Oedipus Coming Upon The Dead Body Of His Mother IocasteAfter First Watching The 1957 Production By Tyrone

„Oedipus coming upon the dead body of his mother Iocaste” After first watching the 1957 production by Tyrone Guthrie and subsequently reading a translation of the play as written by Sophocles, I felt like painting something related to this story and the scene of Oedipus seeing his mothers corpse (although not outright shown in the actual play, but relayed by a messenger) struck me as particularly affecting.

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+ Bonus Snake:

Orestes and Erinys

A bit over a month ago I had to give a short presentation on Aischylos‘ Oresteia as part of my coursework and reading it gave me the idea for this piece.

Specifically, it is referencing lines 1057-1058 of the Libation Bearers, where, for the first time, Orestes is seeing the Furies.

(The text does explicitly describe blood dripping from the Furies’ eyes, but when I noticed this, the idea of a blood-covered face had already developed, and I chose to keep it. Also I didn’t have the time or patience to paint more than two figures, so I suppose you can imagine the rest of the Furies somewhere off-screen or something)

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“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).

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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.

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St. Sebastian and St. Irene of Rome

The motif of Saint Sebastian perforated by arrows is in itself quite common, but I found far less depictions of the scene that followed, involving the widowed Saint Irene and her servant rescuing him from this martyrdom (only for him to be martyred again later lol), so I decided to try my hand at it.

Besides, I wanted to paint something with more anatomical detail, as I have been quite lacking behind in doing actual studies and involving it in an actual painting makes anatomy more interesting to me.

I feel it necessary to note that I myself am not religious, but growing up in a historically somewhat catholic area and having an interest in religions and mythologies must've imbued me with a certain interest in the imagery, I guess.

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Another painting! (Am I actually starting to develop a consistent artstyle??)

I felt in the mood to create some Greek mythology related stuff again, so I painted this portrait of Selene, goddess/personification of the moon.

Both the colour scheme and the motive are somewhat inspired by Jules Louis Machards artwork depicting Selene.

I aimed for a somewhat 'soft', 'warm' look, so I avoided stark contrasts, especially in the face and kept the clothing relatively plain, as not to distract with any complicated pattern.

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