The Zodiac Series VII:
Sun God With Four Seasons
Judith Weinshall Liberman
View the Zodiac Series I Gallery

Like my previous zodiac series, the ZODIAC SERIES VII was inspired by the zodiac images in a 6th century synagogue mosaic floor excavated in Beit Alpha, Israel. Having been moved by the beautiful, folk-art images of the twelve signs of the zodiac to create four different series based on those signs, I turned, in the ZODIAC SERIES V, to creating art about the images of the different seasons of the year, each of which appears in one of the four corners of the Beit Alpha floor. At the center of the floor is the image of the Sun God, which formed the basis for my ZODIAC SERIES VI. Combining the images of the four seasons with the image of the Sun God, I created my ZODIAC SERIES VII, with the Sun God in the center and the four seasons around it. The ZODIAC SERIES VII consists of variations on this theme.

In the Beit Alpha floor, each season is represented by the figure of a different young lady, an "angel," winged, bejeweled and attractively coiffed. In each case, the image of the young lady is accompanied by various objects as well as by the Hebrew name of the month which stands for the season she represents. I incorporated the figure, the objects and the name of the season in my images of the four seasons in the ZODIAC SERIES VII. In order to convey the magical nature of the four "angels," I created the halo of a cloud around each. In some of the works I created a mosaic pattern in the background as a reminder of the mosaic floor origin of the images.

Having picked a symbolic color for each season – green for spring, yellow for summer, red for fall and blue for winter – I created each of the four seasons in variations of the main color. Thus TKUFAT NISSAN is done in greens, TKUFAT TAMUZ in yellows, TKUFAT TISHRE in reds and TKUFAT TEVET in blues. The arrangement of the four seasons maintains the continuous sequence of green to yellow to red to blue and back to green.

As in the Beit Alpha floor, I maintained the centrality of the figure of the Sun God in my ZODIAC SERIES VII. Again as in the Beit Alpha floor, the haloed Sun God is riding a carriage pulled by four horses against a background of a starry sky. I used the colors of the four seasons – green, yellow, red and blue – to depict the Sun God and indicate the vital role the sun plays in our world throughout the year.

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