The Star II

The Star 2 - oil on canvas - 100 x 70 cm - 2023

Sometimes I revisit older works.This one has been repainted larger and with more attention to detail. This is "The Star", part of my first exploration of the themes found in the Tarot and one of my favourite cards. It is made with gold paint of different hues reminiscent of the old tarots of Visconti that inspired me so much. She represents for me a portal, a gateway to the higher worlds and stands here as a guard. Her head dress and its colour are a nod to the gracious works or Fra Angelico, one of my favourite Italian painters  from the early Renaissance.

The two jars represent the two rivers, the river of remembering and the river of forgetting that were seen in ancient times to be found in the underworld. To drink from one or the other determined weather you would be reborn again here on earth or progress into the heavenly realms of the immortals, the Elysian fields. These themes are known to us from Greek myth but reflect more ancient themes found in the oldest layers of Sumerian mythology related to the cycles of life, death, rebirth and reincarnation. As such the Star is part of the cycle of Inanna and later the Greek Demeter which are closely related to initiation rituals and the mysteries of rebirth. By the Renaissance, she came to represent hope, spring time and new life, turning into a nymph who guarded two springs. We can see clearly then how themes subtly change but the underlying symbolism remains preserved throughout the ages.