Orpheus 1600 - 1700

This drawing depicts Orpheus charming wild beasts and people with his music. Note Orpheus’s lifted finger: silence! Such gestures transcend mere utility; they carry cultural weight, connecting past and present. Consider how the raised finger, a symbol of the spoken word, morphs into an emblem of hushed reverence. The same gesture appears on funerary monuments to signify contemplation, or even the divine silence of mystical initiation rites. Think of Hermes, psychopomp, the guide of souls, his finger pointing to the mysteries, guiding the souls to the afterlife. We feel the power of this image, an archetypal expression of emotional and psychological power, as the musician charms with his song, drawing us into his melancholic myth. The cyclical, non-linear journey of the symbol is seen over time, resurfacing, evolving, and accruing new meanings. It persists as a motif in the human psyche.