And, In The Beginning...

"And In the Beginning" is Victor Bregeda's examination of the creative process. Victor portrays himself as the creative thinker, on top of the cosmic egg, applying his creative thought to artistic expression. The process of creativity examined in this painting also applies to musical expression, poetry, literature, scientific thought, or any other application of human creativity.

In this painting, Victor again uses his symbol of the ladder or staircase, representing spiritual evolution and levels of consciousness, the base of the ladder or stair being on the material plane. At the lower right of "And In the Beginning" we see the handrails of a staircase. The main action of this painting takes place on the flat plain at the top of the staircase, a plateau of higher consciousness. The implication is that to engage in the generation of creative thought, a level of elevation of spiritual awareness is a necessary pre-condition.

Here Victor uses the egg to symbolize any creative idea. The breaking of the egg with the contents spilling out symbolizes ideas coming to life. The contents of the egg are turning into people; through the result of the creative thinker's reflections, his creative ideas start to take on a life of their own.

Victor shows himself painting a picture of what he sees from his vantage point on the top of the cosmic egg. All of the reality that he is able to perceive from this perspective appears as a layer of cloth, or a veil, draped over some underlying reality which cannot be directly perceived, but which is evidenced only by how it affects the cloth placed over it.