Here’s another sketch of Temperance, trying to figure out a more stylized composition and imagery. The funky fat shapes at the bottom are very loosely drawn pigs.
I’ve included a vesica about her to emphasize the duality of all these images, although it’s mostly concealed by the triumphant wings. I find duality a consistent pre-occupation these days – if good and evil exist, they must have come from God. If so, God contains both forces. I’ve also included a crescent above her for the moon, and this time she’s standing upon a sun.
Virtue can’t exist without its opposite to reveal it, nor can wickedness exist without goodness to expose it.
Furthermore, it’s hard to find a perfect goodness or a perfect evil without a grain of its opposite emerging from it. A duality is not conceivable, but with the relationship between the two sides of any opposing couplet comprising the third part of the group, a trinity balances the two. Within any duality there exists a relationship between the two opposite things. So, keep an eye open for the deadly sins and the emergence of the virtues from them in these paintings, ultimately they’re all expressing the necessary trinity of dualities.
