The Fractal Nature of the Creator

or
The Wit and Wisdom of God
or
Religion as Paradox.......

It is difficult when a topic has so many possible titles to hang over the entry way. I decided on the notion of "fractal" and I shall use it focusing on the idea of a recurring similar structure on smaller and smaller scales... as when we look at the rugged coastline of Maine on Google Earth, zooming in closer and closer and finding the coastline to recreate its irregular and rugged structure in smaller and smaller areas, minuscule bays and rocks forming parts of the larger ocean inlets.

There is a picture above and it is entitled "Convent Thoughts" and was done in 1851 by Charles Alston Collins.
It portrays a young nun in a walled garden holding a flower - apparently fallen from some sort of Rudbeckia, one cannot conceive of her actually picking it off its stem - and gazing at it closely. She stands among some lilies, but the flower which she holds resembles a daisy (Rudbeckia) as far as I can see. She is pale and angular thin, ethereal and pre-consumptive, which was the style in the day. It is usually seen as a bit of an esoteric religious statement, but is also viewed as a manipulation of the concept of Woman or What Women Should Be: ideal lily of purity, walled off from the struggles of life, bride of Christ, and so on.

The problem here, as I see it, is that this unworldly nun is absolutely gazing right at this flower, a Rudbeckia, maybe a Daisy. If you're familiar with flowers, you'll know that this type of flower presents a more 2-dimensional view to the viewer, rather than the 3-dimensional of the lily; the Daisy has a large center around which the petals ray outwards, whereas the lily is shaped a bit like a cone, and the center lies at the bottom of a well formed  by the petals.
In short, this nun is gazing at the sexual organs of the flower, and they are prominently and boldy thrust forward, stamen, anther, and pistil!


I shall research some on Mr. Collins, but as it stands now, the Progenitor of the Universe seems to have made a bit of a joke here, for there is no escaping from Creation and Procreation. What was the case on high - the creation of the universe - is also the case as you go down that great chain of being, see creation of life on each succeeding level.


The painting seems somewhat scandalous all of a sudden. It seems paradoxical, too. Well, paradox is a scandal for most of us of limited brain. Is the proper answer to The Great Chain of Creativity to be an endorsement of Chastity and Celibacy? And if so, what enigma lay hidden in that paradox?