This very glowing goddess is a giclée print based on my original watercolor/mixed media painting.
Amaterasu is the goddess of the Sun in the Shinto pantheon of ancient Japan. She is draped with silk brocades of gold and red decorated with roosters and sun wheels, all symbols of this solar goddess. Her eyes and hair are the blue of the sky, her lips and brows red as the solar disk she holds in her fingertips. Her skin is bright white as the sun appears in the midday sky.
Amaterasu is an embodiment of light in a spinning whorl of primary colors. She wears earrings in the shape of magatama, an ancient comma shaped amulet sacred in the Japanese culture.
"This comma-shaped stone jewel from Japan is called a magatama (勾玉 or 曲玉). ‘Maga’ means curved or bent, and ‘tama’ means precious stone or gem. Magatama date back to the Neolithic period, and are typically made of stone, glass or jade. Their curved shape is thought to represent animal teeth and claws.
Magatama are both personal ornaments and highly valued ceremonial objects. Women once wore magatama in their hair, and as decorative arm and ankle bracelets. They were also attached to sacred bows, mirrors and swords, placed at temple shrines, and used as funerary objects. A source of spiritual power and good fortune, magatama can still be bought in Japan today.
Magatama also feature in Japanese mythology. According to the Kojiki, a collection of myths dating from the early 8th century, the storm god Susano-o terrorised his sister, the sun goddess Amaterasu, so much that she hid in a cave. Without Amaterasu the world became dark. In order to lure her out, the other gods hung a mirror, pieces of cloth, and many magatama jewels on a sacred evergreen sakaki tree outside the cave. Amaterasu looked out to see what the gods were doing, and as she emerged the world became light again."
~from the Pitt Rivers Virtual Collections, Museum of Oxford
Amaterasu is the goddess of the Sun in the Shinto pantheon of ancient Japan. She is draped with silk brocades of gold and red decorated with roosters and sun wheels, all symbols of this solar goddess. Her eyes and hair are the blue of the sky, her lips and brows red as the solar disk she holds in her fingertips. Her skin is bright white as the sun appears in the midday sky.
Amaterasu is an embodiment of light in a spinning whorl of primary colors. She wears earrings in the shape of magatama, an ancient comma shaped amulet sacred in the Japanese culture.
"This comma-shaped stone jewel from Japan is called a magatama (勾玉 or 曲玉). ‘Maga’ means curved or bent, and ‘tama’ means precious stone or gem. Magatama date back to the Neolithic period, and are typically made of stone, glass or jade. Their curved shape is thought to represent animal teeth and claws.
Magatama are both personal ornaments and highly valued ceremonial objects. Women once wore magatama in their hair, and as decorative arm and ankle bracelets. They were also attached to sacred bows, mirrors and swords, placed at temple shrines, and used as funerary objects. A source of spiritual power and good fortune, magatama can still be bought in Japan today.
Magatama also feature in Japanese mythology. According to the Kojiki, a collection of myths dating from the early 8th century, the storm god Susano-o terrorised his sister, the sun goddess Amaterasu, so much that she hid in a cave. Without Amaterasu the world became dark. In order to lure her out, the other gods hung a mirror, pieces of cloth, and many magatama jewels on a sacred evergreen sakaki tree outside the cave. Amaterasu looked out to see what the gods were doing, and as she emerged the world became light again."
~from the Pitt Rivers Virtual Collections, Museum of Oxford