Description
This painting is my tribute to an anonymous artist who walked these lands more than 5000 years ago. A Neolithic artist putting the finishing touches to his beautiful artwork on the Equinox Stone, which is found in the chamber of Cairn T, one of the largest of the passage tombs at Loughcrew in County Meath, by the light of his tallow candle.
This cairn bears an alignment with the autumn and spring equinoxes, when the hours of darkness and light are of equal length. As the sun is rising on these days, it shines down the passage of the tomb and illuminates the intricately carved details on the Equinox Stone within. As the light moves down the face of the stone, it highlights different parts of the artwork and almost gives the impression of a story being told in shadow and light. We don’t know what the carved images mean today, but they were almost certainly of great importance to the ancient people who dreamed them up so long ago.
Of course, we don’t know who really made this artwork. It could have been a man or a woman, an old or a young person, or maybe even a team of people working together. This is just the image that comes into my mind’s eye when I imagine the scene. The point is that it was someone of flesh-and-blood just like us. Someone who knew these lands as home, who had a family and a community, and who was every bit as brilliant and flawed as each of us.
This is an 10″ × 8″ giclée print, printed on Hahnemühle William Turner paper and signed by Shelly Mooney.
