Origins of the Wildman

I spent much of August outside of the studio. The morning after my opening at Gallery 360, I headed up north to Mallard Island on Rainy Lake for two weeks. I slept, swam and enjoyed relaxing with just a handful of people.  While there I worked on four still-lifes for the exhibit at the Landmark Center. There are thousands of books on the island. I was looking for an image of Saturn Eating His Son by Goya to put into a painting but instead found the book Wild Men in the Middle Ages by Richard Bernheimer, 1952. It was a fascinating read about the European myth of the wild man who lives in the woods. These men started as the mentally ill who could not live within society and ended up living in the woods outside of towns and villages. Soon, stories circulated about their "wildness" in order to scare children and keep polite society in line. These myths eventually blossomed into many local legends and eventually evolved into the harlequin of French culture, the monsters of Grimm's fairy tales and even our modern stories about yeti's and Sasquatch. 

Many festivals arose to pay tribute to the Wild Man. During these festivals, men dressed as animals and fantastic beasts would enter people's homes stealing their food. The Wild Man, generally a very large man, protected the other animal-men by threatening anyone who tried to stop them. Soon, it became very popular to establish secret societies of wild men, similar to today's more benign Saint Paul Minnesota's Winter Carnival Vulcans. One story has it that a French King, Charles VI, wanted to participate in a Wild Man festival. He dressed up as a Wild Man and, with others, invaded the queen's quarters. Unable to recognize the king, he was soundly beaten by the queen's guard. Not having learned his lesson, the next year, 1393, he wanted to have a wild man event again. The queen convinced him to hold a masquerade ball, the Bal des Sauvages. With an organized event he could not get beat up by her guards, or anyone else.

That evening, with everyone in costume, the king entered chained to four other top officials dressed as wild men and proceeded to perform a dance. Unfortunately, an onlooker carrying a torch accidentally set one of the dancers on fire. Soon all five dancers, being chained together, were aflame. The four officials died while the king was only saved because a woman in a costume with a large train covered him with her dress and smothered the flames.

As I read the book I began to recognize the Wild Man in many of today's stories: that character that is out of control, unsophisticated, only interested in the moment and his own needs while at odds with society and progress. Sometimes the character becomes a part of society only to eventually revert back to the woods. Characters like Shrek, The Joker, Frankenstein and The Beast from Beauty and the Beast come to mind. In movies, the Wild Man is often layered over the personality of murderers and serial killers. I couldn't help but notice in contemporary political storytelling, the red state rural followers of Trump are presented in this manner. The urban Democrats are presented as the cultured sophisticated elite. It is a powerful myth that reaches into our deepest feelings and reflexes.

The Wild Man eventually made it into one of the paintings I was creating while on the island (see the above Feature Painting). I love the myth of the Wild Man and think he will be appearing again in my art, in concept if not actually in person.