The Moon Devours Her Children

Firestorm Foundation acquired The Moon Devours Her Children at the exhibition Mentors (CFHILL, Stockholm, 3 December 2021 - 7 January 2022). The group exhibition, curated by Sandra Weil (art curator living in Tel Aviv who promotes cultural exchange Sweden-Israel and is active in the Robert Weil Family Foundation’s work to defend and nurture democratic society), brought together international contemporary artists like Barbara Kruger (U.S.A., born 1945), Olafur Eliasson (Denmark, born 1967), Klara Lidén (Sweden, born 1979) and Rithika Merchant.

In the exhibition catalogue Saskia Neuman (Swedish writer and curator, regular contributor to publications such as Vogue and Artlover, in addition to curating solo exhibitions. Formerly the director of the Market Art Fair, Stockholm and director of the Absolute Art Award) wrote the following about Rithika Merchant:

Rithika Merchant studies epic mythology that reaches beyond the barriers of geography, all while evolving her own visual language, based on a vast collection of figures, and symbols. Inspired by, among other things, traditional Indian art and Mongolian miniature painting, her fundamental knowledge in Indian mythology and iconography allows her to expand the language she builds throughout her artistic practice, a language that has the ability to transcend boundaries and differing beliefs, and still is easily interpreted by the viewer. Her work, a fantasy marred with animal and plant life, can be read, and seen as a narration of a collective human history. […] Through her work the artist creates a red thread binding together our understanding of the power of human relationships, and the dependance we have in one another. […] Even though Merchant creates enormous detail in outlines and composition in the highly figurative paintings she paints she should not be identified as a graphic artist. Additionally, the artist uses her work to recognize global issues such as climate change, evident in her praised painting Harvest of the Land of Plenty, a mixed media collage from 2020. The five paintings presented in this exhibition offer insight into the artist’s world, allowing the viewer to delve into this continuous artistic language where nature and ritual collide. […] Time and again Merchant draws upon history intertwined with beautiful botanical imagery, references to folk art and mythology to create very dramatic, and romantic examinations of her own imagination.

The somewhat puzzling scene in The Moon Devours Her Children is an expression of Rithika Merchant’s interest in, what Neuman calls, ‘epic mythology’. Every culture around the world has myths concerning the Sun and the Moon. Some of them depicts the Sun as a female, chasing the male Moon around the sky. Others see the Moon as female, being chased by the Sun. In some myths they’re siblings; in others they’re lovers. Still others depict them as Mother Moon who gave birth to her son, the Sun. A Native American myth says that the Sun and Moon are a chieftain and his wife, and that the stars are their children. The Sun loves to catch and eat his children, so they flee from the sky whenever he appears. The Moon, however, plays happily with the stars while the Sun is sleeping. But each month, she turns her face to one side and darkens it (as the Moon wanes) to mourn the children that the Sun succeeded in catching. Why Merchant decided to reverse the roles in this composition is unclear, but it may very well be due toher knowledge of some other ancient legend.

An interesting parallel can also be drawn here to Francisco José de Goya y Luciente’s (1746 - 1828, Spanish painter and printmaker) famous composition Saturno devorando a su hijo / Saturn Devouring His Son (c. 1820 - 1823, mixed media mural transferred to canvas, 143 x 81 cm, Museo del Prado, Madrid). One of the fourteen, so-called, Black Paintings, the composition is traditionally considered a depiction of the Greek myth of the Titan Cronus, whom the Romans called Saturn, eating one of his children out of fear of a prophecy by Gaea that one of his children would overthrow him. Like all of the Black Paintings, it was not originally intended for public consumption and Goya did not provide a title or notes. Thus, its interpretation is, also, disputed.

Provenance

CFHILL, Stockholm, Mentors, 3 December 2021 - 7 January 2022.

Firestorm Foundation (acquired at the above).