TWO Birthdays!

[whiteling]

A Very Happy Birthday to
Mr. Johnny Depp
and
siriuss3 !!

I hope you both have a most enjoyable day! Luck and success for your new year to come!

What would be more obvious than to post a piece of art for an artist's birthday? A piece of art with Johnny in it to boot?
Dear Siriuss, I hope you will forgive me that I took the shortcut and made a photomanip for you

Comments

[truehobbit]

Oooh, dishy! :D

LOLOL, great job, Whiteling! (Though I'd have wished Johnny had longer hair... ;) )

I think the riddle in this case was something like:
If you were hit on by a topless female whose lower body happened to be that of a lion, what would you do...?
;)

[whiteling]

Oh thank you! *bows*
I think Johnny with *short* hair looks all the weirder in that classical surrounding. ;-)

If you were hit on by a topless female whose lower body happened to be that of a lion, what would you do...?
That was certainly a question of paramountcy for any ancient guy! LOL!

[mechtild]

Ha ha ha! This is so droll, Whiteling. What would Moreau think? (I know what he'd think: "Hey, I wonder if this beautiful man might sit for me?") But Johnny had better be careful; the clawed foot of that sphinx is near some very tender flesh. That swath of silk won't afford much protection if she becomes too forward.

You know, until looking at your manip, I never before noticed the hand and foot at the bottom. What a brilliant detail, and so well rendered.

Thanks for posting the source image, too, Whiteling. The Wikipedia copy is much better than the one I had in my files.

[whiteling]

Thanks, Mechtild!
I wonder how the Sphinx manages it anyway to sit on Mr. Johnny Oedipus like that... if she does it with the aid of her claws... then outch! And in this sensitive area to boot... uh-uh.

I really love Moreau's painting, it's super detailed and the colours are so rich.
Do you happen to know the Oedipus/Sphinx version of Belgian painter Fernand Khnopff from 1896? It's called "The Sphinx", or, "The Caresses" (I like the German title even better "Die Zärtlichkeit der Sphinx, meaning literally "The Tenderness of the Sphinx")
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/21/Fernand_Khnopff_002.jpg

I saw it years ago at an exhibition about the history of psychoanalysis and was awfully impressed with it. Though I find the hind limbs of the Sphinx quite strange and the head doesn't look a bit odd, it's a fascinating image nevertheless!

[mechtild]

Ooooh, I have seen that Khnopff, Whiteling, but I never realized the leopard-person was supposed to be a sphinx. I think I never saw it with its title.

No wonder they used it at the exhibition. The two faces look like versions of the same face. Is the point that the sphinx is the part of a person that demands the truth or an answer from us, not to destroy us but to make us rise to full potential, thus from love? Or something like that? (I'm grasping at straws here.) :)

[whiteling]

Gosh, I love your interpretation, Mechtild! I agree!

Another, more psychoanalytical interpretation could be that we see a mother's (the Sphinx figure) last tender savouring the innocent love to her child (Oedipus), before it loses this innocence in the process what Freund called the oedipal phase. Freud said: "His [Oedipus'] destiny moves us only because it might have been ours -- because the oracle laid the same curse upon us before our birth as upon him. It is the fate of all of us, perhaps, to direct our first sexual impulse towards our mother and our first hatred and our first murderous wish against our father. Our dreams convince us that this is so."

I tend to think that the conflict is more of a symbolic nature than Freud claimed; interestingly, the Khnoff painting was created one year before Freud came up with his Oedipus theory. Maybe a case of synchronicity?

[saturnine3]

OH MY GOD !!!!
I love this ... *muwwah* *giant hugs*
Thanks a lot ... Thanks a Zillion for this!! i know it's not the traditional art.. You are a wonderful traditional art artist!! i'm glad you remembered me... on this day!!

YES!! It's my lucky strike to share the birthday with Mr. Depp, same day, same month and year.. i envy him.. He looks barely 30, even when we are both 46 this year! have you seen a pic of him sunbathing, only in his little undies.. and the one of him wearing sarong, on a boat? GUH!!! the man looks awesome.. not an ounce of fat on him. perfectly toned skin..

How can he look 20 years younger? special diet? supplementary food? exercise.. yoga?

GUH!! i'm dumbfounded.. sorry for the rant!
..anyway!! thanks again for the wish!! love this photo manip!

XD!!

[whiteling]

:-D --- I'm glad you like my little photoshop fiddeling!
Johnny must have found the fountain of youth somewhere, no? His looks are unbelievable!! And you know what's the best - he looks as if he lived a deeply satisfying and fulfilling life, there is a glow of happiness that comes from within (in addition to his gorgeous outside!) and to see this glow makes me happy. Bless him.
And bless you, of course! :-)
*huggles you back*