Classical imagining

In my leisure reading this past week was a reference to Persephone (in the Greek) or Proserpina (Roman), the ostensible reason for seasons on Earth. Since seasons are much on my mind (my heater still doesn't work and it's COLD in this house), I dwelt a little longer on the legend than I normally would, and it inspired a portrait. Since the color palette in my last one was so successful, I thought it would be fun to use similar tones in this one, perhaps creating a series. They don't really go together that much, given that the subject in the last one had dark, warm, rich skin tones and is portrayed as a saint, and the subject for this one is about as pale as a white girl can get and comes from Greek/Roman myth; but I used the eggplant color (Cobalt Orchid) from Saint Side-eye's shirt as the background here, and picked up the rust color (Red Oxide) from the saint's background in this one's hair and the fruit in her hands.

Lest you have forgotten the legend, Hades, lord of the underworld, has a crush on Earth Mother Demeter's daughter, Persephone, and kidnaps her. Demeter loses her shit and quits minding the climate, with the result that things on earth die and freeze—generally not so great for the populace. So her daddy, Zeus, tells Hades to return their daughter, but because she ate some pomegranate seeds while downstairs, Hades is able to enforce at least a partial stay with him every year. During those four months when she is being queen in the underworld, Demeter mourns and the earth experiences winter; when she returns topside, temps warm, flowers bloom, the ground produces a bountiful harvest, and Mommy is happy. A little more dramatic story than Punxsutawney Phil, and vastly more paintable!

Although most of the classical pictures portray her as more mature, wearing formal dress and a diadem, she is always described as a maiden and, as the story goes, she is "playing" in a field of flowers with her nymph buddies when Hades makes off with her. So I chose to paint her as a young, fresh-faced girl—sweet, but maybe a little awkward and not quite a woman yet. She traditionally has either blonde or red hair and blue eyes, so the color scheme I had chosen worked for the hair. Rather than a fancy dress with a jeweled bodice, as she usually wears, I put her in a simple shift the color of a Luna moth to signify spring; she is holding the pomegranate that was her downfall.

For some reason, this is one of the hardest portraits I have painted to date. Part of the reason is that because I am working in a familiar size and format (12x16) but portraying most of her torso, everything was a little smaller than I usually work (facial features in particular), but that doesn't entirely account for the difficulty. I think I just didn't know where exactly I was going with this one, so it simply took longer and required some decisions that I ended up taking back. The narcissus is "her" flower, so I thought I'd paint one tucked into her headband, but I knew it was a mistake the minute it was finished—it completely drew focus from her face and the fruit in her hands, which are the dual points of the entire portrait. So I sanded it with some fine sandpaper to take off the raised paint and restored it to flowerless simplicity.

I think that deep orchid color works great to signify that she's in the underworld, and the white and light blue highlights on the dress and headband make her glow.

"Prosperpina"—acrylics on thin birch board, 12x16 inches. (I prefer this name, in the end, to Persephone, because when I was a kid I read it out loud literally as "Percy-fone" and was embarrassed when I found out I was wrong!)