The Moon

The painting represents the Major Arcana "The Moon" in the tarot, and is the first of 78 paintings
that will then form my own tarot set. Tarot is an old set of playing cards.
The first historical attestation dates from the 14th century, but its popularity
began to grow around the 17th century.
The first version was Italian, the name itself comes from the Italian language: "tarocchi".
The tarot set consists of 78 cards, divided into two: 22 major Arcana (Great Mysteries)
21 numbered from 1 to 21 plus "The Fool" which is the deck 0, not by chance the deck of new beginnings
and 56 minor arcana (small mysteries) divided in turn into 4 symbols (swords, cups, wands and coins
or pentagrams).
We have the cards from 1 (aces) to 10 plus so-called court cards
representing Jacks, Knights, Queens and Kings. It is unknown when this playing cards began to be used in
cartomancy, probably from the beginning, but soon become the preferred medium of "readers" and alchemists,
being so full of symbols.
No wonder the Moon is part of the Great Mysteries. Ever since man began to think
and to put question, the main globe of the night fascinated and influenced human culture and art.
We find her in the pantheon of all ancient civilizations, often as a goddess of fertility, femininity,
but also of hunting or war: we know the Babylonian Ishtar-goddess of love, procreation, and war,
Artemis, the Greek goddess of chastity, the moon and hunting, and her Roman version Diana,
Selena, the first goddess of the moon, Hecate, especially related to the new moon phase,
also called the black moon, a moment of passage or beginning.
For the Thracians, Bendis (whose name was translated as "the one who binds")
she was the goddess of the moon, of the woods, of the night, of fertility, of love, and of spellbind.
Physically The moon in the tarot is represented, in most cases by the image of the full moon
between two old towers, at the top, and at the bottom we have a dog and a wolf,
or two wolves or two dogs in a sitting position, facing each other, howling at the moon, and in the middle a puddle
from which comes a cancer (The moon is the arcane of the sign Cancer). In some Flemish versions on the right side
from bottom, under the moonlight, we have a woman with a distaff in her right hand and spinning thread with her left hand.(probably a reference to warp, to the bonds of fate) and on the left side a tree.
The interpretation of the deck is complex, usually have negative connotations: Hidden enemies,
danger, calumny, darkness, terror, deception, occult forces, error. Reversed: Instability, inconstancy,
silence, lesser degrees of deception and error. But The Moon is much more than that.
The painting has an interesting history. I didn't want to start with The Mon, no way, I desired
that the first painting in this series was the Sun (considered the best tarot card).
However, when I started painting, I felt that I was more attracted to this Major Arcana.
Part of the process was rational, some classic elements are respected, but I added or changed
instinctive (approach to instinct, subconscious is one of the attributes of this major arcane)
some elements. The two wolves remain in the picture, but they are not cream, but one is white, the other is black
representing the communion between good and evil, negative thoughts and positive thoughts. Cancer was replaced by
a spider (fear of the unknown) but who still has his front legs like the tongs of a crab.
The octopus in some representations (blockage, depression) has been replaced by the owl
(which has many symbols: wisdom, clairvoyance, but also death, bird associated with Lilith).
The ruined towers have been replaced by the branches of two leafless trees (latent nature, in the sleep mode before
rebirth in spring). One of the symbols added was the rusty key (the truth hidden in
our subconscious). What was weird about this was that one of my girlfriends,
seeing the painting and the rusty key told me that she interprets it as a great love of the past,
hidden and dangerous that is left behind but at the same time remains present
in the woman's mind, like a scar that never heals. Hearing this, I immediately connected with
the legends of the Moon in Romanian popular culture. The ballads and the old Romanian legends see the Moon as
on a virgin of rare beauty, sister to the Sun. The Sun falls in love with her and wants to do it his
wife and God, in order to prevent this incestuous love, against nature, hides it from the sight of the Sun,
smearing his face with soot (the dark parts we see on the moon's disk).
Another element that is physically missing is water, however its energy is present throughout the painting,
from the blue eyes, the blue hair, to the arid rocks that under the deceptive light of the moon look like the waves of a
storms sea (and no wonder, seeing that the tides and the sea itself are closely related to the moon)
The night's steam on the left looks like sea foam.
The energy of the water followed me in the creative process, I spilled while painting, accidentally,
a bottle of water that I had near to me, the jar of water in which I kept my brushes and
the next day, a glass of water. Seen in a certain light, the painting still has a few tiny drops
at the bottom, which I left like that, I didn't cover them with color.

I was saying that
it was not my intention to begin with this major Arcana. Friday night when I finished the painting,
I was charged with strange energy and confused thoughts. I take a glass of wine and went out into the garden
to calm down a little and enjoy the satisfaction of the work complete. When I looked up, I saw that the moon
was full, round, fascinating. I didn't know it was going to be a full moon that night, and somehow I understood
why the original intention was changed by instinct.