Far-Shooting Apollo

☀️Far-Shooting Apollo☀️

The idea for this arose a while (and by while I mean about 4 months) ago, when we were reading the Exposition of the Iliad in class.

I wanted to depict the scene in Book one where Apollo sends a plague to afflict the Acheans by shooting first the mules and dogs, then the men, after Agamemnon denied the release of the priest-daughter Chryseis to her father.

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(Close-Up Time!)

This took me a while to finish, oddly enough not because of the central figure ir the foliage, but rather because I just couldn't make the colours work out the way I wanted them to. Even now it look a bit dull to me. I guess that's what I get for not planning out a proper colour scheme. It also feels a bit weird to work in a different format if you, like me, usually paint on a 1x1 canvas. You do get used to it in a short amount of time, however.

But, putting all that aside, I do like the way the central figure especially turned out in regards to shading and anatomy. Also, the plants look kinda nice.

(Close-ups)

Just a bit of messing around with colours.

(Reddish Orange and desaturated Green is not a combination I expected to work out, but it kinda did)

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(More Zoom-Ins for some details)

“Ephemeral Shell”

This painting (especially regarding the flower imagery) is vaguely inspired by the so-called “Schnitterlied”, an originally anonymous (tho later published, revised and quoted by several authors in the following centuries) German poem/song, dealing with fleeting nature of the material compared to the eternal nature of the soul (as appears to be quite common in texts of this era). I came across it when revising for my school finals (which I am still somewhat in the middle of, hence also the recent lack of posts, sorry).

(Close-Ups)

🌾 Demeter and Persephone 🌾

I guess springtime got me thinking about the two of them, which is kind of ironic since this painting is set just before Persephone's departure into the underworld.

I also thought the mother-daughter relationship and Demeter's grief at her daughter's marriage/ metaphorical "death" (as described in the Homeric Hymn to Demeter) would be interesting to explore artistically.

(Close-ups)

Blessed King of Longing

I tried to put a bit more thought into the colours and I must say that I am quite happy with the result.

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Close-ups: