20th March this year marks the Spring Equinox for the northern hemisphere. The equinox is when day and night are the same lengths. The word equinox meaning ‘equal night’‚ in Latin.
To many cultures, Spring equinox is traditionally celebrated as a time of rebirth with spring holidays and festivals. As we emerge from the colder days of Winter and nature seems to start waking up it always seems a time of joy and hope.
Spring is a season rich in symbolism and physical natural beauty which has made it a popular subject of artists across history. Enjoy this poem by John Drinkwater and the accompanying paintings on the subject of Spring…
Primavera, c1478, by Sandro Botticelli. Credit: Universal History Archive/Universal Images Group
Terrace at Saint-Germain: Spring (Alfred Sisley 1839-1899). Credit: PicturesNow/Universal Images Group
Fukami Jikyu, a Japanese fictional hero (similar in reputation to England’s Robin Hood) walks proudly in his elegant kimono as cherry blossoms fall around him. Yoshitoshi (1839-1892) creates the sense of a calm spring evening in this post-Edo period woodcut. Credit: Pictures From History/Universal Images Group
Spring, 1873, Hans Thoma (1839-1924). Credit: Sepia Times/Universal Images Group
Spring Rituals, Beda Stjernschantz (1867-1910). Credit: PicturesNow/Universal Images Group
Bavarian Landscape in Spring, 20th Century, by Philipp Graf (1874-1947). Credit: Universal History Archive/Universal Images Group
Spring, c1900s, by Arthur Herbert (1870-1927). Credit: Universal History Archive/Universal Images Group
Allegorical wall painting of Spring from the west side of the atrium of Regio IX.V.11, Pompeii. Chromolithograph by J.G. Bach. Credit: Florilegius/Universal Images Group
Giuseppe Arcimboldo (1527-1593). Italian painter. Allegory of Spring, c1563. Credit: PHAS/Universal Images Group
One half of a pair (the other screen being called ‘Winter’), this tender springtime scene features birds and blooming camellias and green willows. Unknown artist‚ likely from the school of Unkoku Togan (1547-1618). Credit: Pictures From History/Universal Images Group
(Spring) The Four Seasons by Pieter Breughel the Younger (Brussels, 1564 – Antwerp, 1638). Credit: Universal History Archive/Universal Images Group
Springtime, 1904, by Philip Wilson Steer (1860-1942). Credit: Sepia Times/Universal Images Group
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The Miracle by John Drinkwater (1882-1937)
Come, sweetheart, listen, for I have a thing Most wonderful to tell you—news of spring. Albeit winter still is in the air, And the earth troubled, and the branches bare, Yet down the fields to-day I saw her pass— The spring—her feet went shining through the grass. She touched the ragged hedgerows—I have seen Her finger-prints, most delicately green; And she has whispered to the crocus leaves, And to the garrulous sparrows in the eaves. Swiftly she passed and shyly, and her fair Young face was hidden in her cloudy hair. She would not stay, her season is not yet, But she has reawakened, and has set The sap of all the world astir, and rent Once more the shadows of our discontent. Triumphant news—a miracle I sing— The everlasting miracle of spring.
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