Black Sun Flower

Black Sun Flower (SA/2023)

 

 

Is it just me, or is there not a suggestion in the flower on the left of the sun-wheel symbol [1] that Nazi occultists had such a fondness for? 

 

I think there is: and it makes one wonder whether it serves to illustrate Oscar Wilde's anti-mimetic contention that life imitates art [2]; or, alternatively, proves that even a flower can be fascist?  

 

Either way, I think we can all agree that at the core of every flower burns something obscene and evil, like a tiny black sun, and that this is something that many poets, philosophers, and gardeners remain deeply uncomfortable with. 

 

In fact, Bataille is one of the few writers who dares to stare into the heart of vegetal darkness, affirming the inexpressible reality of the flower and rejecting the sexless and sunless descriptions traditionally offered [3].

 

 

Notes

 

[1] The schwarze Sonne symbol originated in Nazi Germany and is now employed by neo-Nazis and other far-right individuals and groups. 

      The symbol consists of twelve radial sig runes and was used as a design element in Heinrich Himmler's SS castle at Wewelsburg. It is uncertain whether it held any particular significance for Himmler, but the black sun later became linked with neo-Nazi occultism and used as a substitute for (or variant of) the classic swastika design. 

      For a Lawrentian take on this concept of the black sun, see the post entitled 'Excessive Brightness Drove the Poet into Darkness' (3 Oct 2021): click here. 

 

[2] See Wilde's essay 'The Decay of Lying', Intentions (1891). An earlier version of the essay was published in the literary magazine The Nineteenth Century, in January 1889.

[3] I'm paraphrasing here form an earlier post entitled 'Fleurs du Mal' (25 April 2015): click here. 

 

 

Readers might like to see a related post to this one on how Jamie Reid's Cambridge Rapist motif haunts the natural world: click here.