Leda and the Swan
Leda and the Swan is an original artwork depicting the Spartan queen Leda and Zeus who has taken the form of a swan in order to seduce her. This union begets both Helen whose great beauty launched a thousand ships, and Pollux who crewed on Jason's Argo.
The amount of consent on the part of Leda is somewhat ambiguous with various artworks depicting everything from mutual embrace to sexual assault. I chose to show Zeus 'peacocking' and Leda seduced by his display.
Symbolically, Zeus represents raw, animalistic, and divine power. In the more aggressive interpretation it also symbolises a threatening, overwhelming force that acts without regard for human agency. As for Leda, juxtaposed with a shape-shifting god, she represents vulnerability, helplessness, and the mortal subjected to inescapable, fate-driven events - in this case an annucuatory event precluding the Trojan War.
Leda was based on a stock reference photo of a woman (one of those awful generic business stocks, she's originally wearing a business suit and holding a globe), I just "Greeked" her up a bit and for Zeus I used a reference photograph of... a swan.
This piece is A3 (11.7" x 16.5" / 297mm x 420mm) in size with the mount and frame additional to these dimensions making the final piece larger overall by approximately 6" on each axis (approx. as the framing for each instance is bespoke and therefore unique).
