Happy Easter! Pictured in the background is Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s ‘The Girlhood of Mary Virgin‘, Rossetti’s first oil painting and the first work to bear the inscription ‘PRB’. His models for this work were his mother, Frances Polidori Rossetti, and sister Christina. For new readers, here’s an explanation of Wombat Friday and don’t miss this post at … Read more
When Psyche is distraught over the loss of her love Eros, she attempts suicide in a river. She survives and the god Pan offers her comfort and advice. Burne-Jones painted this version of Pan and Psyche after his lover, Maria Zambaco, attempted to throw herself in Regent’s Canal in an ugly and embarrassing scene. It … Read more
I love how names from ancient mythology still permeate our language. They do not shrivel and fall away. They persist. Today we use the word psyche to sum up everything that we are. It is our soul, our mind. It is both our conscious and unconscious. Our subconscious fears and troubles lurk in our psyche. … Read more
Head on over to The Kissed Mouth where Kirsty is having a Wildish Wombat Friday in honor of Robert Parry’s new book.
Pre-Raphaelite art has its critics. I feel like many of them don’t actually look at the paintings or consider an artist’s individual work. They give it a cursory glance, assume that it’s all sentimentality and languorous women and then promptly dismiss it. A similar reaction takes place when people think of mythic fiction and fantasy, … Read more
Today I contemplate the floating head of Orpheus. Proper blog post forthcoming, but in the meantime I am pondering myth, beauty and violence. Just like real life, the beautiful and the grotesque often coincide.
Wombats can participate in Mythic March too, you know. Pre-Raphaelites and Fairy Tales are a perfect combination. Beauty, magic, perhaps a hint of danger. So today’s Wombat Friday is all about celebrating Fairy Tales. But first, you have to welcome Kirsty, who shares her first Wombat Friday post at The Kissed Mouth. Now, for your … Read more
A few weeks ago, Grace Nuth posted a beautiful and brilliant idea at Domythic Bliss. In her first post introducing the concept of Mythic March, Grace describes the birth of a simple idea between friends. A seed sown during a message between her and Lisa Stock grew into an alternative to NaNoWriMo, with an emphasis on … Read more