The Fishes by JoeJarrah

Mixed Medium • Mythology • posted on Feb 20, 2020

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No AI - This artwork was created entirely by hand or with traditional digital tools.

Description

Pisces is a classical invention, comprising parts of several different Babylonian constellations. It is associated with the Greek legend that Aphrodite and her son Eros shape-shifted into fishes to escape the monster Typhon (the very same that caused Pan to take on the goat-fish form associated with Capricorn). The Romans tell a similar story of Venus and Cupid and the Persian astronomer Al-Sufi, goes on to say that Venus and Cupid tied themselves together with a cord in order not to lose each other in the Euphrates, which accounts for the common name of the star Alpha Piscium (Alrisha; "the cord" in Arabic). There is also a somewhat different tale which tells of an egg that rolled into the Euphrates, which was nudged back to shore by some fishes. Aphrodite hatched out of it and rewarded the fishes by placing them in the heavens. Predictably Pisces is a water sign, ruled by Neptune and Jupiter. Associations include aquamarine, Jade and water lilies. This image is something of a departure for me; though I usually work in DS3 with minimal post-work, a significant part of this one was done in CS2, using 2-d mermaid resources