This is a painting which was started in 2020 but had to wait four years to be finally finished due to the artist's eye problems.
"ALYSSA OF CARTHAGO" is standing out from most of Mohamed Hamida's other works because a different painting style is applied which is very much visible in the original painting. The topic of the painting is an ancient legend of Greek/Roman origin.
ALYSSA is better known in the Western World as DIDO, the queen of Carthago. As legend has it, she is the founder of an ancient city whose ruins can be seen near Tunis on the Northern coast of nowadays Tunisia.
According to Greek/Roman legends, a young princess of Tyros skillfully employed her femine wiles upon landing on the African coast. Accompanied by a loyal retenue of nobles and a group of virgins led by a priestess of Juno/Hera, she had made her adventurous and tormented journey from the Eastern Mediterranean coast to Northern Tunisia to find a new homeland for the group.
But the land she requested already had its owners. After extensive negotiations, Alyssa reached an agreement with the local Berbers: she would acquire as much land as could be covered by an oxhide.
Cunningly, she cut the hide into thin strips and knotted them together, allowing her to encircle a vast area sufficient to comfortably contain a city. This marked the cradle of the future CARTHAGO (Carthage) - and the beginning of Alyssa/Dido's enduring myth which has a tragic part too.
Dido's story intertwines with the epic of Aeneas, the Trojan hero who fled the burning city of Troy to seek a new destiny. When Aeneas and his followers were shipwrecked on the shores of Carthago, Dido graciously welcomed them. Aeneas and Dido embarked on a love story, immortalized in Virgil's Aeneid. Their love, however, was doomed, as Aeneas, as the story goes, was destined by the gods to found Rome. His departure from Carthago left Dido extremely heartbroken, and in her despair, she ascended a funeral pyre and took her own life, cursing Aeneas and his descendants.
Whether the story is true or not, Carthago continued to influence history and literature, grew into a powerful empire that rivaled Rome with its famous harbour and city buildings.
Kommentare