Friday, March 19, 2010

Persian Angel of Immortality




"Ameretat" means "immortality" in ancient Persian. The Immortal of Immortality is the first of the three female allegorical figures in the seven Amesha Spentas. I depict her as a young woman, the "Maiden" of the Three Ages of Woman.

Ameretat's guardianship is the creation of Plants, which are essential to our lives. Plants are kind of immortal, perishing in the individual but lasting forever from seed to growth to seed. Naturally, her color is Green. All the plants in this picture are copied from ancient Persian and Assyrian carvings. The evergreen tree to the bottom left in the painting represents the "Zoroastrian Sarv," a sacred cypress tree in Iran that is said to be over 4,000 years old. In Iranian Zoroastrian rituals to this day, priests hold branches of evergreen as they pray.

I did this picture after a visit to Florida. I was fascinated by the vegetation there, so different from what I was used to. Both the Middle East and Florida are home to palm trees. I tried to capture the feeling of Florida in the background of the Green Immortal.

"Ameretat" is acrylic on illustration board, 8" x 14", February 1998.

An extra note: Many thanks to Tristan Alexander for his faithful visits and comments on this blog. I have no idea who else is looking, but it's nice to know there's at least one. Also, this is the second anniversary of the beginning of this blog. "Art By-Products" is now two years old.

1 comment:

Tristan Alexander said...

I really love this one. The greens and all the detail work just make it very plesant and overall a great picture!

You are welcome, I wish I had more commenting on my Weble as well, but hey, we have each other :)
I am glad you have been doing this blog/weble. I have seen things of yours I have missed over the years and just seeing "you" every day is a treat! (Don't forget you still owe me art cards as trade.)