Sunday, April 28, 2019

Three In One Field


Image: "Three In One Field" by Celia Hart.

See also the previous posts:
Ancient and Enigmatic
Sacred
Three Hare Tor

Wednesday, April 24, 2019

The Art of Richard Vyse


Richard Vyse started doing retail advertisement sketches before photography became the preferred advertising medium and has since evolved into painting and other mediums with a particular fascination these days with the male form. What is astounding is that no matter the expressive means/tools he has chosen or the subject matter, Richard is a beacon whose talents have shone brightly year and after year despite the changing times, trends or mediums. We are blessed that this man could not “age out” because formidable talents and his chosen profession are not subject to age.

Richard is a celebrated, published and recognized artist who has been and continues to be exhibited and sold internationally; he is not some faux artiste of the Instagram era whose only claim to fame is followers and likes.

-- Excerpted from “Richard Vyse Talks to Jeffrey Felner
The Kinsey
January 7, 2019













Related Off-site Link: Man Art by Vyse

See also: The Art of David Jester | Aaron Moth | Travis Chantar | Douglas Simonson | Guglielmo Plüschow | Vilela Valentin | Dante Cirquero | Nebojsa Zdravkovic | Brenden Sanborn | Wilhelm von Gloeden | Richard Haines | John MacConnell | Leo Rydell Jost | Jim Ferringer | Juliusz Lewandowski | Felix d'Eon | Herbert List | Joe Ziolkowski

Sunday, April 21, 2019

Easter Bunny or Eostre Hare?


Writes Roger Meyer . . .

Stores in the spring time display all manner of Easter Bunny decorations and pictures and chocolate bunnies along with all of the other trappings of the Easter holiday. Just where did the Easter Bunny come from?

In Egypt there were many gods and goddesses, and they were represented in numerous ways. They were often given an animal form as a symbolic representation. Many were depicted as a human body with an animal or bird head. Many gods and goddesses overlapped the functions of others and earlier tribal goddesses merged over time. An example is Isis, goddess of fertility (and magic and healing), who is known under many names all over the world.

Unut was the Egyptian hare goddess (though she was originally depicted as a snake). Sculptures were discovered in the Men-Kau-Re Valley temple in Egypt which depicted King Men-Kau-Re (grandson of Khufu), the goddess Hathor (the celestial mother of the sun calf), and Hermopolite, or the hare nome, wearing the hare standard. Upper Egyptian nomes, or provinces, were usually represented in the form of a standard. There is an Egyptian hieroglyphic symbol for the hare. The Egyptian word for hare was un which meant "to open" or "the opener." The hare symbol may have been used for the word "to open" because a hare is born with its eyes open. The hare symbolized the opening of the new year and the beginning of new life in the spring at the vernal equinox.

The mythology of ancient people spread all over the world. The Saxon goddess Eostre is synonymous with the Phoenician goddess Astarte, goddess of the moon and the measurer of time. Associating the hare with the moon is thought to be related to the hare's gestation period of one month, and to the hare's nocturnal feeding. The association of hares and the moon can be found all over the world. In China, figures of hares are commonly found at Chinese moon festivals, where they represent fertility. The "hare in the moon" is far more prevalent than the "man in the moon."

In ancient Anglo-Saxon myth, the goddess Eostre/Ostara/Astarte, etc., is associated with the spring and fertility, the moon, and also personifiies greeting the rising sun. To amuse children, Eostre changed her pet bird into a hare that laid brightly colored eggs which the goddess gave to the children. Saxons held the pagan festival for Eostra on the vernal equinox, the beginning of spring.

The Easter Bunny came to America in the 1700s by immigrants from Germany where it had been called "Osterhase" — Oster or Oschter being German for Easter (derived from Eostra, Ishtar, etc.), and hase being the German word for hare.

The word "Easter" is not in any reliable translation of the Bible, though it has been incorrectly translated as Easter (KJV) from the original word pascha, which is Passover. Nor does the Bible have a fertility festival involving a hare laying colored eggs. The Catholic Encyclopedia admits: "The Easter Rabbit [sic] lays the eggs, for which reason they are hidden in a nest or in the garden. The rabbit is a pagan symbol and has always been an emblem of fertility (Simrock, Mythologie, p. 551)."

Source


Image 1: "Eostre and the Hare's Egg" by Wendy Andrew.
Image 2: The Leveret.

See also the previous posts:
Symbol of Enlightenment
Eostre: Goddess of New Life Beginnings
The Goddess Ostara
Remembering Eostre
Celebrating Eostre
Hare at Eastertide
Easter Hare

Related Off-site Link:
The Pagan Roots of Easter – Heather McDougall (The Guardian, April 3, 2010).

Friday, April 12, 2019

In Morning Light


Image: Photographer unknown.

See also the previous posts:
In Morning Light (2016)
Hare's Breath
Hare at Twilight

Friday, April 5, 2019

Lyriq


Lyriq Bent (born January 3, 1979) is a Jamaican-Canadian actor. He is known for his roles in the Saw films, the television series Rookie Blue and TV mini-series The Book of Negroes (left). Bent portrays Jamie Overstreet in the Netflix series by Spike Lee, She's Gotta Have It, based on the film of the same name.

Bent was born in Kingston, Jamaica and moved to Toronto, Ontario, Canada when he was six years old.[1] He grew up in Toronto and later attended Seneca College in North York.

Bent has starred in various lead and supporting roles both in film and television since he began his acting career in the early 2000s. Prior to landing a co-starring role in the drama series Angela's Eyes, he guest starred on the UPN series Kevin Hill opposite Taye Diggs, and USA Network's Kojak opposite Ving Rhames.

Bent attracted further attention when he co-starred in the hit horror films Saw II and Saw III as Officer Daniel Rigg. He later starred as one of the central characters in Saw IV.

From 2010–2014 he co-starred in the Canadian television series Rookie Blue, portraying Staff Sergeant Frank Best.

Bent recently portrayed Chekura Tiano in the television miniseries The Book of Negroes, based on the best-selling novel by Lawrence Hill. For this role, Bent won the award for Best Actor in a Leading Dramatic Role at the 2016 Canadian Screen Awards.

Source












See also the previous posts: Philip | Don | LeBron | Jayjay | Donald | Geremy | Jerome | Solomon | Colin | Luis | Nyle | Philip | Charlie | Sukdeep | Rafael | Mon Bel Ami

Images: Photographers unknown.

Tuesday, April 2, 2019

On Display


See also the previous posts:
On Display (2016)
The Easter Hare
Origins of the Easter Bunny

Image: The Leveret.