Metatron, Angel of Mathematics

As you know if you have read many of these posts, I have been working on a Big Painting which has taken up a lot of my time. This major project is now done and presented to its client, so I can now show it. It is a “FuturIkon” in the same series as my Four Archangels of 1996 and my “Our Lady of the Cosmos” from 2002. This is not a By-Product, it is Fine Art, but I'm showing it here anyway.

Metatron is an angelic being from the Kabbalistic tradition, though the name is probably of Greek origin, not Hebrew. Metatron is the leader of all angels, possessing a rank higher than the numerous choirs and echelons of angels and personified concepts. He/she is privileged to stand at the “right hand of God” and lead human beings towards the good. Metatron is not a warrior angel like Michael. Rather, he is thought of as the celestial scribe.

In my futuristic interpretation of Metatron, he/she is not only a scribe or a protector, but the keeper and personification of the most fundamental of sciences, Mathematics. Without mathematics, the world would not exist. Even modern mathematicians and philosophers sometimes say that mathematics existed before the world came to be, an ancient and angelic notion. Therefore I designed the image of Metatron to be built of mathematical symbols and shapes. The Angel’s body and environment is made of forms such as conic sections (parabola, hyperbola, circle, and ellipse),  and trigonometric fundamentals such as a right angle and a 30-60-90 degree triangle as well as an equilateral triangle. There are also exponential curves, straight lines, twisted graphs of relativistic space forming the “wings” of the angel, and a Fibonacci spiral. The Angel holds in her/his hands a diagram from the Kabbalistic tradition called the “Cube of Metatron,” which encompasses, in its intersecting lines, basic solid-geometric forms such as cube, tetrahedron, octahedron, and pyramid. It is also a six-pointed Jewish star.

The Angel stands over a stylized Planet Earth, as well as atmospheric visionary fragments and the blackness of space. The border is composed of many colors of metallic and iridescent paint, reminiscent of many precious metals in a mosaic arrangement. This painting is acrylic on masonite board, 18” x 36”, finished in late June 2012. It took more than eight months to paint. Now, finally, I can present it to you after all this time. Click on the image for a larger view.

By the way, I missed two days' posting on this Blog due to not having any electric power after a destructive storm. It was like living in the 19th century for two days. No air conditioning. Candlelight at night. No phone. No refrigeration. No Internet! I'm glad to have returned to the 21st century.