Painting: Oil on canvas, 1977, 90cm x 65cm (36" x 26")"Persephone" (anthropomorphous tree) returns to take part in the rites of Spring (awakening of nature - green; awakening of emotions - man and woman rushing towards each other). She will stay on earth for the full cycle of vegetation. At the end of autumn she has to return to the underworld and to Pluto, the king who abducted her from a valley in Sicily and forcefully carried her to his dark kingdom. The Earth and Sky witness (eye) this recurring ritual. The open parallelepipeds (tunnel to the underworld) remind "Persephone" of her predestinate fate. The symbolism of Spring (the green of the grass and the tree-Persephone) and of the underworld (stone-skull) is also recorded in the mountain (full figures and details embedded into it) to remind the viewer that we will know only one Spring in the seasons of our lives and that we will be lucky if we will live to remember.
Joseph Cusimano
