Madonna of Jaén

The composition is based on the interior of the cathedral in Jaén — a Renaissance model of the cosmos, organized around a center and the light emanating from it.

Around this center unfolds a circular structure built upon a system of four directions, marked by Chinese characters: 北 (north), 東 (east), 南 (south), 西 (west). This system is connected with traditional cosmology, in which each direction corresponds to animals, seasons, and states of the world. The images of the Chinese zodiac woven into the circle introduce a level of the natural and instinctual.

Thus, two symbolic systems enter into dialogue within the work — the Christian and the Chinese — each offering its own way of describing the structure of the world and the place of the human within it. Their juxtaposition does not seek stylistic unity, but preserves difference as a condition for deeper understanding.

The circle forms a mandala — a universal form that Carl Gustav Jung interpreted as a symbol of psychic wholeness. Within this structure, the external world — both natural and cultural — is organized around a center that is not given, but must be found.

The central image of the Madonna is deprived of the figure of the child. This shifts perception from a religious narrative to an archetypal level: the Madonna appears not as a character, but as an image of an inner space in which what was previously unconscious may emerge.

In Jungian terms, this process corresponds to individuation — the gradual unfolding and integration of the hidden structures of the psyche.

The circle in the work is not closed, but tense: it holds together different cultural and symbolic systems without reducing them to a single language. In this tension, a point emerges at which a person begins to perceive themselves as a whole.

The inclusion of a real architectural motif — the silhouette of St. Olaf’s Church in Tallinn — connects the universal model with personal experience and a concrete place.

The work captures not a state, but a process: a moment in which a person approaches an understanding of their own nature.

The painting may be considered part of the “Andalusian cycle” — a series of works formed under the impression of time spent in Spain between September 2006 and October 2007 during Erasmus studies at the University of Jaén. Other works in this cycle include: San Miguel de Úbeda, Alhambra y Ella, Madonna of Jaén, or The Dragon of Jaén, Fides et Vigor, and Sleeping Mountain of Jaén.