Wednesday, September 2, 2009

Creative Archaeology

(click on image to enlarge)

Hanging Gardens of Babylon
Watercolour, crayon and computer
©2009 Charlene Brown
When I wrote about the harbour gardens here in Victoria on July 30, I said I was going to get back to one of my original projects, painting a series of ancient gardens. I thought I might include some of the Victoria planters in a painting of the Herodium in Jerusalem – well, that hasn’t happened, but here are five of them in the Hanging Gardens of Babylon -- one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. It is unlikely that this painting resembles the real thing, particularly the Tower of Babel which probably never got even this high, but you never know – this might be exactly what they were like! It is loosely based on an engraving by 16th century Dutch artist Maarten van Heemskerck