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Song of Songs Megillah
22" X 68"
papercut and collage, lettered scroll was supplied by the client
a commission at this level costs $3000.
There are six panels, each with an arabesque at the top and a different scene of Israel at the bottom. The two side panels illustrate the love story presented in Song of Songs. Included are all the animals, spices, trees, herbs and plants mentioned in this evocative love poem.
The first panel illustrates 5:2-4 from the text. "I was sleeping but my heart was awake. A sound! My beloved is knocking! Open for me, my sister, my beloved, my dove, my perfect one, for my head is filled with dew, my locks, with the rains of the night. I have removed my chemise; how shall I put it on? I have washed my feet; how shall I soil them? My beloved stretched forth his hand from the hole, and my innards stirred for him."
The last papercut panel represents the bride and groom, standing together under the cypress and cedar trees and directly below a grape bower (canopy), behind a fountain and flowers.
Both panels are illustrated with plants and devices mentioned throughout the Song. Both panels are lined with trellis/lattice. The painted flowers alongside both panels are depictions of herbs mentioned in the Song. From top to bottom they are: calamus (cane), frankincense, hyssop, spikenard, henna, aloes, myrrh, and mandrake. The bottom of the last panel also depicts chavatzelet growing next to the water fountain. As scholars are unsure whether this is a lily or rose, both are represented.
Animals mentioned in The Song of Songs are also scattered through the papercut. Three doves are among the two trees of the first panel. A leopard prowls at the top of the first panel. Two gazelles stand near the man, one of them eating myrrh flowers.
In the last panel, a lion crouches or sleeps at the feet of the lovers while a ram drinks water from the fountain and above the second text column, amongst the grapevines, a fox eats grapes.
Each of the six text columns is crowned by an arabesque made up of floral shapes that have parts of the 6-sided star within them. In addition, each of the six columns has cut out of it the name of one of the client's six sons. Above each arabesque "crown," are joining branches of a fruit tree mentioned in The Song of Songs. From right to left, they are pomegranate, grapevine, date palm, fig, olive and apple. Sixty shields and crossed spears run horizontally across the top of the six columns, ten to a column, representing the sixty shields of the king's mighty men (chapter 3:6).
Running horizontally below all six columns are two series of pictures. The first series, directly below each column, represents places mentioned in The Song of Songs. From right to left, these are representations of the hills of Lebanon, the waterfalls of Ein Gedi, Mount Hermon with a flock of goats in two rows in the distance (ch. 4:1) and three sheep in the foreground, the desert sands, the Plains of Sharon with harvested wheat sheaves, and the hills and houses of Jerusalem.
The second series of five scenes, positioned below and between the text columns illustrates scenes of classical Jerusalem. From right to left they are a gateway into the city, a grouping of houses on a hill within the walls, The outside walls of Jerusalem at night with tents and campfires of pilgrims in the foreground, pilgrims on camels, donkeys and on foot crossing a land bridge over a valley towards the Temple and last, a stylized Temple with a column of smoke rising from the altar in the courtyard.
Night time is represented above the first column of text by the moon and the sun shines above the last column.
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