainly saw ancient megalithic sites as conduits for divine feminine energy, which is one way of interpreting this work. Although the stone circles predate Christianity and are not actually petrified people, there’s still potency in myth and legend.

Ithell Colquhoun (1906–1988), Dance of the Nine Maidens. 1940, © Tate.

Looking at the painting in the Feminine power exhibition, I see the image of a pregnant woman caught in the act of dancing. She's holding hands with other figures already within the stone. I feel as though the dance goes on and is eternal. Patriarchy might force women’s power underground but it can never really contain it. The faint outlines of figures behind the main woman in the picture seem to be to have become immortal spirits, inviting others to join them and dance. The artist believed stone circles were places where subterranean energy could be tapped into, and that’s something I can relate to as a modern pagan and witch.

Prior to reading this and seeing the painting above, I had begun to consider the idea of women merging into stone, and the idea of movement of circles, strength in holding together and feminine connection. I had begun drawing semi abstract figures as if half human half stone, and with light pencil lines pensively drawn around the forms as if to indicate something within or beyond them – a feeling of energy.

Seeing these ideas in Colquhoun’s work gave me a real sense of connection with her, and the ideas that resonate with her work- that in turn are noted and celebrated by audiences today.

As I go forward with these ideas, I want to explore line and form more closely, and how the figure can be drawn in a way that expresses a feeling of strength that I want to convey. I can see how this could lend itself to female characters from works of fiction other than Macbeth’s witches:

Jane Eyre

Circe

Galatea

Maggie Tulliver, The Mill on the Floss

Medusa

Hekate, Goddess of witchcraft

Images from The World of Stonehenge: