The Mother Goddess was in love with a young man named , Attis. She was angry when she heard that Attis was going to marry to the daughter of Pessinus King and went to the wedding ceremony. She influenced Attis enough to make him go and made him crazy and had him castrate himself. As soon as the blood of his testes touched the ground, plants began to spring up grow and Attis turned into out to be a pine tree.
Almost all earth and fertility abundance myths have death and rebirth motifs. In this myth , the flowing blood and the loss of virility to gain a universal characteristic , and the spread of fertility abundance and the life are death and rebirth motifs. The little boy sitting on the lap of the Mother Goddess is Attis. Attis symbolizes both the man and the son of the Mother Goddess. It is known that the source of the belief in the Mother Goddess belief is in Anatolia. According to the excavations in Çatalhöyük, the Mother Goddess has a past dating back to 6000-7000 B.C.
The seated figures with large hips, belly and full breasts are all of the Mother Goddess. Some have little boy figures on their breasts while some have lions standing next to them. Lions are the signs that the Mother Goddess is the ruler of the nature. Nature, earth and the Mother Goddess are all contained with in each other. The Mother Goddess (nature) is fertile . The God Kronos, also known as namely The Time, ingests whatever she gives birth to. Kronos is both the man and the brother of the Mother Goddess. The Mother Gooddess was called with various names, such as Kybele, Kubaba, Kybebe, Hepat, Mâ, Marienna, Arinna, Isis, Lat, Hrea, Artemus and Venus in different eras and regions.
The prominent clear triangles beneath their abdomens represent the motherhood, femininity and fertility . Statues of the Mother Goddess statues can also be seen in temples. The genitals of most of these statues have been were worn away. Those who came to worship wishing fertility have touched these areas and wore away the Mother Goddess.
Abundance and fertility, the characteristics of the nature and the earth, have been symbolized in woman by the Mother Goddess.The power of creativity can be likened assimilated to the Mother Goddess from a certain point of view in some points. It is a non-stop universal power of creativity leading constantly to new artists and artworks. Besides having different names in every era and region it reaches a different shape in each artist's work.
Gül Erali, draws attention to the deep-rooted history of Anatolia with her exhibit called "Goddesses of the Earth". The theme of the exhibit is woman and fertility . In my opinion, all works of this exhibit focus are settled on these two, or even yet on this one, characteristic: Soft lines, fluency bearing and cavities. Even the sharply folded surface visible on only a single work the surface of which is sharply folded has been is converted in to a woman with an abstract figuration.
Erali, has reproduced the fertility and the bearing of women in different ways. She has taken the breast forms directly from the Mother Goddess , and converted them to globe shape and placed d on the chest of the works that are clearly sure stylized women shapes. Moreover, she has transformed these globe shapes into ornaments emphasizing the feminity of women. She also strengthened these decorative characteristics with colorful glazes.
Some forms were created through with the combination of women and the faces of the sun courses or idols of 2000 B.C. The fertility abundance symbols of the Mother Goddess are also strongly visible in at these forms: The globe-like shape and the symmetry of the body. These are the round shapes, which are the symbol of abundance, and the deep, and sheltering genitals of the Mother Goddess.
In another work, a women figure carrying round forms on her lap , symbolizing both her son and man, on her lap, as if to she give s birth to and shelter them.
Gul Erali also uses jugs and earthenware pots, when describing the woman. The jugs and pots, especially the ones used for carrying water , are among the Erali's important motifs. According to Erali, these pots are feminine, bearer and fertile.
The mouths of two of these carrier forms are widened and begin to transform into a woman. In the first one, the two globes accompanishing with her self as they open upwards. In the second one, it rises and becomes free while converting into a female woman shape.
The jugs are also connected to in relation with water. Jugs do not only describe the Water, the coasts of which where all cultures have settled on on its coasts, manifests itself not only in the jugs. We also see it in with glasses and reflections. The glass in the middle of the woman's breast, or in the center of the form, takes viewers the spectators into the story by means of water or mirror associations. The viewers spectators also become a part of the Mother Goddess.
In some of Erali's works we see that the idolized female forms become smaller and carry, shelter and hide the abundance globes of abundance.
In another work we see that the snake, derived from the story of Adam and Eve myth, is next to the globe of abundance globes that has was transformed in to an apple.
In a few works , these spheres of abundance rounds change meanings in the direction of towards the Eye, from volume to relief, and henceforth therefore to an ornament.
Prof. Mehmet Zaman Saçlıoğlu