Watercolor, charcoal and plaster on paper

The decline of Roman civilization was marked by the West’s transition from cultural leadership to barbarism. This onset of the Dark Age showed how the church crippled a broadening mind by letting superstitions flourish in a milieu of ignorance and unreason. In art and literature, imagination, intellect and taste vanished, and so did the teaching priestess.

-- Walker, Barbara G., The Women’s Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets, HarperCollins, San Francisco, 1983. Page 210.