Page 43 - Studio International - May 1974

moment of time determined in advance:
`The fish, appropriately enough, belongs to the
winter rainy season like Aquarius and
Capricorn (the goat fish). As a zodiacal sign,
therefore, it is not in the least remarkable. It
becomes a matter of astonishment only when,
through the progression of equinoxes, the
spring-point moves into this sign and thus
inaugurates an age in which the "fish" was used
as a mane for the God who became a man, who
was born as a fish and was sacrificed as a ram,
who had fishermen for disciples and wanted to
make them fishers of men, who fed the
multitude with miraculously multiplying fishes,
who was himself eaten as a fish, the "holier
food", and whose followers are little fishes,
the "pisciculi".' Aion p. 92.12
The Zodiacal character for the Pisces sign is
a (x) which may have represented to the early
Christian the tension of opposites, of the

human and the divine, manifested through the
figure of Jesus. The Pisces sign is frequently
represented by two fishes moving in opposite
directions as in the Farnasse Atlas in Naples
where one fish, depicted north of the equator
is vertical, the second, depicted south, is
horizontal, its head moving towards the West.
Conjoined, the shapes form a cross. One cannot
know if this Pisces symbology is coincidental or
had conscious significance for the earliest
Christians, who must have had a close
acquaintance with astrological signs and their
meaning.
Pisces, the twelfth sign of the Zodiac, is the
symbol of the fish and of the artist. Its stellar
projection is located near that of the
constellation for the 'net-fisher' :
'If the Zodiac really was, as we are entitled to
believe, the celestial projection and effigy of an
ancient calendar and sacrificial time table, it is
plausible enough that we should find not only
the settled yearly circle of animal sacrifices,
(Top) (Bottom)
beginning with the fish, followed by the ram, Gustave Courbet Roman mosaic of marine animals
bull and lion, and ending with the consecration The Trout 1871 Probably znd century AD
Oil on canvas 20½ x 34¼ in. 32 29 in.
of the first ear, but also an image of the priestly Coll: Kunsthaus, Zurich Coll : Victoria and Albert Museum, London
functionary as the hunter, guardian and finally (Top left) Chinese open work charm, Ching Dynasty
killer of the sacred beasts. The sacrificial (1600-1900 c.)
functions of this retiarius or 'net-hunter' are Bronze
Diameter 2 in.
not only clearly reflected on the sky, but also Coll: British Museum, London
229