ave de phoenice

I don't usually love to brag and this painting reminds me why.

I have had an obvious obsession with Japan for some time but in the process of working to this final piece I was positively surprised by how much my interest was absorbed by it into putting some more research into it. Here is some things that inspired me:

Riese- De ave phoenice (Anthologia Latina, II, Teubner, 1870)

I picked up this poem while looking around the internet for myths and legends surrounding Japan after I had managed to narrow my general search down to mythical creatures of japanese lore. I only made an attempt to translate it later.
The (raw) translation can be found here.

from the lot and the end of the bird for this luck
of itself to be born to whom he surpassed his god!
a woman either a male or neither of these things
or these both beings. O happy he who worships no treaties of Venus
death hath attractiveness it used to, it is only a pleasure in death
That it may be to be born before the desires to die.
it's the offspring to its own self is the father of the heir and his
a nurse should always be my child to his own to himself
presented what they thought but they are not, and because it is itself and not itself
Obtained of death to eternal life that is good.

I have read through the whole thing in a Latin translation.
the poem made me experience a fascinatingly humble sensation.
I furthermore researched a lot of myths both japanese and chinese to find out what all those vibrant feathers are made up of and why they were colored this way in usually soft but yet very alive colors.

The phoenix was a very nice project to work on and I really wanted to show the contrast of those golden feathers against the dark atmosphere of the world that surrounds this mythical creature.