http://collections.mfa.org/internal/media/dispatcher/1492125/resize%3Aformat%3DfullPedestal dishAD 800-1000Earthenware with red, purple-maroon and black on cream slip paintTall pedestal dish painted on its interior with the image of a shaman’s transformation from human to spirit realm, likening this unobservable transition to the agile motion of an earth-living crocodile as it slips below the water’s surface. Serrated lines fill the background to create visual agitation that shatters the flat surface into an oscillating three-dimensional space. The jagged edges replicate the shaman’s pulsating trance-vision and allude to his/her penetrating powers and the ephemeral spirit world through which the human-crocodile glides. The solid red color of the humanoid body contrasts with the willowy lines of the head and claws, fixing the body in space while the head and appendages dematerialize in the visionary world. The spiked rays between the figure’s legs point perpendicular to those of the background, breaking the composition’s hypnotic horizontal energy and invoking the multi-directionality of the shamanic journey.Ceramics16.5100330201 Centimeterhttp://collections.mfa.org/objects/609293/rdf