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SEA OF BIANCO / MARE DI BIANCO
oil on canvas 120x100 cm
€ 1800.00
Man and the Sea
by Charles Baudelaire
Always, unfettered man, you will cherish the sea!
The sea your mirror, you look into your mind
In its eternal billows surging without end,
And as its gulfs are bitter, so must your spirit be.
You plunge with joy into this image of your own:
You hug it with your eyes and arms; your heart
Forgets for a time its noisy beat, becomes a part
Of a greater, more savage and less tameable moan.
In your own ways, you both are brooding and discreet:
Man, no one has mapped your chasm's hidden floor,
Oh sea, no one knows your inmost riches, for
Your jealousy hides secrets none can repeat.
As the uncounted swarm of centuries gathers
You two have fought without pity or remorse, both
From sheer love of the slaughter and of death
Oh, eternal wrestlers, oh, relentless brothers!
SLEEPING CUPID AND PSYCHE / AMORE DORMIENTE E PSYCHE
oil on canvas 80x120 cm
€ 2.500
Cupid and Psyche
A stunningly beautiful girl, Psyche, is born after two older sisters. People throughout the land worship her beauty so deeply that they forget about the goddess Venus. Venus becomes angry that her temples are falling to ruin, so she plots to ruin Psyche. She instructs her son, Cupid, to pierce the girl with an arrow and make her fall in love with the most vile, hideous man alive. But when Cupid sees Psyche in her radiant glory, he shoots himself with the arrow instead.
Meanwhile, Psyche and her family become worried that she will never find a husband, for although men admire her beauty, they always seem content to marry someone else. Psyche's father prays to Apollo for help, and Apollo instructs her to go to the top of a hill, where she will marry not a man but a serpent. Psyche bravely follows the instructions and falls asleep on the hill. When she wakes up, she discovers a stunning mansion. Going inside, she relaxes and enjoys fine food and luxurious treatment. At night, in the dark, she meets and falls in love with her husband.
She lives happily with him, never seeing him, until one day he tells her that her sisters have been crying for her. She begs to see them, but her husband replies that it would not be wise to do so. Psyche insists that they visit, and when they do, they become extremely jealous of Psyche's beautiful mansion and lush quarters. They deduce that Psyche has never seen her husband, and they convince her that she must sneak a look. Confused and conflicted, Psyche turns on a lamp one night as her husband lies next to her.
When she sees the beautiful Cupid asleep on her bed, she weeps for her lack of faith. Cupid awakens and deserts her because Love cannot live where there is no trust. Cupid returns to his mother, Venus, who again decides to enact revenge on the beautiful girl.
Psyche, meanwhile, journeys all over the land to find Cupid. She decides to go to Venus herself in a plea for love and forgiveness, and when she finally sees Venus, the great goddess laughs aloud. Venus shows her a heap of seeds and tells her that she must sort them all in one night's time if she wants to see Cupid again. This task is impossible for one person alone, but ants pity Psyche and sort the seeds for her. Shocked, Venus then orders Psyche to sleep on the cold ground and eat only a piece of bread for dinner. But Psyche survives the night easily. Finally, Venus commands her to retrieve a golden fleece from the river. She almost drowns herself in the river because of her sorrow, but a reed speaks to her and suggests that she collect the golden pieces of fleece from the thorny briar that catches it. Psyche follows these instructions and returns a sizable quantity to Venus. The amazed goddess, still at it, now orders Psyche to fill a flask from the mouth of the River Styx. When Psyche reaches the head of the river, she realizes that this task seems impossible because the rocks are so dangerous. This time, an eagle helps her and fills the flask. Venus still does not give in. She challenges Psyche to go into the underworld and have Persephone put some of her beauty in a box. Miraculously, Psyche succeeds.
On her way toward giving the box to Venus, she becomes curious, opens the box, and instantly falls asleep. Meanwhile, Cupid looks for Psyche and finds her sleeping. He awakens her, puts the sleeping spell back in the box, and takes her to Zeus to request her immortality. Zeus grants the request and makes Psyche an immortal goddess. She and Cupid are married. Venus now supports the marriage because her son has married a goddess—and because Psyche will no longer distract the men on earth from Venus.
Source:
Edith Hamilton, Mythology
ed. GradeSaver
PSYCHE
oil on canvas 40 x 50 cm
€ 500,00
PSYCHE
That is, "breath" or "the soul," occurs in the later times of antiquity, as a personification of the human soul, and Apuleius (Met. iv. 28, &c.) relates about her the following beautiful allegoric story. Psyche was the youngest of the three daughters of some king, and excited by her beauty the jealousy and envy of Venus (Aphrodite). In order to avenge herself, the goddess ordered Amor (Eros) to inspire Psyche with a love for the most contemptible of all men : but Amor was so stricken with her beauty that he himself fell in love with her. He accordingly conveyed her to some charming place, where he, unseen and unknown, visited her every night, and left her as soon as the day began to dawn. Psyche might have continued to have enjoyed without interruption this state of happiness, if she had attended to the advice of her beloved, never to give way to her curiosity, or to inquire who he was. But her jealous sisters made her believe that in the darkness of night she was embracing some hideous monster, and accordingly once, while Amor was asleep, she approached him with a lamp, and, to her amazement, she beheld the most handsome and lovely of the gods. In her excitement of joy and fear, a drop of hot oil fell from her lamp upon his shoulder. This awoke Amor, who censured her for her mistrust, and escaped. Psyche's peace was now gone all at once, and after having attempted in vain to throw herself into a river, she wandered about from temple to temple, inquiring after her beloved, and at length came to the palace of Venus. There her real sufferings began, for Venus retained her, treated her as a slave, and inmposed upon her the hardest and most humiliating labours. Psyche would have perished under the weight of her sufferings, had not Amor, who still loved her in secret, invisibly comforted and assisted her in her labours. With his aid she at last succeeded in overcoming the jealousy and hatred of Venus; she became immortal, and was united with him for ever. It is not difficult to recognise in this lovely story the idea of which it is merely the mythical embodiment, for Psyche is evidently the human soul, which is purified by passions and misfortunes, and is thus prepared for the enjoyment of true and pure happiness. In works of art Psyche is represented as a maiden with the wings of a butterfly, along with Amor in the different situations described in the allegoric story.
source: http://www.mythindex.com
PEGASUS AND CHIMAERA / PEGASO E CHIMERA
oil on canvas 120 x 100 cm
€ 3.000,00
In the city of Corinth, Glaucus is King. But the gods dislike him because he feeds his horses human flesh. Eventually the gods throw him from his chariot and have his horses eat him. It is thought that Glaucus's son is a beautiful young man named Bellerophon, but it is also rumored that the boy's father is Poseidon. More than anything, Bellerophon wants to ride Pegasus, a winged horse, so he goes to Athena's temple to pray. Athena comes to him in a dream and gives him a golden bridle which, she says, will tame the horse. It does, and Pegasus becomes Bellerophon's loyal beast.
Later, Bellerophon kills his brother entirely by accident. He goes to King Proteus for purification, which the king grants. But Bellerophon's situation becomes complicated when the king's wife takes an interest in him. Bellerophon denies the queen's advances, but the evil woman tells her husband that the boy has wronged her and must die. Proteus does not want to kill Bellerophon personally because the boy has eaten at his table, so instead he asks the boy to deliver a letter to the Lycian king.
On the back of Pegasus, Bellerophon travels easily, meets the Lycian king, and stays with him for nine wonderful days. When the king opens his letter, it has clear instructions to kill Bellerophon. But like Proteus, the Lycian king does not want to offend Zeus by acting violently towards a guest, so instead he sends Bellerophon on an impossible journey to kill a monster, Chimaera. With the help of Pegasus, however, Bellerophon kills the beast with no harm to himself. He returns to Proteus, and Proteus sends him on many more challenging adventures.
Eventually, the victorious Bellerophon wins Proteus's respect, and the king even gives the man his daughter's hand in marriage. Unfortunately, Bellerophon loses favor with the gods when he attempts to become more than human and take a place on Mount Olympus. When he tries to take the journey up to the gods’ kingdom, Pegasus throws Bellerophon off his back. Bellerophon wanders alone, "devouring his own soul," until he dies. Pegasus becomes Zeus's favorite animal, residing in the stalls of Mount Olympus and bringing thunder and lightning to him.
source: Edith Hamilton,
Mythology
ed. GradeSaver
AURORA
oil on canvas 120 x 80 cm.
€ 1.500,00
Eos, in Latin Aurora, the goddess of the morning red, who brings up the light of day from the east. She was a daughter of Hyperion and Theia or Euryphassa, and a sister of Helios and Selene. (Hes. Theog. 371, &c.; Hom. Hymn in Sol. ii.) Ovid (Met. ix. 420, Fast. iv. 373) calls her a daughter of Pallas. At the close of night she rose front the couch of her beloved Tithonus, and on a chariot drawn by the swift horses Lampus and Phaëton she ascended up to heaven from the river Oceanus, to announce the coming light of the sun to the gods as well as to mortals. (Hom. Od. v. 1, &c., xxiii. 244; Virg. Aen. iv. 129, Georg. i. 446; Hom. Hymn in Merc. 185; Theocrit. ii. 148, xiii. 11.) In the Homeric poems Eos not only announces the coming Helios, but accompanies him throughout the day, and her career is not complete till the evening; hence she is sometimes mentioned where one would have expected Helios (Od. v. 390, x. 144); and the tragic writers completely identify her with Hemera, of whom in later times the same myths are related as of Eos. (Paus. i. 3. § 1, iii. 18. § 7.) The later Greek and the Roman poets followed, on the whole, the notions of Eos, which Homer had established, and the splendour of a southern aurora, which lasts much longer than in our climate, is a favourite topic with the ancient poets. Mythology represents her as having carried off several youths distinguished for their beauty. Thus she carried away Orion, but the gods were angry at her for it, until Artemis with a gentle arrow killed him. (Hom. Od. v. 121.) According to Apollodorus (i. 4. § 4) Eos carried Orion to Delos, and was ever stimulated by Aphrodite. Cleitus, the son of Mantius, was carried by Eos to the seats of the immortal gods (Od. xv. 250), and Tithonus, by whom she became the mother of Emathion and Memnon, was obtained in like manner. She begged of Zeus to make him immortal, but forgot to request him to add eternal youth. So long as he was young and beautiful, she lived with him at the end of the earth, on the banks of Oceanus ; and when he grew old, she nursed him, until at length his voice disappeared and his body became quite dry. She then locked the body up in her chamber, or metamorphosed it into a cricket. (Hom. Hymn. in Ven. 218, &c.; Horat. Carm. i. 22. 8, ii. 16. 30; Apollod. iii. 12. § 4; Hes. Theog. 984; Serv. ad Virg. Georg. i. 447, iii. 328, Aen. iv. 585.) When her son Memnon was going to fight against Achilles, she asked Hephaestus to give her arms for him, and when Memnon was killed, her tears fell down in the form of morning dew. (Virg. Aen. viii. 384.) By Astraeus Eos became the mother of Zephyrus, Boreas, Notus, Heosphorus, and the other stars. (Hesiod. Theog. 378.) Cephalus was carried away by her from the summit of mount Hymetttus to Syria, and by him she became the mother of Phaëton or Tithonus, the father of Phaëton; but afterwards she restored her beloved to his wife Procris. (Hes. Theog. 984; Apollod. iii. 14. § 3; Paus. i. 3. § 1; Ov. Met. vii. 703, &c.; Hygin. Fab 189; comp. CEPHALUS.) Eos was represented in the pediment of the kingly stoa at Athens in the act of carrying off Cephalus, and in the same manner she was seen on the throne of the Amyclaean Apollo. (Paus. i. 3. § 1, iii. 18. § 7.) At Olympia she was represented in the act of praying to Zeus for Memnon. (v. 22. 2.) In the works of art still extant, she appears as a winged goddess or in a chariot drawn by four horses.
source: http://www.mythindex.com
ALMOND BLOSSOM / MANDORLO
oil on canvas 100 x 70 cm
€ 1.100,00
Almond Blossom Haiku
I
Bees
II
Colours
III
Compost
Almond Blossom Haiku
by Andrew Lansdown
I
Bees
i
Such magnificence
even the bees are absorbed—
blossoming almond.
ii
The more blossom
it has, the more bees it hasn’t—
almond tree.
iii
Flowering almond—
what apiarist could provide
enough beehives?
II
Colours
i
Collectively
tending towards pink—the white
almond petals.
ii
An inference of pink
in the almond petals strewn
whitely on the lawn.
iii
Last almond petal—
difficult to determine
if it’s white or pink.
III
Compost
i
I put off mowing
beneath the flowering almond
for another week.
ii
Intermingled with
the clippings from the catcher—
torn almond petals.
iii
So ethereal,
yet even they become compost,
the almond petals.
First published in Quadrant magazine.
Copyright © Andrew Lansdown
Read more of Andrew Lansdown’s work at andrewlansdown.com
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