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

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