#thyrsus
A Maenad (female devotee of Dionysus), brandishing her thyrsos(staff tipped with a pine cone) and a snake. Attic red-figure lekythos (oil flask), attributed to the painter Hermonax; ca. 460 BCE. Now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
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Zlaijerh/Malachiah - Apollonian/Dionisiac
Digital work and traditional work on the same piece. A few alternates over on patreon of course. I am cajoling myself to post here more frequently, but my energy is at a low, painful ebb. This year has been very good in some ways, and excruciatingly painful in others. Thank you for your patience, and your interest in my work, if that’s still something that applies.
SHOP/KO-FI/PATREON/INSTAGRAM
I put a couple of watercolour maenads on redbubble if anyone wants them as stickers… link in comments!
please do not use or repost
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In the worship of Dionysus, his female followers lived with each other while the male presence was prohibited. These women represented the goddesses who had been united with the gods. The concept of ‘sacred fury’ characterized Maenads, who were also known as Bacchae. Blatant meant angry and not insane in the case of Maenads. Maenads were running wearing long dresses while they were carrying thyrsus, a reed wrapped with ivy or vine leaves, they were also wearing ivy leaves on their heads. Flutes and drums accompanied the ecstatic and wild Maenads as they were dancing to honour their lord, Dionysus. Dionysus, a god of nature and of the deep forests, like the celtic Cernunnos, orgiastic and rejuvenating.
After a night of revelry on the slopes of Mt. Parnassus, exhausted Maenads collapse in the mountain town of Amphissa, where the local women take care of them. Painting by Lawrence Alma-Tadema,1887.
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