White under the Red

A central theme of Red Tree, White Tree by Wendy Berg is that the color red represents the Human race, while white represents the Elven or Faery race. As noted in my June 13 post "Themes of interest in Red Tree, White Tree," the book also references "the idea of Elf-like beings putting on coats of skins to become human." Given the symbolism of red and white, and of a "coat" as a physical body, I thought that an Elf incarnate in a Human body might be represented by a person wearing a red coat over a white inner garment. I realized that the Magician card of the Rider-Waite Tarot features this imagery.

A bit later, I was browsing 4chan and ran across Del Parson's painting Jesus the Christ, one of the few pieces of Mormon art to have broken out of its religious ghetto to become iconic in the broader culture. It depicts Jesus wearing a red coat over a white inner garment.

This was not a one-time design choice on Mr. Parson's part. We see Jesus in the same outfit in Knocking at the Door (where the foliage above Jesus' head also parallels the Magician card) and In His Glory, among others.

The imagery of an immortal Being incarnating in a mortal "coat of skins" is obviously appropriate, but of course I don't think anyone would classify Jesus as an Elf or Faery.

After making the above observation, I read more in Red Tree, White Tree and found that Wendy Berg connects the blood and "water" that flowed from Jesus' side with red Human blood and white Faery blood.

The two streams of blood that flow from the living Christ are equally relevant to the human and Faery races. It suggests that whatever was achieved by Christ's death and redeeming blood was as true for the Faery race as for the human race, and the relevance of Christ is equal both to humans and Faeries/

This is a closer connection between Christ and Faerie than is usually made. The more usual position in Medieval times, as I understand it, was that fairies were akin to demons or fallen angels and were barred from Christian redemption. It is consonant with Tolkien, though, for whom Elves and Men are alike Eruhini, children of the same God.

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Note added (6:30 p.m.): Scrolling through this blog's homepage, I found that the next image below this post's series is another one of a man in a red "coat" (waistcoat) over a white inner garment, from the post "A severed head underwater" (June 14).

The gesture he is making is also extremely similar to that of Jesus in Del Parson's In His Glory above.

When I got that screenshot from a video to include in that post, my main concern was to get the caption that mentioned the "floating head." That caption stays on the screen for long enough that I had my choice of a picture of Leno himself or the valet. I went with the valet for no particular reason, with no idea that his clothing and gesture would later become relevant.

I've also read a little more in Red Tree, White Tree since publishing the original version of this post. Wendy Berg does indeed suggest that Jesus is in some sense a Faery:

Does this mean that Christ is a "Faery"? When we remember that the Elven/Faery race are not tiny grotesque creatures lurking under toadstools but tall, shining beings of great beauty and grace who possess immense wisdom, knowledge and understanding and who inspire and bring light and love to all who come into contact with them, then we are halfway there, but the whole truth is that Christ was both human and Faery. He is of the original root race from which both human and Faery evolved, and it is this which makes him the avatar for the future of both races.

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Second note added (10:00 p.m.): This post was about images of men dressed in red and white, the first example being the Rider-Waite Magician, shown against a bright yellow background. The first note above added Jay Leno to the mix.

Hours later, I checked /x/ and found a new Roy Jay thread, even though Roy Jay is pretty much played out. The lead image showed him not in his usual prison uniform but dressed in red and white (stripes, not a red coat over a white tunic) against a yellow background.

That's the name Jay again, as in Leno. The /x/ post begins thus:

A couple of years ago, the singer/comedian Roy Jay didn't exist. If you were here on the board when it happened, anons literally saw Google searches about Roy Jay change in an instant, the more we looked into him. His death is uncertain, photos of the man popped out of thin air, new footage magically appeared across YouTube, the people commenting on Roy Jay videos are clearly all bots, etc.

This ties Roy Jay to magic (like the Magician), and his photos popping "out of thin air" is somewhat similar to the "floating head" theme.

The stripes may seem at first to be rather different from the "white under red" theme of this post, but there's a connection. This morning, going through an unfamiliar part of the city, I saw a shop displaying what I at first thought was a Polish flag but soon realized was actually Indonesian -- the difference being that the Indonesian flag has white under red, while Poland has the reverse.

When I looked the flag up on Wikipedia, I read that "The flag's colours are derived from the banner of the 13th century Majapahit Empire." Here is Wikipedia's reconstruction of that banner: