Size: 50cm x 50cm
Year: 2022
The Sphinx is a symbol found in many cultures, such as Egyptian, Greek and Mesopotamic. Her physiognomy symbolically brings together the four elements of nature: woman (water), lion’s body (fire), eagle’s wings (air), and cow’s tail (earth). Esoterically, each element corresponds to an aspect of the human being; fire symbolizes the will; earth, the physical body and material matters; air, the mind; water, emotions and sexual energy. In the myth of Oedipus, from ancient Greece, the Oedipus charachter is asked by the Sphinx, who says: “Decipher me or I will devour you” and then asks the riddle: “Which animal has four legs in the morning, two in the afternoon and three legs at night?” The answer that Oedipus gives is “man” because each of these three characteristics corresponds to phases of human life: four legs as a child, because he crawls; two as an adult; three, when old, due to the help of a cane. Thus, Oedipus deciphers the Sphinx. This leads us to understand that in order to avoid being devoured by the Sphinx (which also represents nature and time), we must decipher these internal aspects of the human being that are encoded in the four elements. These are the mysteries of Eleusis, this is the internal journey of the human being, self-knowledge.
With inspiration, intuition and imagination, it is possible, through art, to decipher the perennial mysteries of the microcosm (man) and the macrocosm (universe).
