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Showing posts with the label Dioscuri

The Gemini

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The Gemini, Rust Mono Print, Vintage Linen mounted to Panel, 11x11 in. Gemini is one of the brighter constellations of the Zodiac. I n the Northern Hemisphere, it lights up the early evening sky from January until May. The constellation is said to represent the twins of Greek myth Castor and Polydeuces. These brothers are also known as the Dioskouroi or Dioscuri, meaning “sons of Zeus.”  In Latin they are called the Gemini. Myths differ but in the best known story of their parentage and birth, their mother Leda, a Queen of Sparta, was seduced by a swan that turned out to be Zeus.  Amorous Leda soon thereafter also conceived by her husband Tyndareus and gave birth to an egg or eggs that contained the male twins Castor and Polydeuces and female twins Helen and Clytemnestra.  These siblings play significant roles in the many myths that describe the Trojan War, Jason’s quest for the Golden Fleece and even the Theseus myth. Castor and Polyd...

Match

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Today I am posting a photo of my assemblage Match from an ongoing series about twins.  I am unsure about the basis for my personal interest in twins.   There exists however, a universal fascination with the mystery of sameness and opposites, of duality and the stories that twins inspire. Across cultures and through history, myths of twins as: partners (the Roman Romulus and Remus), rivals (the Egyptian Osiris and Set), opposites (the Greek Apollo and Artemis), and two haves of a whole (the Greek Dioscuri, Castor and Pollux) are evidence of our interest and attempt to explain this intriguing natural phenomenon. Match is a play on the various definitions of the word match and the associated condition of twins.  In my assemblage, Parcheesi is the organized game that may be characterized as a match.  Contestants move color differentiated and matched disks by rolling a set of matched dice along paths that mirror (match) each other in visual ...