Acrylic on Canvas, 4x3ft, 2007, class: Intermediate Painting
Assignment to study the use of space of some great master, and use space in the same way. I was thinking about Phil Hale when I started this, but I wasn't actually looking at his work at any time while I did this, or actually trying to copy his techniques. Because I am a terrible, hubristic artist.
Anyway! This is...about a complete 180 from how I usually work. It's all smudges and blends and transparent oozings of paint...I painted a lot of this with my hands. I'm sure I was the very picture of the frenzied, possessed artist. So funny, because I'm known for being so calculating and exact with my work. XD
...This is the battle of Hermes against Argos Panoptes, the monstrous guardian of the garden of Hera, where Io was kept imprisoned.
Now, Io was a priestess of Hera, but she caught the attention of ever-lusty Zeus. To hide her from his jealous wife, Zeus transformed his lover into a snow-white cow, and spirited her away to Egypt, where he'd come to visit her in the form of a bull. Hera was not so easily deceived, however, and her wrath followed even to that distant land, where she made capture of the cow-girl.
Hera placed Io in her own garden, to taunt Zeus with the fact. A guardian was appointed, the giant Argos Panoptes, a monster with a hundred eyes, so that there would always be an alert gaze on the place.
Zeus called his son, Hermes, to steal Io back again, for Hermes is the god of thieves, of spies, of tricks and cunning, the goer-inbetween-of-places. He came up to the garden in disguise, but Argos was alert. But Hermes bore a magic wand, the kerkyion, which has power over sleep. With this, he shut the eyes of the monster, one by one, and meanwhile drew his crooked sword for the fight.
It was an epic battle, for there were so many eyes that even Maia's swift-footed son could not make them all blink at once. Sparkling ikor--which is the blood of gods--flowed out from both and stained the earth below. At last, though, Hermes was triumphant, and afterwards he bore the surname Argeiphontes--which means the slayer of Argos.
Hera grieved her loss of the fight, but she honored Argos for his greatness, and set his hundred eyes upon her sacred bird, the peacock, where they never blink. And as the birds roamed the palaces of Olympos, it was to remind Zeus that his wife was always watching...
But he didn't really care.
...I love Payne's Grey, by the way. This sucker is, like, all Payne's Grey, Burnt Sienna, and Titanium White. An unexpectedly muted painting of Hermes fighting a giant peacock monster! XD
