The Three of Cups

(Ink on Paper; see more in the Tarot Gallery)

Even though I wanted to take the cups out of their hands, I couldn't resist the iconography of the three graces. They’re up there with the rape of the sabines as one of the most copied and recopied ad infinitum subjects in art history.

Sometimes I remember, like really remember in my sinews, that I’m an art historian. Like when I start thinking about the three graces and then I get really upset about Savonarola burning high Renaissance art in Florence. Botticelli was said to have burned his own paintings in one of the biggest bonfires of this iconoclastic rampage, but there really isn’t proof for that (the claims came from later dates and no contemporary supports exist).

More and more, I understand myself as an antitraditionalist. Not in the way that makes me want to eschew the thread of artistry that weaves in and out of all incarnations of the three graces, but in the way that I’d like to take a baseball bat to every jackass who’s ever wanted to burn everything beautiful for its inherent sin. If the abberant scares you, you’re not my kin.

…In the end, Savonarola was hanged and burned, which was fitting. May that be the final radiance that finds all repressive and hateful hearts.