Want help? Roll your mouse over the digital art panels for a few thoughts about the symbols involved. Click here to visit the online artist portfolios. From the drawing board: the latest news! Click here. Behind the scenes stuff: you're in the symbolism reference section. Email the artiste, click here.
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Thoughts: Chess, a game. Movement of pieces. Black and white, good and bad. Two Knights.
The white picket fence is an old American dream from the 50s: to own, to have, home sweet home with a white picket fence.
 

Click here to return to the symbolism dictionary.
Definitions are supplied to demystify symbolism (and the artwork in this studio).
Click here to return to the online symbolism dictionary.

 

Phoenix...
Another symbol for rebirth or transformation but in an immortal/never-ending sort of way. A continuous process (like the rising of the sun). The Phoenix burns to ashes and then is reborn complete and whole. This transformation isn't so much a transformation into something new or different (like with a BUTTERFLY) but more of bringing a life or energy full circle, back to the original purpose/energy and starting over (again).
Posted: September 05, 2003.
Revised: October 6, 2003.
Updated: April 19, 2004.

 

Shortcut links to the (expert) quotes below:
Jung: Man and His Symbols
Biedermann: Dictionary of Symbolism
Vollman: The Little Giant Encyclopedia of Dream Symbols

 

Man and His Symbols, p. 365
...He then tried to destroy their breeding ground by fire. This is a positive action, because fire can symbolically lead to transformation and rebirth (as, for instance, it does in the ancient myth of the phoenix).
Posted: May 02, 2004.

Dictionary of Symbolism, p. 264-265
A legendary HERON-like BIRD of considerable importance, widely associated with notions of immortality and resurrection. It's name goes back to the Greek word for red--the color of FIRE--because the bird was said to arise again perpetually from its ashes after a purifying fire had consumed it. Its origin is the sacred Egyptian bird Benu, or Bynw, a heron said to have been the first creature to alight on the hill that came into being out of the primordial ooze. Benu was revered in Heliopolis as a manifestation of the SUN god;...
Posted: September 05, 2003.

The Little Giant Encyclopedia of Dream Symbols, p. 335-336
See Peacock. According to the most widely read book of the Middle Ages, Physiologus, the phoenix of India is more beautiful than a peacock. After 500 years, and at new moon, the phoenix flew to Heliopolis, presented itself to the priest, and then burned itself on the altar. What remained was a worm from which wings began growing, and the phoenix was reborn. A symbol of resurrection, rebirth, and transformation.
Posted: January 17, 2004.

Want to know more? Go out and pick up a copy of the book(s) quoted and expand your mind :) These are MY teachers, the people who teach me about symbolism :) I hope the supplied definitions help you understand the art found on this site.

 
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 Online fine art studio -- Artist website -- Established: July 04, 2000.

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