Creative Footprint

Comic Books, Facebook, Lady Gaga and Sarah Palin

"Creative Footprint" encompasses, explores and examines the ways in which we and other creatures leave marks on culture and community. Created by Marc Dennis, artist, professor, Holocaust researcher, and bug chef. 

There’s a comic book about Hillary Clinton. There are also comic books about Michelle Obama, Caroline Kennedy, Condoleeza Rice and yep you guessed it Sarah Palin. 

                   

It's from a series called "Female Force" produced by a company called Bluewater Productions, known for their rather interesting and unique comic books and graphic novels.

                       

In their mission statement they say their intentions are to “bring a diverse library of titles and talent to the table. With stories that range from classic myths, science fiction and superheroes to Hollywood legends.”

Bluewater, according to their objective as an industry subculture, is a “fresh voice in comic publishing.” I’ll say. 

They created a comic book about Lady Gaga. Fresh enough? She's perfect comic book material.

The Princess of Freak Pop. The imaginary love child of Madonna and Marilyn Manson.  She's a master for attracting attention.

Her music videos are all about comic book sensibilities. And even if you don't like her music, you have to admit she's awesome in one way or another. 

She's like a fantasy character -- right out of a super hero freak mold. 

And speaking of individuals seeking attention, It makes perfect sense there are comic books about politicians. 

There are a lot of comic book type characters in real life it seems. And why not? We all want attention. 

Oscar Wilde, with some semblance of truth, once said, "Life imitates Art far more than Art imitates Life." 

I often think about how and why comics were such an integral part of my life as a kid. I learned to draw from looking at comic books. I loved Sgt Rock. Joe Kubert could draw like no one's business. 

I learned about storytelling. I learned how to keep a viewer’s attention on the page. Though I wasn’t actually aware, as a budding young artist I was also learning about form, shape and color. 

I'm still affected by my fond memories of laying in bed at night reading comic books. The colors were always vibrant and striking. No wonder i admire Pop Art. 

And no wonder I'm still blown away by Arthur Danto's profoundly philosophical statement (from Transfiguration of the Commonplace): 

""The issue is not what in reality marks the difference between motif and representation, but how they strike the eye and seduce the mind."

One of the best exhibitions I’ve ever seen was curated by the late Kirk Varnedoe of the Museum of Modern Art and Adam Gopnik. It debuted at MoMA NYC.

Despite some funky reviews, namely by the NYT's Roberta Smith, it was a wonderfully entertaining and aesthetically insightful exhibition called "High and Low: Modern Art and Popular Culture." 

 

BLAM, Roy Lichtenstein, 1962, Oil on canvas, 68 x 80 inches, Yale University Art Gallery New Haven, Connecticut

It was an incredible show where high art, such as paintings made by Roy Lichtenstein (above) hung side by side with comic book pages made by the likes of the great comic book artist Russ Heath (below). 

That show bridged the gap between high brow and low brow. It was actually the uni-brow show of the century. I respect the idea of uni-brow in art. 

 

Art is about connecting opposing sides, bridging gaps, dropping seeds, echoing metaphor, reminding us to forget what we've come to know and expect and bringing us to see and feel in new and fresh ways. 

Comic books on some level, depending on one's age and sensibilities, do the same thing. For most of us we experience the "uni-brow" phenomenon on the Web. 

We are all kind of immersed in it. We embrace the uni-brow way of life, with information about the world at our fingertips from the "low" to the "high."

We want the two sides connected all the time. We want our private lives intertwined with the public.

On an hourly basis we take from a zillion aspects of life - from art, politics, comics, marketplaces, pop culture, news, random information (like this blog), etc and make casual to intense attempts at making sense of our lives. 

In addition to our private lives, we are constantly trying to make sense of the larger world - the planet we inhabit. 

Through it all we seek and find new ways of fitting into the grand scheme of things - into the larger more global stage, in a definitively more public way. We want to leave a mark somehow, somewhere.

We all want attention. We want the world to reverberate with our private orbits. Sometimes we get our fix from art, sometimes from pop culture, sometimes from news and politics. 

Sometimes we get all the information and fixes we need - slammed together in one crazed filled day of checking in with - yep you guessed it - Facebook. 

Facebook, the new almighty. Most of us love checking in with FB's home page - seeing what information our friends and friends of friends and their friends of friends and hundreds of strangers have posted. 

On Facebook we are connected. We are in a kind of fantasy comic book world. Comments, links, turning strangers into new friends, establishing fresher connections, being voyeuristic, etc is all a form of attention and I might add, entertainment. 

Art, comic books, pop culture and for what it's worth politics are all forms of paying attention and turning the attention towards ourselves and throughout it all being entertained during the process. 

 

It enables and encourages us to make sense of the world and our place in it. It makes us feel good and important. It also may inspire us. Undoubtedly one of the most important and vital aspects of being alive is to be inspired. 

In the coming weeks I'll be seeing some art exhibitions, visiting some museums, spending quality time with my family, working on some new paintings, watching sports, listening to NPR, checking in with Facebook (yes sometimes on an hourly basis), and oh yeah, definitely picking myself up a copy of the new Lady Gaga comic. 

Marc Dennis can be reached here.

Creative Footprint: Leonardo's Last Supper

"Creative Footprint" encompasses, explores and examines the ways in which we and other creatures leave marks on culture and community. Created by Marc Dennis, artist, professor, Holocaust researcher, and bug chef.

Did you hear the one about what Jesus said to his disciples at the Last Supper? 

He said, “Hey guys, if you want to be in the picture you’re all gonna need to get on this side of the table.”

Get it? Well, I guess that kinda depends on whether or not you’re familiar with depictions of the Last Supper, particularly and what might arguably be the most popular painting of the Last Supper in the world. 

The painting I'm referring to is a massive fresco measuring 15 by 29 feet in the refectory (dining hall) of the convent of Santa Maria delle Grazie in Milan, Italy, painted by none other than Leonardo da Vinci, commissioned in 1495 by Ludovico Sforza, Duke of Milan and completed in 1498.

Leonardo da Vinci, The Last Supper, Santa Maria delle Grazie in Milan, Italy

Many artists throughout history have painted their interpretations of the theme of the Last Supper, but it is Leonardo da Vinci’s painting that one is referring to when making the joke about Jesus telling his guests to get on the same side of the table. 

Not only is his by far the most popular depiction of the event but all the dinner guests in his painting are indeed sitting on the same side of the table. There are no firsthand accounts of the Last Supper. We really have no idea where Jesus and his disciples sat or for that matter what they ate. 

Instead, varying stories of the event were handed down and recorded two or more decades afterward in books eventually collected into the New Testament (Matthew 26:17–30, Mark 14:12–25, Luke 22:7–38, John 13–17, and 1 Corinthinans 11:23–29).

Chronicled in all four Gospels and Corinthians, despite the differences in the varying interpretations, all texts describe the Last Supper as the final meal Jesus shared with his Twelve Apostles before his death – the evening before he was to be betrayed by one of them.

And described in the synoptic gospels as a Passover Seder in which Jesus informed his disciples as to how to eat and drink for all future meals, in remembrance of him, thusly making the Last Supper representative of the most important event in the Christian doctrine of salvation, the institution of the Eucharist.¹

In pictorial representation The Last Supper seemed particularly suitable for the decoration of the great conventual refectories, especially in Florence, with its ideal theme of meditation and prayer offered to the monastic community united for the purpose of eating. 

The Last Supper as a painting however is not meant to depict layers of interpretive texts, but rather is specifically intended to portray only one thing about the event - the reaction given by each apostle at the exact moment when Jesus said one of them would betray him. That’s it, that’s The Last Supper’s moment in pictures -- to depict believable basic human emotion in the faces of the disciples. 

So why did da Vinci choose to place all the sitters on one side of the table? And why opposite the viewer? What was his inspiration? The question here is perhaps what did other artists who came before da Vinci do when they painted images of The Last Supper?

 

The Agape, 5th - 6th cent, Catacombe di Priscilla, Rome, italy

Dating back to the end of the 5th and the beginning of the 6th century C.E., depictions of an agape, also known as a “love feast,” in the Greek chapel of the Catacombe di Priscilla in Rome (see image above) is referred to by historians as one of the earliest depictions of the Last Supper. It clearly shows all dinner attendees seated on the same side of the table.²

It is plausible that due to the nature of Leonardo’s methods of investigation and inquiry, he may have received word or seen sketches of the actual catacomb paintings. However whether Leonardo was influenced by the catacomb images remains speculation. 

Upon further investigation art history dictates that famous painters before Leonardo’s time who also painted images of the Last Supper chose to place all dinner participants on not just both sides of the table but all sides of the dinner table as well including all on the same side. Interesting. Let's have a look.

Duccio, 1308-11, The Last Supper, tempera on panel, 19 ½ by 21 inches, Museo dell'Opera del Duomo, Siena, Italy

A difficult problem for all painters when composing a dinner scene is the grouping of the figures. Duccio di Buoninsegna was commissioned to paint The Last Supper for the Duomo in Siena, Italy. He chose a reasonably credible one, whereas everyone is seated around the table. 

A drawback of this grouping though is that the faces of some of the followers are only visible in profile. And I might add they are rather emotionless in their expression, something that will evolve over time. Keep Leonardo in mind on this point. 

In Duccio’s painting we are also confronted with three different angles of perspective, the positions of the sitters, the ceiling and the tabletop. It may seem extreme but it is a definitive precursor to perfecting one point perspective in Renaissance art. 

An interesting original device in Duccio’s painting, which became iconic in all future images of the Last Supper theme, is the figure of John reclining on Jesus’ side, as referenced in John 13:23, which was later adopted by many painters including a student of Duccio’s named Giotto di Bondone, Taddeo Gaddi, and Domenico Ghirlandaio, Michelangelo’s teacher. 

 

Giotto di Bondone, The Last Supper, (1320-25), Tempera on wood, 17 by 17 ½ inches, Alte Pinakothek, Munich, Germany

Giotto di Bondone, better known simply as Giotto, advanced the understanding of naturalism in all of Renaissance painting. In his first version of The Last Supper (the other is part of the series of frescoes in the Scrovegni Chapel in Padua, Itlay), he not only applied a more naturalistic approach to the rendering of the robes and positions of the sitters, but also investigated and applied the rules of perspective to the tabletop and the ceiling in a new way. 

And though they differ in terms of their vanishing points, in its entirety it offers a more realistic understanding of perceived space on a flat surface. Consequently looking at paintings became more believable. 

Oddly though his attempts are to create more believable space, in this painting likely due to the fact that it’s a square format, Giotto chose to place the sitters around the entire table, so as none of them would be cut off, not only giving the viewer some of their backs to look at, but they appear somewhat jammed. 

Their overly large halos adding to the effect by crowding them in even more, obstructing our view of some of their faces and therefore their emotions. Space was indeed perceived as real but it seems at the cost of human emotion potentially displayed in his figures. Keep this in mind too as we approach Leonardo's painting.

Taddeo Gaddi, 1340, interior of the Cenacolo di Santa Croce in Florence, Italy,

About twenty years after Giotto, his assistant, Taddeo Gaddi presented his version of the Last Supper in a rather dramatic and entirely new dinner table display. Look at the elongated lowest panel in the photo of the chapel wall above. 

Gaddi was commissioned to paint the Last Supper in 1340, inside the Cenacolo di Santa Croce in Florence, Italy, and due to the chapel’s architecture and based on the fact it was commissioned to exist as part of a cycle of the life of Jesus, Gaddi was limited and at the same time challenged to some degree as to how to present the design of each event. 

Taddeo Gaddi, 1340, The Last Supper, Cenacolo di Santa Croce in Florence, Italy,

He chose to place the Last Supper at the bottom, as you can see in the photo of the interior of the chapel above, because not only was it a low point so to speak in Jesus’ life, but it serves well as a long panel mimicking a dinner table. 

This elongated composition, the first one of its kind in Renaissance art for the Last Supper, affords Jesus not only a spot at the center of the table as in previous attempts but allows all others present, with the exclusion of Judas to sit on the same side of the table as Jesus. 

In this sense Judas is set apart, easily identified wearing black and to add to his lack of integrity, diminished in stature. The convention of seating the diners on one side of the table, so that none of them have their backs to us will set the precedent for future Last Suppers as we shall see.

 

Andrea del Castagno, 1450, Last Supper, Cenacolo di Santa Apollonia, Florence, Italy

During the 15th century, with invention of true perspective, the Last Supper began to be represented independently on an entire wall. In 1450, the tradition of the elongated table top composition continued with Andrea del Castagno’s Last Supper in Cenacolo di Santa Apollonia in Florence, Italy. Again all disciples with the exception of Judas, distinguished once again by darker colors, are seated on the same side of the table. Just a reminder, keep thinking of Leonardo.

Domenico Ghirlandaio, 1480, The Last Supper, Franciscan Church Cenacolo di Ognissanti, Florence, Italy 

Domenico Ghirlandaio who in 1480 painted a very large fresco of The Last Supper in the refectory of the Franciscan Church Cenacolo di Ognissanti in Florence, Italy also employed an elongated composition including the dinner attendees being seated behind a long table opposite the traitor Judas, who once again sits alone. Ghirlandaio uses the existing shape of the room to create extra space. 

The view in the background, the painting of the ceiling in the fresco and the shape of the table all create depth in the flat surface of the wall. The viewer is given the illusion that he looks up towards the painted ceiling. In combination with the optical device of creating views onto the background, the illusion shifts the vanishing point even farther back. 

And then came Leonardo da Vinci's version of The Last Supper.

Leonardo da Vinci, The Last Supper, Santa Maria delle Grazie in Milan, Italy

Historians agree he was familiar with Domenico Ghirlandaio’s work when he painted his version of the Last Supper, more than ten years later. However Leonardo effected a breakthrough with his Last Supper by not only reverting back to the days of Duccio in terms of including Judas fully in the group, but he introduced an entirely new aspect of rendering all of the figures engaged in lively interaction. 

Look at their gestures, outstretched arms, pointing fingers, and obvious expressions. In most other Last Suppers Jesus and the disciples were depicted sitting straight and relatively motionless at the table. Leonardo created a fresh sense of reality in his painting by showing various degrees of anger and shock in the faces of the disciples, upset and agitated by Jesus’ words. 

Leonardo da Vinci, 1495, sketches in sepia ink on paper, for The Last Supper

In other words Leonardo embraced the notions of basic human emotion in his dinner guests. This fundamental concept aside from utilizing successful perspective techniques engaged viewers like never before. By placing all the dinner guests including Judas on the same side of the table da Vinci turned the viewer into an active participant affording them a place at the scene to witness the event without obstructing their view of any disciple's emotion. 

Another technique commonly used was placing halos around all the disciples except Judas. Leonardo however in order to enhance the human emotive content creates a more dramatic and realistic effect by having Judas simply lean back into shadow instead of giving him a halo. 

 "When evening came, he sat down with his twelve disciples, and, while they were at table he said: Believe me, one of you is to betray me. They were full of sorrow, and began to say, one after another, Lord, is it I? He answered, The man who has put his hand into the dish with me will betray me. 

The Son of Man goes on his way, as the scripture foretells of him; but woe upon that man by whom the Son of Man is to be betrayed; better for that man if he had never been born." Matthew, XXVI, 21-24

As with many events in the life of Jesus, what actually happened historically at the Last Supper is not easy to discern. The synoptic gospels, supplemented with other details from the Gospel of John, paint a picture, which has passed vividly into the collective memory of the Christian world. 

However, with the advent of biblical criticism in the nineteenth century, many of the details are now questioned. Different Christian communities were not in agreement over such details as what day of the week the meal was held on, whether it was as a Passover Seder or not, and whether Jesus instituted the Eucharist at this time or much earlier in his ministry. 

With that said, it is clear that in any written format, Gospel, Corinthian or otherwise, the Last Supper is certainly a lot to digest and debate, but regardless of what you believe in visually it remains an absolute feast for the eyes.

Image above on left: Leonardo da Vinci, Self-portrait in red chalk circa 1512 to 1515, Royal Library of Turin 

¹ Eichhorn, Albert, and Gressmann, Hugo, The Lord's Supper in the New Testament, (History of Biblical studies, no. 1.) Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2007.

² Ludwig H. Heydenreich, Leonardo: The Last Supper (New York: The Viking Press, 1974), 32.

Marc Dennis can be emailed here.

 

Creative Footprint: Glow in the Dark Scorpions

"Creative Footprint" encompasses, explores and examines the ways in which we and other creatures leave marks on culture and community. Created by Marc Dennis, artist, professor, Holocaust researcher, and bug chef.

It's that time of year when and where we are inundated with glow in the dark pumpkins, spiders, skulls, bats, and witches. From toys to posters to t-shirts to sneakers, items that glow in the dark have instant popularity among the young and old alike. The attention-grabbing effect is caused by a simple chemical reaction referred to as photoluminescence.

The most common way of making an object glow in the dark is by incorporating a phosphor, a chemical that gives off visible light. When a phosphor is exposed to light, the light energy excites the electrons. 

As electrons absorb and then lose this energy, they too release it as light. Phosphors are found inside television screens, fluorescent light bulbs and computer monitors.

The other night I was taking a walk with my friend Jason Hamilton, you might remember him – I included him in my June post about the inherent design traits of the caddisfly. He’s my biologist friend. 

Anyway he and I were out walking in the crisp Ithaca air and we got to talking about scorpions amongst other things. He said he had a collection of arachnids, mainly scorpions and tarantulas in his lab at Ithaca College.

At about the same time we were talking about scorpions, we walked past a glowing spider in a web displayed prominently in a window. Hmmm, I thought, maybe that’s not too farfetched. Who knows, there just might be a glowing spider in the real world. 

After all, anything is possible in nature. I wrote about happy-faced spiders here in a previous post, which many of my friends said they had never heard of before. Life is, as they say, truly stranger than fiction.

Right then and there Jason informed me that scorpions glow under ultraviolet light. Yeah, that’s right, scorpions glow. Glow in the dark scorpions. How cool is that? Unbelievable. I had to see this for myself. 

I asked if I could have a look at the creatures and the next day we both headed out to the “lab on the hill.” Camera in hand.

Enter: Pandinus Imperator, better known as the Emperor Scorpion or Imperial Scorpion, a species of scorpion native to Africa. The Emperor is one of the largest species of scorpion in the world, with adults averaging about 8 inches in length.

 

They were beautiful and grotesque looking at the same time. In fact scorpions are an excellent example of the subversive potential of beauty. Take a look at these guys and ponder on beauty in correlation to nature’s beneficence.

 

They’re big, nasty, seemingly aggressive and they actually look like they have a bit of attitude. They’re also somewhat solemn and actually kind of mellow. Interesting paradox of form, shape, color and mood. Wonderful in all respects to look at. To ponder. 

 

I’d been lowering the camera inside the aquarium to get some good close-ups for about ten minutes till Jason lowered his hand into their habitat and allowed one to crawl onto his open palm. 

The scorpion positioned itself carefully on his palm and slowly turned around to face me. It displayed an incredible face. All at once gentle and ominous. Mysterious.

  

Emperor scorpions are typically black in overall coloration, but brownish and greenish colored specimens are not uncommon. Both males and females possess large, thick, granular pedipalpal chelae (claws) with a sparse covering of sensory setae (hairs). 

 

Their large claws are capable of delivering painful attacks that may break the surface of the skin. In the majority of specimens, the telson (stinger) is brownish to brownish-red in coloration with sparse setae on the external surface.

 

Although most are hesitant to sting, all are capable of delivering multiple stings when annoyed. However, most specimens will choose to rely on their powerful claws to defend against perceived threats. Their life span usually ranges from 5–8 years in captivity, but perhaps shorter in the wild. And then Jason broke out the black light and shone it on the scorpions. Showtime!

 

Wonderfully eerie. But what's really cool is that it is established that nearly all species of scorpions fluoresce under UV light. Fluorescence is the emission of visible light by a substance that has absorbed light of a differing, usually invisible, wavelength. 

Fluorescence happens when a fraction of the light illuminating an object is absorbed and then re-emitted as a different color, a two-step process that is necessarily inefficient. In the human visual environment of white daylight, nearly all fluorescent signals get lost.

 

What causes scorpions to fluoresce is that the material in their exoskeleton absorbs the UV wavelengths and retransmits it as visible light, which we, as humans see as the “glow.”

 

Jaekelopterus rhenaniae, a 390-million-year-old specimen of ancient sea scorpion

 The colonization of the land by Scorpionidae began after the Ordovician Silurian extinction events (about 450 million years ago). A postulate for at least one of these extinction events, posted on Arachnoboards.com is the cosmological gamma ray burst, an effect of which would be to destroy a large percentage of earth’s protective ozone layer resulting in a massive increase in dangerous UV light intensity. 

This speaks of an unintended consequence of the chemistry of the scorpion cuticle that serves no particular purpose. This speaks to function - not adaption. 

 

With that said, many also believe in the theory that the fluorescence of Scorpionidae evolved as camouflage, having once had the ability to fluoresce a kind of bluish green because of their habitat in shallow waters. And today their ability to fluoresce is nothing more than a remnant of their former aquatic existence. 

This again also speaks to adaptation – not function. Interesting to ponder. How many more "remnants" of our past speak of adaptation as opposed to function?

 

No matter how we look at it or why we think they have this ability, it is fairly widely accepted that in one way or another, their ability to fluoresce is a direct link to their past. Staring at the scorpion definitely made me feel closer to our past – closer to another time in our planet’s history. 

It made me wonder about how we as well as many other creatures evolved. I wondered about adaptation as opposed to function. And then it was back to the daily grind. Painting, teaching, painting, teaching, parenting, parenting and more parenting.

I hadn’t thought about the scorpions and their ability to “glow” for a week or so and then the other morning as I sat on the couch with my daughter and watched TV with her, it came back to me. It was a pleasant sunny Saturday morning. Birds merrily chirping outside the windows eating heartily at the feeders.

 

Huddled comfortably on the couch, window shades open, early light streaming in, delighting in the giddy laughter of my daughter, the thought of scorpions came back to me. Yeah kind of weird I'd be thinking of scorpions when it was kind of like a Disneyesque morning. 

You'd think I'd have bird songs and fat faced crickets with big feet and tiny umbrellas leaping in and out of my brain and fairies and princesses dancing on my skull, but scorps took center stage. And here's why...

 

We were watching a program called Dinosaur Train, a lively colorful animated show loaded with adolescent dinosaurs and lots of high pitched voices – easily managing to get Zayla’s attention. Mine too actually. 

Each half-hour episode includes two 11-minute animated segments, along with a live action segment that Scott Sampson, or as he is known on the show, Dr. Scott, interacts with kids during these segments. 

 

An image of an animated stegosaurus appeared on the screen and Dr. Scott asked “why does the stegosaurus have plates along its back?” He continued with, “could it have something to do with cooling itself in the hot afternoon sun?” At this moment, a dual image appeared on the screen. On the right was the stegosaurus and on the left was an African elephant. 

 

Clearly he was inferring to the hypothesis that maybe, just maybe a stegosaurus uses its back plates much in the manner as does an elephant, by flapping its large ears to cool itself. He asked, “could it be that a stegosaurus uses its plates much in the manner an African elephant does?”

He continued even further – and this is the part that blew me away, “or kids, is it merely a coincidence and a stegosaurus’ plates don’t really have any use at all?” I took that to mean that the plates spoke to adaptation - not function. Amazing, here the notion of adaptation - not function, rose its curious head again.

 

After all, it's fun to imagine what the plates are for. And then again maybe we don’t need to know what a stegosaurus’ plates are for at all. I mean, is there always a reason for everything in nature? I certainly don’t believe so. We try awfully hard to place meaning and in particular define and explain the existence of just about everything. 

Science seems too rigid in its eagerness to make sense of everything. I guess in some grand respect that's the job of science. But I think it's also fair to say that perhaps scientists simply don't play enough. Play defined us as children. What happens to it during adulthood? Where is it in scientific exploration? 

There's certainly plenty of play in art making. There's also lots of crossover between art and science. It's important if not critical to incorporate the notions of play into our daily thoughts on why things are the way they are and to leave some things unanswered.

The fact of the matter is that there are likely more things than not that we will never know the reasons for. Take Halloween for example. Adaptation or function? Or just plain wtf? Your guess is as good as mine. 

 

 

 

 

Happy Halloween.

Marc Dennis can be contacted here. 

Creative Footprint: The Swastika Has Hit The Fan

"Creative Footprint" encompasses, explores and examines the ways in which we and other creatures leave marks on culture and community. Created by Marc Dennis, artist, professor, Holocaust researcher, and bug chef.

In 2005, the U.S. Navy announced that a barracks complex at its Coronado Island base in Southern California will undergo more than half a million dollars in renovations because it resembles a swastika from the air. 

After aerial images on Google Earth revealed the architectural pattern a few years back, and online forums buzzed like crazy with heated discussions about the building, hundreds of news organizations picked up on it, including CNN, posted in the video below. The swastika no doubt had indeed hit the world wide fan. 

Boley Toy Corporation based in California, in the early 90's marketed what can be argued I suppose as a badly executed design for a children’s toy called “Cool Toys Racing Game.” An image of the game is on the left.

                     

Regent Products, a toy company based out of Chicago, around the same time, offered yet another badly executed design for a children’s toy called “Speed Game.” It can be seen posted on the above right. Two swastika infused toy designs about racing. Hmm...maybe I missed something in all my years of researching the Holocaust about the swastika representing speed. 

Zara Fashion recently manufactured handbags decorated with swastikas; intertwined with designs of embroidered bicycles and flowers and other non-descript elements. The interesting thing about the bag design is that it harkens to some degree to the history of the swastika as an ancient symbol. 

A Zara spokesman said: "We did not realize Swastikas appeared on some of these bags, the swastika was not on the bag which was sourced by us after being supplied by an external producer. "Of course we apologize to anyone who was offended by the bag, and we will be withdrawing it from all our stores."

Though the image of a swastika on a designer bag or as a toy design may prove to be problematic and evoke emotional reaction its usages throughout time have indeed been complex, its meanings diverse, and its visual presentations varied. 

But let's face it, the swastika simply isn't the kind of symbol that can be easily modified, interpreted or re-appropriated. Let's have a look at its history and you be the judge.

Until the Nazis used this symbol, the swastika was used by many cultures throughout the past 3,000 years to represent life, sun, power, strength, and good luck. The word “swastika” comes from the Sanskrit suastika - “su” meaning “good,” “asti” meaning “to be,” and “ka” as a suffix.

Bowl with swastika painted on the side in the collection of The Archeological Museum in Athens, Greece

The swastika predates the ancient Egyptian symbol, the Ankh. One of the earliest known swastikas appears on a pottery bowl, which was found in ancient Samarra (ancient Baghdad) and dates to about 4000 BCE. Swastikas have been found on many artifacts such as pottery and coins dating from ancient Troy. 

 

It has been seen on terracotta articles as well as ancient vases of Greece, Cyprus, Crete and Rhodes. It was a favorite symbol on the coins of ancient Greece and India. Swastikas were also found engraved on funeral urns that have been dug up in northern Italy.

All throughout history, the image of the swastika could be found in many cultures around the world, including in China, Japan, India, America and southern Europe. 

By the Middle Ages, the swastika was a well known, if not commonly used, symbol but was called by many different names in different countries.

In China it was the “wan,” in England, a “fylfot,” in Germany, a “hakenkreuz,” in Greece it was known by two names, “tetraskelion” and “gammadion” and in India, the “swastika." 

The image on the left above is called an "ayagaptha" found in this case as a carving on the interior of a temple in Mathura, India. 

Swastikas have been discovered at several locations as well in the New World. They were found in monumental remains of the primitive Mexicans and Peruvians and on objects exhumed from prehistoric burial mounds within the limits of the USA. 

Though it is not known for exactly how long, Native Americans both from southwestern and northeastern woodland tribes also had long used the symbol of the swastika. 

Even as late as the early 1900’s Native American sports teams used the swastika as their logo. 

Early in the twentieth century the swastika was still a symbol with positive connotations. The swastika was also a common decoration that often adorned cigarette cases, postcards, coins, poker chips, cards, and buildings.

Poker chips made by the United States Playing Card Company in Cincinnati, OH 

Postcard, copyright 1907 by E. Phillips, a U.S. card publisher

A postcard sent from the town of Swastika, Canada, dated June 1910

The town in Ontario  was named 'Swastika' after a lucky Gold strike in 1911. On a related note, Swastika, New York, located near the Adirondack Park Preserve in the northeast corner of the state, is adjacent to "Swastika Road." 

 The public access area of Fish Lake near Windom, Minnesota is named Swastika Beach. Swastika Park is also the name of a housing subdivision in Miami, Florida, created in 1917.  An upscale subdivision in Denver is named "Swastika Acres." Its name has been traced to the Denver Swastika Land Company, founded in 1908. 

 Pacific System Homes surfboards' first label or insignia was a swastika. This was before WWII and Hitler. The swastika at the time was viewed as a symbol in Eastern religions of peace & prosperity.  

 In the early part of 1940, because of the perverted wide spread use of the swastika, Pacific System Homes Surfboards changed their swastika label to a more popular 'Waikiki Surfboards."

In 1925, Coca-Cola made a lucky watch fob in the shape of a swastika with right-facing arms and the slogan, "Drink Coca Cola five cents in bottles."  During War World I, the swastika could even be found on the shoulder patches of the American pilots of the 45th Division that fought for the Allied forces before America's entry into the war. Below is the swastika design found on the patches of the airmen. 

In ancient times, the direction of the swastika was interchangeable. Some cultures in the past however had differentiated between the clockwise "swastika" and the counter-clockwise "sauvastikaIn." 

These cultures claimed the swastika symbolized health and life while the sauvastika took on a mystical meaning of bad-luck or misfortune, which brings us to the symbol of Nazism. Nazi Germany’s use of it has an interesting history. 

The initial association that the symbol seems to have had was that of extreme nationalism, but not necessarily associated with the Nazi Party. In the 1800s, countries around Germany were growing much larger, forming empires; yet Germany was not a unified country until 1871. 

To counter the feeling of vulnerability and the stigma of being such a new unified country, German nationalists in the mid-nineteenth century began to use the swastika, because it had ancient Aryan/Indian origins, to represent a long Germanic/Aryan history. By the end of the nineteenth century, the swastika could be found prominently displayed on nationalist German periodicals. 

In the beginning of the twentieth century, the swastika was a common symbol of German nationalism and could be found in a multitude of places. 

The emblem of the Thule Society, a German occultist and “völkish” group in Munich, named after a mythical northern country from Greek legend, was a swastika as seen pictured in the image on the left. 

By 1912, the swastika was seen in use by many “völkish” groups, and the “völkish” thought began to take on an anti-Semitic cast. 

It was popular enough that the firm of Ecklöh began manufacturing badges, tie pins, buckles, and other such artifacts incorporating the device to be sold to German citizens to display their honor and loyalty to Germany.

It was revived dramatically by Hitler when he made it the national emblem of Nazi Germany. He believed that this ancient Aryan sign would bring prosperity and victory. 

On August 7, 1920, at the Salzburg Congress, the swastika encircled against a solid colored backdrop became the official emblem of the Nazi Party. 

In Mein Kampf, Hitler described the Nazis’ new flag: "In red we see the social idea of the movement, in white the nationalistic idea, in the swastika the mission of the struggle for the victory of the Aryan man, and which as such always has been and always will be anti-Semitic.” 

According to historians, there are two ways of examining the swastika and its history as a symbol, by viewing the meanings of its two variations -- the clockwise, or otherwise Nazi version of the swastika means hate and death, while the counter-clockwise version, or otherwise ancient multi-cultured symbol, means life and good-luck. 

It really isn't all that simple though. You just can't use a swastika say on your vehicle's bumper or post one on the front stoop of your brownstone, slap one on the side of your bike helmet,  or tattoo one on your arm thinking people are going to interpret it as a symbol of ancient meaning, i.e., of luck and prosperity. The swastika as a symbol is seriously tainted. Big time. 

As an educator and artist, I certainly understand the need for educating and informing others as to its ancient meaning in an attempt to explain why the swastika, in a variety of forms exists in architecture, art, clothing, sports teams logos, as in the case of the Canadian ladies hockey team, "The Edmonton Swastikas," pictured above, or on the chest of a Buddhist statue in modern day Tibet, a country known for promoting peace. These are after all, swastikas that pre-date Nazism.

But to use it anew as a contemporary symbol equals nothing less than emotional controversy. With the internet at our fingertips, the swastika rides a mighty big virtual wave as does its potential to  harm. 

Google: "Swastika" and you'll see what I mean. Granted, there are many sites defending its origin as a peaceful symbol and in so many ways trying to convince us it's ok to continue using it, whether it's clock-wise or counter clock-wise. 

The swastika was used in ancient times and it's fine to study its historical context and subsequent meanings but to revive it for the sake of its ancient history, well, I just have to say, in and of itself that's just not a very productive stance. Nor I might add is it a noble cause. Here's why.

There are other sites, in fact thousands upon thousands of them, that do indeed continue to use the swastika - from the Nazi perspective - as an emblem of hate, serving thusly as a continuum of intolerance, anti-semitism, and racism. Neo-Nazism and its own demented history clearly claim the swastika as their own as seen in the two examples posted below. 

Curtis Allgier, a neo-Nazi from Kansas, currently an inmate in Utah has his face tattooed with many swastikas. I actually find it hard to understand how and why any tattoo parlor personnel would grant this guy so much "hate" ink to begin with. Freedom of expression? Maybe he fell asleep on a Sharpie.

Another neo-Nazi, pictured above, from behind, protesting outside the Holocaust Museum in Skokie, IL. For those of you who may not remember, Skokie, once home to thousands of Holocaust survivors, garnered international attention in the 1970s when neo-Nazis threatened to march in the streets.

The swastika in all its twisted nature as a symbol in contemporary culture, is not always for educational or informative purposes for a productive means, but rather to promote fascist ideologies, which as all educated individuals know, inevitably leads to destruction. The swastika today is regarded as a symbol of the destruction of life rather than its affirmation. Symbols are instruments of thought. And thoughts amount to actions, which are always based on intentions.

A building designed unintentionally to look like a swastika from above is tolerable. it doesn't bother me; why should it? The architect's intentions were productive or at least meant to do good. In fact an architect friend of mine said something to the effects that the "swastika" design is more energy efficient allowing for more light to travel through the space(s). 

On the other hand, an image of a swastika scrawled on the inside of a seat on the Long Island Rail Road is non productive. It's harsh. It's offensive. It's passive aggressive. It's violent. It's cowardly. It carries negative and potentially hurtful connotations.  It's just plain wrong. 

It's about as stupid as this tattoo of "Southern Justice." I mean, c'mon, why? This is just going to provoke anger, possibly violence. No one needs to see it. It doesn't do anyone any good. How can anyone really feel this much pride in hating? 

I've been studying the Holocaust for over ten years and have just come around to understanding to a great degree how Germany and occupied countries could become an industrialized unified state sponsored form of hatred, but I still find it hard to understand how an individual has it in them to just be so insensitive and intolerant. To anyone for any reason. 

So why do it? Why choose to get a hangman's noose tattooed on your body; why choose to draw a swastika on a train seat? Why choose to be that insensitive? Why hate? I know, I know it's easier to hate than to express care or tolerance. 

So, what is it? Intentions. It all comes down to intentions. Intentions matter. In almost everything we do, our intentions provide us with a significant component to our own identity. 

The swastika has its own identity and no matter its history, no matter the varying schools of thought surrounding its meaning and potential resurgence as a positive emblem, it will always remain a very graphic reminder of anti-Semitism, hatred and violence. The swastika was doomed since the Nazis adopted it, and I say, may it rest in...uh, er... peace?

Marc Dennis can be reached here.