Your Myths Will Be My Myths

2021 collage and gouache   16”h, 30”w

The book of Ruth,  written in Hebrew in the 6th–4th centuries BCE, tells of the Moabite woman Ruth, who accepts the G-d of the Judeans as her G-d and accepts the Israelite people as her own. I compare and contrast the illustrations of Ruth and Naomi as they are painted by Evelyn de Morgan (1887), George Dawe (1803) and Hugues Merle (1876) with illustration of Greek g-desses on Greek vases.  These juxtapositions and anachronisms of styles highlight cross-cultural appropriation of our myths.  Bible stories are no less mythological than the stories of Greek g-ds and g-desses.  The Greek vase on the left is decorated with the Dawe painting “Naomi and Her Daughters,  the middle is hybrid Greek/Canaanite pottery decorated with the de Morgan painting of Ruth and Naomi and some Greek g-desses while the Canaanite pottery on the right is adorned with Greek iconography and Merle’s painting of Ruth.   Conveniently, Dawe depicted the biblical era figures in Roman garb and the background illustrates the myth of the Rape of Europa, painted by Zuccarelli (1740-1750). The landscapes riff on the backgrounds in the European paintings of Ruth and Naomi and are reproductions of Zuccarelli and Zais.

• Hand colouring
• Historic documents