Today’s sketch is another one from the Louvre’s Roman Sculpture collection that was on tour four years ago at the Seattle Art Museum. This piece is from a marble alter consecrated to the Goddess Seline in the second century AD in Italy. The Moon-goddess Selene accompanied by the Dioscuri, (Castor & Pollux) or Phosphoros (the Morning Star) and Hesperos (the Evening Star).
A few thoughts on Yuki-Onna. One of the recurring themes I enjoy experimenting on in my illustrations is translating traditional folklore and mythology into a modern setting. Now there is more to this then just dressing the mythical figure in the current fashions and placing it into a modern setting. For this exercise to truly work you have to look at that figure’s motif and function and then figure out how that function translates into our modern viewpoint. Which brings us to Yuki-Onna.
In the original traditions she is a terror to all who have to go out into the mountain forests in the dead of winter, people like wood cutters or mountain climbers. But this is where the translation works well. As scary as she was in the past, the Snow Woman would be the ultimate nightmare to those poor desperate ones who have to sleep beneath a doorway in the alleyway of a northern inner city.
