Bonne et belle assez...

[helaine85]

"We sat on the edge of the waves that day and made sandcastles, the greatest palaces we could manage, and what we didn't have in skill we made up for in imagination. The day was white hot and gritty, and you pushed the damp sand around in your hands, cool and wet, like some kind of salve. You made it into a heart, lumpy with thumbprints and a

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[x5927alpha]

Hello again. I am here requesting your help on my Art History paper. I need to talk about the sybolism found in the piece of art I showed you in GLBT class, and since you know about Christian Sybolism, I thought maybe you could help me out with it.

Here is the link to the picture.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Where.jpg

So far, I know there is a Garden of Eden kind of thing going on, and the picture reads from right to left, like in asian cultures. I also know that it symbolizes the phases of life (ie: childhood, youth, middle age, old).

Hopefully you have something you can add.

Heather

[x5927alpha]

Crap...I'm an idiot. It's Symbolism.

Heather

[helaine85]

I got some help from my mom in figuring this one out, since the symbols used to depict Christian themes weren't all western, and thus they were a little confusing at first. Basically it seems to be split in half; on the right side of the painting you have a lot of positive images: in the top corner you have a tree of life and a sort of creation story going on. In the bottom corner there's a nativity scene. The baby is Christ, who's sitting in what appears to be the fount/river of life (referred to in Revelations), the two women are probably Mary and a mid-wife, and the person who's turned away is very similar to depictions of Joseph, who usually looks very ashamed in nativity scenes (because his wife conceived a child that wasn't his). I'm not sure who the two women in the shadow are, but they could be Ruth and Naomi, Mary and Mary Magdelin, or Mary and Elizabeth. (If you want to know the stories behind all of them, ask me, but I think I'll leave it out for now.) And finally there's clearly someone being baptized

[x5927alpha]

Thanks a lot...I can actually use some of that. But now I have to find a way to use this convorsation as a source...arg. See you later, when I pester you for more help, or today, when I see you for the GLBT class.

Heather