Nymph and Lynx

Serie: Large Format Artworks

Technique: Latex on canvas

Size: 65 x 130 cm

Year: 2007

In Greek mythology, a nymph is any member of a large group of female nature spirits, sometimes attached to a particular place or orography.

Nymphs are the personifications of the creative and encouraging activities of nature.

Their home is in the mountains and groves, in the springs and rivers, in the valleys and cold grottoes.

The name "nymph" means "young marriageable women, girlfriends" and they are the beings that inhabit nature.

They are usually taken as daughters of Zeus and personify the natural force that presides over the reproduction and fecundity of nature. Her life, unlike Greek women, revolves around passions and feelings.

Their beauty is proverbial, and just as all nymphs are beautiful, they are also lovers of dance and music.

 The Dryads or Hamadríades are the nymphs that live in the trees.

They die when the trees decay or are cut down or they live for many years, but a day comes when they fatally disappear.

The lynx, according to Greco-Roman mythology, was born from the pride and disobedience of Lynx, a Scythian king who had received from Triptolemus the privilege of being the first man to know the secrets of agriculture, but, by refusing to share this knowledge with his fellow men , was turned into an animal and condemned to live in the woods forever.

According to Roman beliefs, the sight of lynxes is so good that it would allow them to see through objects.

The image that the painting shows us takes these mythological ideas, showing a Hamadryad sweetly contemplating a lynx that is partially hidden behind the tree that it inhabits.

The lynx has already seen and knows her, and now she sets out to see through the eyes of the beholder and to know her interior, penetrating sharply into the depths of the forests of her soul.