mythology and religion in art

[ftil]

I have decided to open a new tread. I want to explore mythology and religion in art. I have moved my posts from Ovid tread as I have a different approach to art and mythology. Paintings have own language and I can't agree with " authority" interpretation. I am not interested in influencing others what I think but I want encourage you to read the language of paintings and ask questions. I can promise that you will have thousands of questions. Religion has always been a source of division. Perhaps, there is freedom from it so that we can bypass it, enjoying unity. I strongly believe that!

PSYCHE was the goddess of the soul, wife of Eros the god of love.

She was once a mortal princess whose astounding beauty earned the ire of Aphrodite when men turned their worship from goddess to girl. Aphrodite commanded Eros make Psyche fall in love with the most hideous of men, but the god himself fell in love with her and carried her away to his secret palace. However Eros hid his true identity, and commanded her never to look upon his face. Psyche was eventually tricked by her jealous sisters into gazing upon the face of god, and he abandoned her. In her despair, she searched throughout the world for her lost love, and eventually came into the service of Aphrodite. The goddess commanded her perform a series of difficult labours which culminated in a journey to the Underworld. In the end Psyche was reunited with Eros and the couple wed in a ceremony attended by the gods.

Psyche was depicted in ancient mosaics as a butterfly winged goddess in the company of her husband Eros. Sometimes a pair of Psyche are portrayed, the second perhaps being their daughter Hedone (Pleasure.)
http://www.theoi.com/Ouranios/Psykhe.html

EROS & PSYCHE

Antakya Museum, Antakya, Turkey Date: C3rd AD
Period: Imperial Roman

SUMMARY

Butterfly-winged Psyche (Soul) steals the bow and arrows of the sleeping dove-winged god Eros (Love).






EROS & PSYCHE

Antakya Museum, Antakya, Turkey,Date: C3rd AD


SUMMARY

The winged god Eros (love personified) stands on the butterfly wings of two Psykhai (Souls) flitting across the sea, driving them with a whip. The two Psykhai of myth were named Psykhe and Hedone.

Psyche in Greek mean soul.

The Abduction of Psyche Adolphe William Bouguereau


Pan and Psyche, Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones



Angelica Kauffmann, The Legend of Cupid and Psyche




Micheal Parkes





Soul in Bondage, Elihu Vedder We see a butterfly again.



Let's look at Morgan art.

The Kingdom of Heaven Suffereth Violence and the Violent Take it by Force, Evelyn De Morgan




Queen Katherine's Dream 2 William Blake








Jacob's Ladder, William Blake







Edward Burne-Jones, The Golden Stairs




The Captives, Evelyn de Morgan





We have a butterfly again and a man with horn. There is a frog on the top of his head. In Egyptian religion the eight deities were arranged in four female-male pairs, the females were associated with snakes and the males were associated with frogs: Naunet and Nu, Amaunet and Amun, Kauket and Kuk, Hauhet and Huh.



Micheal Parkes






Look at butterfly, and a girl with a chain. Who is keeping the key?





Another quite disturbing painting.









Good and Evil Angels Struggling for the Possession of a Child, William Blake






An Angel and a Devil Fighting for the Soul of a Child, Giacinto Gimignani






The Snake Charmer, Jean Léone Gérôme





The Nude Snake Charmer, Paul Desire Trouillebert



Let's look at mythology at god Pan and Satyr.

THE SATYROI (or Satyrs) were rustic fertility daimones (spirits) of the wilderness and countryside. They were close companions of the gods Dionysos, Rheia, Gaia, Hermes and Hephaistos; and mated with the tribes of Nymphai in the mountain wilds.

Satyroi were depicted as animal-like men with the tail of a horse, assine ears, upturned pug noses, reclining hair-lines, and erect members. As companions of Dionysos they were usually shown drinking, dancing, playing tambourines and flutes (the instruments of the Bacchic orgy) and sporting with Nymphai. Men dressed up as Satyroi formed the choruses of the so-called Satyr-plays which were performed at the festivals of the god Dionysos.

Some other closely related rustic spirits include the Panes (goat-legged satyrs), Seilenoi (elderly satyrs), Satyriskoi (child satyrs), and Tityroi (flute-playing satyrs).
http://www.theoi.com/Georgikos/Satyroi.html

DIONYSOS & SATYR
Date: ca 500 - 480 BC

SUMMARY

Dionysos reclines beside a flute playing Satyros. The god holds a drinking cup in his hands and is crowned with a wreath of ivy. The Satyros has the usual features of his kind: horse's tail and ears, pug nose, balding head.

PAN was the god of shepherds and flocks, of mountain wilds, hunting and rustic music. He wandered the hills and mountains of Arkadia playing his pan-pipes and chasing Nymphs. His unseen presence aroused feelings of panic in men passing through the remote, lonely places of the wilds.

The god was a lover of nymphs, who commonly fled from his advances. Syrinx ran and was transformed into a clump of reeds, out of which the god crafted his famous pan-pipes. Pitys escaped and was turned into a mountain fir, the god's sacred tree. Ekho spurned his advances and fading away left behind only her voice to repeat forever the mountain cries of the god.

Pan was depicted as a man with the horns, legs and tail of a goat, and with thick beard, snub nose and pointed ears. He was often appears in the retinue of Dionysos alongside the other rustic gods. Greeks in the classical age associated his name with the word pan meaning "all". However, it true origin lies in an old Arkadian word for rustic.

Pan was frequently identified with other similar rustic gods such as Aristaios, the shepherd-god of northern Greece, who like Pan was titled both Agreus (the hunter) and Nomios (the shepherd); as well as with the pipe-playing Phrygian satyr Marsyas; and Aigipan, the goat-fish god of the constellation Capricorn. Sometimes Pan was multiplied into a host of Panes, or a triad named Agreus, Nomios, and Phorbas.
http://www.theoi.com/Georgikos/Pan.html

PAN & PITYS

Museum Collection: Antakya Museum, Antakya, Turkey
Period: Imperial Roman

SUMMARY

The goat-legged god Pan sneaks up on a sleeping Nymph, probably either Ekho or Pitys. Above her flits a winged Eros (love god).




SUMMARY

Detail of Pan picking grapes from a vase depiction of Dionysos and his retinue.


PAN
Date: C1st AD
Period: Imperial Roman

SUMMARY

The rustic god Pan sits on a mountain rock, playing a set of his namesake pan-pipes. The god is shown with the horns of a goat, but is otherwise human in form. He has an animal skin cloak draped over one arm


Albrecht Durer, 1505











Pan, Louvre. Paris







Lord Leighton's fine illustration from the July 1860 Cornhill Magazine


Pan has changed his appearance.






James Pradier : Satyr and Bacchante





Satyr also looks differently.

Apollo And Marsyas Satyr, Pietro Vannucci




modern art

Micheal Cheval, Magic flute








double post, sorry




The oldest picture of the Pied Piper copied from the glass window of the Market Church in Hameln/Hamelin Germany (c.1300-1633)











Let's look at god Pan

Alexander Pope (21 May 1688 – 30 May 1744) was an 18th-century English poet, best known for his satirical verse and for his translation of Homer.


Alexander Pope

Windsor-Forest

Not proud Olympus yields a nobler sight,
Tho' gods assembled grace his tow'ring height,
Than what more humble mountains offer here,
Where, in their blessings, all those Gods appear.
See Pan with flocks, with fruits Pomona crown'd,
Here blushing Flora paints th' enamel'd ground,
Here Ceres' gifts in waving prospect stand,
And nodding tempt the joyful reaper's hand;
Rich Industry sits smiling on the plains,
And peace and plenty tell, a STUART reigns.


Arnold Böcklin, Nymph on Pan's Shoulders 1874

Peter Paul Rubens, Pan and Syrinx, 1617-1619




Nicolas Poussin, Pan and Syrinx 1637-38





Diana and her Nymphs Surprised by the Fauns, Peter Paul Rubens







Julio Romano





I don't know the name of the artist but it comes from http://witchcraft-supplies.com/Statues_Gods.html

Pan Dancing with Nymphs






Faun and Nixe, Franz von Stuck



So , let's look at transition of god Pan, Satyr and Cupid.

So, Cupid became a dark angel.

Cupid and Psyche, by Jean Baptiste Regnault, (1828)






Cupid and Psyche by ORAZIO GENTILESCHI




Cupid and Psyche, by Benjamin West




Cupid and Psyche by ORAZIO GENTILESCHI





Pan has transformed into a little angel.

Whoever you are, here is your master (or Love the Conquerer) So, Pan/Satyr has become our master????






Sir Burne was more open. Satyr and Pan were was depicted with flute. So, Satyr and Pan became dark angel with red hairs.

Angel, Sir Edward Burne-Jones









Venus and Cupid, Evelyn de Morgan







Angel of Death, Evelyn de Morgan So, dark angel is an angel of death and Cupid transformed into dark angel.







Love, the Misleader Evelyn De Morgan







Elihu Vedder, Angel of Death








Pan's Garden, Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones



Let's look at Zeus.

ZEUS was the king of the gods, the god of sky and weather, law, order and fate. He was depicted as a regal man, mature with sturdy figure and dark beard. His usual attributes were a lightning bolt, royal sceptre and eagle.
http://www.theoi.com/Olympios/Zeus.html

Zeus transformed himself to rape Europa.




EUROPA & THE BULL

Museum Collection: The J Paul Getty Museum, Malibu, Date: ca 340 BC
Period: Late Classical

SUMMARY

Side A: Detail of Europa riding across the sea on the back of the bull-shaped god Zeus.






EUROPA & THE BULL

Museum Collection: Musée de L'Arles Antique, Arles, France
Period: Imperial Roman

SUMMARY

Europa is carried across the sea by the bull-shaped god Zeus.


Rembrandt: THE ABDUCTION OF EUROPA


Titian The Rape of Europa (1562)







Francois Boucher, The Rape of Europa


Francesco Albani , The Rape of Europa






Hendrick De Clerck, The Rape of Europa




The Rape of Europa, Noel-Nicolas Coypel.




Giulio Bonasone After Raphael

The rape of Europa, at right a seated man play pan-pipes, in the centre a woman holds a wreath above the bull's head, ships in the harbour in the background, after Raphael. 1546




Cornelis Schut,,1612-1655
The Rape of Europa. Jupiter as a bull at centre with Europa on his back, surrounded by her companions, Neptune on his chariot at left, putti holding a garland in top right.





The rape of Europa
Giovanni Francesco Rustici (1474-1554)
About 1495 Italy, Florence
Tin-glazed terracotta
composition of this relief derives from ancient Roman gems. It shows the Greek god Zeus, who turned himself into a beautiful white bull so as to abduct Europa and carry her off to Crete. In this frank representation, the bull turns to lick Europas breast.





RICCIO, Il
The Rape of Europa
c. 1520
Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest





Huge marble statue of Europe and the bull from the 19th century in the midst of Hyde Park, London. She represents one of the four continents on the base of the Albert Memorial erected in the Hyde Park in 1876. The sculptor is by P. MacDowell





Karl Hänny (1879-1972): Skulptur "Europa auf dem Stier" (1915-1918), Rosengarten, Bern, Schweiz.





Hannes Grobe
Europa carried away by a bull (bronze sculpture by Lilli Finzelberg). Present given by American citizens to captain Johnssen after completing the maiden voyage of the express-steamer EUROPA in 1930. Deutsches Schiffahrtsmuseum, Bremerhaven, Germany






What about the Bankers & Wall-street cable with bull & Horn Symbolic
















This one is in Hollywood, California:




Ringling Museum of Art in Sarasota, Florida




Zeus i Europa, Consell Europeu, Brusel·les

Léon de Pas, Europe en avant (Zeus and Europe), 1997, Justus Lipsius building, the headquarters of the European Council, Brussels.

ftil wrote:
Hm......I have noticed that Europa is depicted as a mermaid. I have never seen that in other paintings.

stlukesguild wrote:

No... she is wearing a gown or robe on her lower body, but her toes are visible beneath the bull's neck. What might be mistaken for her fish tail is the bull's tail.

What I see when looking at her is something akin to the engraving by René Boyvin. There is a similar muscularity of both the bull and the girl. She has the same gold armband... and there is a similar forshortening... in Beckmann's case the bull thrusts forward in space, in the Boyvin he moves away from us. In both instances there is a sense of powerful sexuality in both Europa and the Bull.

Really, her toes visible....... Am I blind or she has four fingers......not fully human .... a bull tail.....I must be blind LOL!

[OrphanPip]

Really, her toes visible....... Am I blind or she has four fingers......not fully human .... a bull tail.....I must be blind LOL!

The toes are clearly visible...

[YesNo]

The toes are clearly visible...

I agree. I can see the toes clearly.

[ftil]

I didn't see it! I guess I was influenced by a strange painting of Arnold Böcklin.


The Sirens



Let's look at a bull and a cow. There are present in many cultures, Egypt, India, or ancient world. So, a white bull in not only in Greek mythology.

Lord Shiva Sitting on the Bull with Parvati and Ganesha




shiva's bull nandi




Shiva bull




Shiva lingam and bull

The Lingam (also, Linga, Ling, Shiva linga, Shiv ling, Sanskrit लिङ्गं liṅgaṃ, meaning "mark" or "sign") is a representation of the Hindu deity Shiva used for worship in temples.[1] The Lingam has also been considered a symbol of male creative energy or of the phallus.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lingam

The worship of the Sacred Bull throughout the ancient world is most familiar to the Western world in the biblical episode of the idol of the Golden Calf made by people left behind by Moses during visit to mountain peak and worshipped by the Hebrews in the wilderness of Sinai (Exodus). Marduk is the "bull of Utu". Shiva's steed is Nandi, the Bull. The sacred bull survives in the constellation Taurus. The bull, whether lunar as in Mesopotamia and Egypt or solar as in India, is the subject of various other cultural and religious incarnations, as well as modern mentions in new age cultures.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bull_(mythology)

Sculpture of Hathor as a cow.






Hathor as a cow, wearing her necklace and showing her sacred eye – Papyrus of Ani.






Tauroctony of Mithras at the British Museum London






Moloch





An 18th century German illustration of Moloch ("Der Götze Moloch" i.e. Moloch, the false god).


William Blake



The Flight of Moloch

Golden Calf, Nicolas Poussin













The Moscophoros of the Acropolis, ca 570 BCE.







Rhyton in the shape of a bull's head a the Greek pavilion at Expo '88

A rhyton (plural rhytons or, following the Greek plural, rhyta) is a container from which fluids were intended to be drunk, or else poured in some ceremony such as libation. Rhytons were very common in ancient Persia, where they were called takuk (تکوک). The English word rhyton originates in the ancient Greek word ῥυτόν (rhŭtón).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhyton

A libation (Σπονδή spondee in Greek) is a ritual pouring of a drink as an offering to a god orspirit or in memory of those who have died. It was common in many religions of antiquity, including Judaism:
"And Jacob set up a Pillar in the place where he had spoken with him, a Pillar of Stone; and he poured out a drink offering on it, and poured oil on it". (Genesis 35:14)
Libations continue to be offered in various cultures today.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libation

Golden rhyton from Iran's Achaemenid period. Excavated at Ecbatana. Kept at National Museum of Iran.







Griffon's head rhyton, Apulia, c. 350-300 BC






An Urartian silver rhyton from Erebuni

A fascination with a bull hasn't end. Let's look at modern art.


Bradley Platz




Micheal Cheval




The Change


We may also see a bull.



Reincarnation

But we have more bull themes. Let's look at some paintings.




St. Luke.The Four Evangelists. 1464/65. Fresco. Vault of Apsidal Chapel of Sant' Agostino, San Gimignano, Italy



Gentile da Fabriano
1370 - 1427




Giovanni di Paolo


Adoration of the Magi



Stefano da Verona



Adoration of the Magi







Let's look at goddess Artemis/Diana.

ARTEMIS was the great Olympian goddess of hunting, wilderness and wild animals. She was also a goddess of childbirth, and the protectress of the girl child up to the age of marriage. Her twin brother Apollon was similarly the protector of the boy child. Together the two gods were also bringers of sudden death and disease--Artemis targetted women and girls, and Apollon men and boys.

In ancient art Artemis was usually depicted as a girl dressed in a short knee-length chiton and equipped with a hunting bow and quiver of arrows.http://www.theoi.com/Olympios/Artemis.html

The Taurian Artemis. The legends of this goddess are mystical, and her worship was orgiastic and connected, at least in early times, with human sacrifices. According to the Greek legend there was in Tauris a goddess, whom the Greeks for some reason identified with their own Artemis. and to whom all strangers that were thrown on the coast of Tauris, were sacrificed. (Eurip.Iph. Taur. 36.) Iphigeneia and Orestes brought her image from thence, and landed at Brauron in Attica, whence the goddess derived the name of Brauronia. (Paus. i. 23. § 9, 33. § 1, iii. 16, in fin.) The Brauronian Artemis was worshipped at Athens and Sparta, and in the latter place the boys were scourged at her altar in such a manner that it became sprinkled with their blood. This cruel ceremony was believed to have been introduced by Lycurgus, instead of the human sacrifices which had until then been offered to her. (Dict. of Ant. s. v. Braurônia and Diamastigôsis.)

Her name at Sparta was Orthia, with reference to the phallus, or because her statue stood erect. According to another tradition, Orestes and Iphigeneia concealed the image of the Taurian goddess in a bundle of brushwood, and carried it to Aricia in Latium. Iphigeneia, who was at first to have been sacrificed to Artemis, and then became her priestess, was afterwards identified with the goddess (Herod. iv. 103; Paus. i. 43. § 1), who was worshipped in some parts of Greece, as at Hermione, under the name of Iphigeneia. (Paus. ii. 35. § 1.) Some traditions stated, that Artemis made Iphigeneia immortal, in the character of Hecate, the goddess of the moon.
A kindred divinity, if not the same as the Taurian Artemis, is Artemis tauropolos, whose worship was connected with bloody sacrifices, and who produced madness in the minds of men, at least the chorus in the Ajax of Sophocles, describes the madness of Ajax as the work of this divinity. In the legends about the Taurian Artemis, it seems that separate local traditions of Greece are mixed up with the legends of some Asiatic divinity, whose symbol in the heaven was the moon, and on the earth the cow.

http://www.theoi.com/Olympios/Artemis.html

Goddess Artemis

In Greek mythology, Pasiphaë (English: /pəˈsɪfə.iː/; Greek: Πασιφάη Pasipháē), "wide-shining"[1]was the daughter of Helios, the Sun, by the eldest[2] of the Oceanids, Perse;[

She was also the mother of "starlike" Asterion, called by the Greeks the Minotaur, after a curse from Poseidon caused her to experience lust for and mate with a white bull sent by Poseidon. "The Bull was the old pre-Olympian Poseidon,"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pasipha%C3%AB

The offspring of their coupling was the monstrous Minotaur.
Nowhere has the essence of the myth been expressed more succinctly than in the Heroides attributed to Ovid, where Pasiphaë's daughter complains of the curse of her unrequited love: "the bull's form disguised the god, Pasiphaë, my mother, a victim of the deluded bull, brought forth in travail her reproach and burden." Literalist and prurient readings that emphasize the machinery of actual copulation may, perhaps intentionally, obscure the mystic marriage of the god in bull form, a Minoan mythos alien to the Greeks.


The Minotaur, the infamia di Creti, appears briefly in Dante's Inferno, Canto 12,11-15, where, picking their way among boulders dislodged on the slope and preparing to enter into the Seventh Circle, Dante and Virgil, his guide, encounter the beast first among those damned for their violent natures, the "men of blood", though the creature is not actually named until line 25. At Virgil's taunting reminder of the "king of Athens", the Minotaur rises enraged and distracted, and Virgil and Dante pass quickly by to the centaurs, who guard the Flegetonte, "river of blood". This unusual association of the Minotaur with centaurs, not made in any Classical source, is shown visually in William Blake's rendering of the Minotaur (illustration) as a kind of taurine centaur himself.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minotaur

Pasiphae and the Minotaur, Attic red-figure kylix found at Etruscan Vulci (Cabinet des Médailles, Paris)







Nereid riding a sea-bull (latter 2nd century BC)

In Greek mythology, the Nereids (pronounced /ˈnɪəri.ɪdz/ neer-ee-idz; Ancient Greek: Νηρηΐδες) are sea nymphs, the fifty daughters of Nereus and Doris, sisters to Nerites. They often accompany Poseidon and can be friendly and helpful to sailors fighting perilous storms. They are particularly associated with the Aegean Sea, where they dwelt with their father in the depths within a silvery cave. The most notable of them are Thetis, wife of Peleus and mother of Achilles; Amphitrite, wife of Poseidon; and Galatea, love of the Cyclops Polyphemus.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nereid

Sea thiasos Nereid






Sea thiasos Nereid






Sea thiasos Neried






Hippocamp Art Deco fountain, Kansas City, Missouri, (1937)

YesNo wrote:
I was thinking the same thing about Juno.

Also she doesn't stop with Jove's lover or rape victim, but goes after the entire family. This morning I was thinking that something similar happened with Adam and Eve. They ate the fruit Yahweh told them not to eat and so Yahweh removed them from paradise. All their descendents were punished with them. I've never understood why eating the fruit was such a problem, but I can sort of see why being involved, even unwillingly, in a marital dispute between two chief Gods might cause some problems.

I wonder if part of the story is to explain why unfortunate things happen.

I was thinking about Adam and Eve. Let's look at mythology and the Bible.

THE HESPERIDES were the goddesses of the evening and golden light of sunset. The three nymphs were daughters of either Nyx (Night) or the heaven-bearing Titan Atlas. They were entrusted with the care of the tree of the golden apples which was first presented to the goddess Hera by Gaia (Earth) on her wedding day. They were assisted in their task by a hundred-headed guardian drakon named Ladon. Herakles was sent to fetch the apples as one of his twelve labours, and upon slaying the serpent, stole the precious fruit. However, Athena later returned them to the Hesperides.

The Hesperides were also the keepers of other treasures of the god. Perseus obtained from the artifacts he required to slay the Gorgon Medousa.

The three nymphs and their golden apples were apparently regarded as the source of the golden light of sunset, a phenomena celebrating the bridal of the heavenly gods Zeus and Hera.
http://www.theoi.com/Titan/Hesperides.html

THE HESPERIDES

Museum Collection: British Museum, London, UK
Date: ca 420 - 410 BC
Period: Classical

SUMMARY

Side A: Detail of the three Hesperides, the tree of the Golden Apples and the coiling Drakon. The larger scene depicts the arrival of Medea and the Argonauts in the garden, on their return to Greece from Kolkhis.
Side B: The rape of the Leukippides (other image)

ARTICLESHesperides, Hesperian Drakon





A HERAKLES & THE HESPERIDES

Museum Collection: Museo Arqueológico Nacional, Madrid, Spain
Date: C3rd AD
Period: Imperial Roman

SUMMARY

The Twelve Labours of Herakles: the hero plucks the golden apples from the tree of the Hesperides. He wields a club against the guardian drakon coiled around the trunk.




Adam and Eve, Raphael








Michelangelo - The Fall of Man and the Expulsion from the Garden of Eden



Titian The Fall of Man



Let's look at the judgement of Paris.

At about this time the wedding of Peleus and Thetis, the hero and the sea-goddess, was celebrated on Mount Pelion. All the gods and goddesses were invited, with the noted exception of Eris, the Goddess of Strife, who was hideous and disagreeable. Angered at being left out of the nuptuals she strode into the middle of the wedding feast and threw a golden apple into the assembled company. It landed between the three most powerful goddesses, Hera, Athene and Aphrodite. Picking it up, Zeus found it was inscribed ‘For the Fairest’. Wisely deciding not to judge between the three deities himself, Zeus nominated the beautiful Paris as arbiter, but first he sent Hermes to enquire whether he would be willing to act as judge. Paris agreed and so a time was set for the three goddesses to appear to him on Mount Ida.

When the day came, Paris sat himself on a boulder and waited with beating heart for the arrival of the three great deities. All at once a great light appeared which covered the entire mountain. At first Paris was blinded, but then the goddesses cloaked their light in cloud so that he was able to look at them. First Hera, the great queen, approached him and flaunted her beauty in front of him. Radiant with glory she made him a promise. If he awarded her the apple, she would grant him wealth and power. He would rule over the greatest kingdom on earth. Paris felt the excitement of this and his ambition rose up and yearned for her gift.
After that, grey-eyed Athene approached him, drawing near and bending down, so that he might look into the magical depths of her eyes. She promised him victory in all battles, together with glory and wisdom - the three most precious gifts a man could have. This time Paris felt his mind leap with excitement and with desire for the riches of knowledge and the glory of prowess.
Then it was the turn of Aphrodite. Hanging back a little, she tilted her head so that her hair fell forward, concealing a blush on her face. Then she loosened the girdle of her robe and beneath it, Paris caught sight of her perfectly formed breast, white as alabaster.

Paris,’ she said, and her voice seemed to sing inside his head. ‘Give me the apple and in return I will give you the gift of love. You will possess the most beautiful woman in the land, a woman equal to me in perfection of form. With her you will experience the greatest delights of love-making. Choose me, Paris, and she will be yours.’

Then Paris, overpowered by the intoxication of her words and her beauty, found himself handing her the apple without even pausing to reflect on his decision, guided only by the strength of his desire.

So it was that Paris awarded the Apple of Discord to Aphrodite, and Hera and Athene became his implacable enemies. True to her promise, Aphrodite gave him Helen, the most beautiful woman living on the earth at that time - but, in order to enjoy her, he had to snatch her from her powerful husband, Menelaus. So began the terrible ten-years’ war between the Trojans and the Greeks in which many a brave hero lost his life, including Paris himself, and after which the great hero Odysseus wandered the seas for a further ten long years before returning home.
http://www.livingmyths.com/Greek.htm

The Judgement of Paris, Peter Paul Rubens







The Judgement of Paris, Joachim Wtewael.





he Judgement of Paris, William Blake






The Judgement of Paris, Paul Cézanne






The Judgement of Paris , Niklaus Manuel






The Judgement of Paris, Hendrick von Balen




http://www.philipresheph.com/demodokos/helen/helen8.jpg

The Judgement of Paris
Engraving after Raphael
Marcantonio Raimondic. 1516






Salvador Dali, The Judgment of Paris






The Judgment of Paris, The Hague, Geneva and Brussels contest for the Golden Apple of the League of Nations

[YesNo]

I recall you mentioned that the snake was representative of the female and the frog the male in Eqyptian religion. Do you think this idea is involved in the Genesis story with the interaction between the snake and Eve?

[ftil]

I recall you mentioned that the snake was representative of the female and the frog the male in Eqyptian religion. Do you think this idea is involved in the Genesis story with the interaction between the snake and Eve?

It is a good question. Let's look where we can find snakes.





Goddess Tara Buddhism






Astarte







(a) The mother-goddess standing upon a lioness (which is her Sekhet form): she is wearing her girdle, and upon her head is the moon and the cow's horns, conventionalized so as to simulate the crescent moon. Her hair is represented in the conventional form which is sometimes used as Hathor's symbol. In her hands are the serpent and the lotus, which again are merely forms of the goddess herself.

(b) Another picture of Astarte (from Roscher's "Lexikon") holding the papyrus sceptre which at times is regarded as an animate form of the mother-goddess herself and as such a thunder weapon.

Astarte's name also occurs in the Hebrew Bible as part of a place name, Ashteroth Karnaim, karnaim meaning "of the two horns" (Genesis 14:5). Ashteroth Karnaim, perhaps the "full old name of the city," (Patai 1990:57), was probably a temple center whereAstarte was worshiped as a two-horned deity. In support of this suggestion, Patai points to a mold from a shrine in Israel depicting a goddess with two horns. Dated between the eighteenth and the sixteenth centuries BCE, the mold shows a naked goddess in a high, conical hat. She has two horns, one on each side of her head (Patai 1990:57, Plate 9).

Known in the ancient Levant as Ashtart and in the Hebrew Bible as Ashtereth, the beautiful Astarte may owe many of her characteristics to Mesopotamian Ishtar, as the similarity in their names proclaims. Like Ishtar, Astarte seems to have had strong connections with both war and love/sexuality. In historical times, she received offerings in ancient Ugarit in Syria; her name appears forty-six times in texts from that city. One of her main centers was Byblos, where she was identified with Egyptian goddesses Hathor and Isis. In the second millennium BCE, Astarte was, like Anat, a war goddess of the Egyptians (Patai 1990:56). Large numbers of ancient Israelites revered her, and versions of her name occur at least nine times in the Hebrew Bible. She was also an important deity of the Phoenician towns of Tyre and Sidon, whence she and her veneration spread with Phoenician merchants throughout the Mediterranean (Patai 1990:55-66).

http://www.matrifocus.com/IMB04/spotlight.htm

The people of Phoenicia worshiped Baal. Baalism included the worship of Molech with fiery sacrifices of children and the worship of Astarte, the Phoenician Ishtar Queen of Heaven.

She is the Deity of the Planet Venus and a Fertility Goddess, and Her cult was known throughout the ancient world for its practice of temple prostitution.

Watson’s Biblical and Archaeological Dictionary, 1833:

She was certainly represented in the same manner as Isis, with cow’s horns on her head, to denote the increase and decrease of the moon. Cicero calls her the fourth Venus of the Syrians.
It is believed that the moon was adored in this idol. Her temples generally accompanied those of the sun; and while bloody sacrifices or human victims were offered to Baal, bread, liquors, and perfumes were presented to Astarte.

As early as the twenty-fifth century B.C., people of Ur of the Chaldees in Sumeria worshiped a mother-goddess named Ishtar. Around the same time the Minoans of Crete had a mother-goddess portrayed with “her divine child Velchanos” in her arms.

Later, the people of Cyprus revered a goddess who appeared to have been patterned after the Sumerian Ishtar and later adopted by the Greeks as Aphrodite, or Astarte.The Babylonians, who conquered Sumeria around the twenty-second century B.C., related their religious beliefs to the heavenly bodies. They regarded the planets as gods and goddesses and equated the planet Venus with the Sumerian mother-goddess Ishtar.The Babylonians worshiped Ishtar as “The Virgin,” “The Holy Virgin,” “The Virgin Mother,” “Goddess of Goddesses,” and “Queen of Heaven and Earth.” They exclaimed, “Ishtar is great! Ishtar is Queen! My Lady is exalted, my Lady is Queen…There is none like unto her.”

It appears that the Sumerian-Babylonian Ishtar was the counterpart of the Egyptian Isis and the model for the Grecian Aphrodite, Roman Venus, Assyrian Nina, Phrygian and Roman Cybele, Phoenician Astarte, and Astarte of Syria. In essence they were the same mother-goddess

http://1phil4everyill.wordpress.com/...mother-of-god/

Astarte's name was first recorded about 1478 BC, but her cult was firmly established by then. The cult spread westward from Phoenicia into Greece, Rome, and as far as the British Isles. Prophets of the Old Testament condemned her worship because it included sexual rituals, and sacrifices of firstborn children and newborn animals to her.

Her other counterparts are Isis, Hathor of Egypt, Kali of India, and Aphrodite and Demeter of Greece

Some scholars hold Astarte was a prototype of the Virgin Mary. Their theory is based on the ancient Syrian and Egyptian rituals of celebrating Astarte's rebirth of the solar god on December 25th. A cry was heard that the Virgin had brought forth a newborn child, which was exhibited. Sir James Frazer in the Golden Bough writes, "No doubt the Virgin who thus conceived and bore a son on the twenty-fifth of December was the great Oriental goddess whom the Semites called the Heavenly Virgin or simply the Heavenly Goddess, in Semitic lands she was a form of Astarte." The theory that credits Astarte as being a prototype of the Virgin Mary made be given creditability by many who accept that Christ was born on December 25th; but not by those who do not believe this was the date of Christ's birth, and say the exact date is unknown. A.G.H.
http://www.themystica.com/mythical-f...s/astarte.html

Today she is the second name in an energy chant sometimes used in Wicca: "Isis, Astarte, Diana, Hecate, Demeter, Kali, Inanna."

http://www.egyptiandreams.co.uk/astarte.php

Goddess Isis Egypt










Goddess Isis









God Shiva India






Tarot card






Evelyn de Morgan



God Hermes






















Baphomet

[ftil]

This is the Roman hand of Power. The hand as an amulet, can be traced back as far as 800 BC. The ring finger and pinky are bent down to reveal only the thumb, index finger and middle finger. It's also similar to the Benediction gesture.






St. Louis caduceus












Alchemical illustration involving the caduceus. Woodcut from Johann Sternhals Ritter-Krieg, Erfurt, 1595.






Modern depiction of the caduceus as the symbol of commerce.

[ftil]

Lilith (Hebrew: לילית‎; lilit, or lilith) is a character in Jewish mythology, found earliest in the Babylonian Talmud (completed between 500 and 700 AD/CE), who is generally thought to be related to a class of female demons Līlīṯu in Mesopotamian texts.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lilith

Lilith, John Collier

[ftil]

Aleister Crowley ( /ˈkroʊli/; 12 October 1875 – 1 December 1947), born Edward Alexander Crowley, and also known as both Frater Perdurabo and The Great Beast, was an influential English occultist, astrologer, mystic and ceremonial magician, responsible for founding the religious philosophy of Thelema. He was also successful in various other fields, including mountaineering, chess and poetry. In his role as the founder of the Thelemite philosophy, he came to see himself as the prophet who was entrusted with informing humanity that it was entering the new Aeon of Horus in the early twentieth century.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aleister_Crowley

[YesNo]

Here is a link to an article about the Minoan Snake Goddess: http://www.pantheon.org/articles/m/m...e_goddess.html

The snake is apparently wise knowing the herbs that lead to rebirth and resurrection.

Anyway with Isis on the west and Ishtar to the east and both being more ancient that the story of Genesis which I understand was constructed around 950 BCE, I suspect the snake was linked to Eve in the minds of the early hearers of the story.

[ftil]

Here is a link to an article about the Minoan Snake Goddess: http://www.pantheon.org/articles/m/m...e_goddess.html

The snake is apparently wise knowing the herbs that lead to rebirth and resurrection.

Anyway with Isis on the west and Ishtar to the east and both being more ancient that the story of Genesis which I understand was constructed around 950 BCE, I suspect the snake was linked to Eve in the minds of the early hearers of the story.

Thanks. I didn't know about Minoan Snake goddess. Hm.....Eve was only in the Bible. I think that it is interesting that snakes were present in many religions. I am asking who really wrote those teachings. LOL!

I have forgotten about Athena.

ATHENE (or Athena) was the great Olympian goddess of wise counsel, war, the defence of towns, heroic endeavour, weaving, pottery and other crafts. She was depicted crowned with a crested helm, armed with shield and spear, and wearing the snake-trimmed aigis cloak wrapped around her breast and arm, adorned with the monstrous head of the Gorgon.
http://www.theoi.com/Olympios/Athena.html

ATHENA

Museum Collection: Antikenmuseen, Berlin, Germany
Date: ca 525 BC
Period: Archaic

SUMMARY

Detail of Athene from a depiction of Herakles and Apollon struggling over the Delphic tripod. The goddess has a prominent Gorgon's head set in the shoulder of her aigis - a snake-trimmed protective cloak. She also holds a shield and spear, and wears a high-crested helm upon her head.

[ftil]

It is not the end with snakes.

THE DRAKONES OF MEDEA were a pair of winged, serpentine Drakones which drew the flying chariot of the witch Medea. She summoned them to escape from Korinthos following the murder of King Kreon, his daughter Kreousa and her own children by Jason.

http://www.theoi.com/Ther/DrakonesMedea.html

Ovid, Metamorphoses 7. 350 & 391 ff :
"Had she [Medea] not soared away with her winged Serpentes [from Thessalia following the murder of King Pelias], she surely must have paid the price. Aloft, over the peak of shady Pelion . . . she fled, and over Othrys . . . [Until] at last, borne on her Vipereae’s [Drakones’] wings, she [Medea] reached Ephyra [Korinthos], Pirene’s town . . . But when her witch’s poison had consumed the new wife [Jason’s new wife Glauke], and the sea on either side had seen the royal palace all in flames, her wicked sword was drenched in her son’s blood; and, winning thus a mother’s vile revenge, she fled from Jason’s sword. Her Dracon team, the Dracones Titaniaci [Titan-Drakones], carried her away to Palladiae [the city of Athens]."

THE FLIGHT OF MEDEA

Museum Collection: Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, Ohio, USA
Date: ca 400 BC
Period: Late Classical

SUMMARY

Detail of Medea fleeing from Korinthos in a flying, serpent-drawn chariot. In the rest of the scene her children lay slain on the altar, while Glauke burns in the palace beside her father King Kreon.

[ftil]

We can't forget about Hydra.

HYDRA LERNAIA was a gigantic, nine-headed water-serpent, which haunted the swamps of Lerna. Herakles was sent to destroy her as one of his twelve labours, but for each of her heads that he decapitated, two more sprang forth. So with the help of Iolaos, he applied burning brands to the severed stumps, cauterizing the wounds and preventing regeneration. In the battle he also crushed a giant crab beneath his heel which had come to assist Hydra. The Hydra and the Crab were afterwards placed amongst the stars by Hera as the Constellations Hydra and Cancer.

Seneca, Medea 700 ff :
"[The witch Medea summons poisonous serpents with a spell invoking the names of the great Drakones :] `In answer to my incantations let Python come . . . Let Hydra return and every serpent cut off by the hand of Hercules, restoring itself by its own destruction. Thou, too, ever-watchful dragon [of the Golden Fleece].'"


Ovid, Metamorphoses 9. 192 ff :
"The Hydra’s gain from loss, with doubled strength, was all in vain [i.e. against the might of Herakles]."

Ovid, Heroides 9. 87 ff (trans. Showerman) (Roman poetry C1st B.C. to C1st A.D.) :
"[Herakles] told of the deeds . . . The fertile serpent that sprang forth again from the fruitful wound, grown rich from her own hurt."
http://www.theoi.com/Ther/DrakonHydra.html

HERAKLES & THE HYDRA

Museum Collection: The J Paul Getty Museum, Malibu, California, USA
Date: ca 525 BC
Period: Archaic

SUMMARY

Herakles and his squire Iolaos battle the nine-headed Hydra. Iolaos tends a fire ready to cauterize the neck stumps of the serpent.





HERAKLES & THE HYDRA

Museum Collection: Regional Archaeological Museum, Palermo, Italy
Date: 450 - 500 BC
Period: Classical

SUMMARY

Side A: Herakles and Iolaos battle the Hydra. The serpent is depicted as thick-bodied brute, with twelve heads sprouting fromits trunk. Ioloas is ready to apply a torch to its severed heads.

[ftil]

Let's look at Medusa. More snakes .

Quintus Smyrnaeus, Fall of Troy 5. 38 ff (trans. Way) (Greek epic C4th A.D.) :
"[Depicted on the shield of Akhilleus (Achilles):] There were the ruthless Gorgones: through their hair horribly serpents coiled with flickering tongues."


Ovid, Metamorphoses 4. 770 ff (trans. Melville) (Roman epic C1st B.C. to C1st A.D.) :
"[Medousa] was violated in Minerva's [Athena's] shrine by the Lord of the Sea (Rector Pelagi) [Poseidon]. Jove's [Zeus'] daughter turned away and covered with her shield her virgin's eyes. And then for fitting punishment transformed the Gorgo's lovely hair to loathsome snakes."

Ovid, Metamorphoses 6. 119 ff :
"As a bird, [Medousa] the snake-tressed mother of the flying steed [Pegasos] [was seduced by Poseidon]."

GORGONEION

Museum Collection: British Museum,
Date: ca 460 BC
Period: Late Archaic / Early Classical

SUMMARY

A Gorgoneion (Gorgon's head). The rounded face of the Gorgon is depicted with large staring eyes, studded ears, a broad tusked mouth and protruding tongue. It is surrounded by a ring of coiled serpents





PERSEUS & MEDOUSA

Museum Collection: Antikensammlungen, Munich, Germany
Date: ca 490 BC
Period: Late Archaic

SUMMARY

Detail of Medousa, from a scene depicting her flight from the hero Perseus. Her rounded face is monstrous, with wide tusked mouth, protruding tongue, staring eyes, and head circled by a ring of coiled serpents.



GORGON

Museum Collection: Musée du Louvre, Paris, France
Date: ca 550 - 500 BC
Period: Archaic

SUMMARY

A striding Gorgon is depicted with double wings, a broad round face, wide mouth, protruding tongue, beard, staring eyes, and head of serpentine locks.

Gustav Klimt, Minerva




A lot of similarities with goddess Kali.








Let's look at modern art.

Andrius Kovelinas





















We see a butterfly again.




Rolling Stones Riding the Tongue.It is not subliminal any more,isn't it ?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pAc1sBrQa4w

[Buh4Bee]

I'm glad that you brought this over to a new thread. This is so awesome to look at as I read. Hopefully, I can make some intelligent connections as I am on the summer slosh brain. Haha!