Literary Calligraphy

Description

Susan Loy's Tempus fugit/Carpe diem, is an original Literary Calligraphy watercolor (Winsor Newton Artist’s Watercolor) on Arches watercolor paper. The image is 9-1/2” x 9-1/2” and the paper is 12” x 12” with four hand-deckled edges. It is signed in watercolor on one of the datura leaves, “Susan Loy,” and signed and dated in pencil on the back, “Susan Loy 2018.” The texts feature the words carpe diem, in large built-up letters in shades of orange and purple, followed by a smaller lettering of the entire aphorism in purple – “Carpe diem, quam minimum credula postero. Horace, Odes, Book 1. 11.” The axiom, “Tempus fugit. – Fugit interea, fugit inreparible tempus, singula dum capti circumvectamur amore. Virgil, Georgics, III,” lettered in purple, borders the large carpe diem. The top corners include lines about ephemeral flowers, – lettered in a tawny shade of orange. – “The common day lily – Hemerocallis fulva – is named from Greek ep and hemera – one day, ephemeral, like the blossoms of a day lily, datura, or day flower that last one day.”
Ephemeral flowers aptly illustrate the sentiments of Horace and Virgil. An orange day lily blossom graces the lower right corner, and a Fibonacci spiral the left. White, purple-tinged datura flowers with large, deep green leaves form a central bouquet, along with tiny bright blue day flowers.
Carpe Diem is usually translated “seize the day” (seize the day, with minimum trust in the future). The word “day” comes from the Latin dies, “to shine.” Carpe, often translated “seize,” comes from KERP-, “to gather,” “pluck,” or “harvest,” and has lent itself to English words such as harvest, carpet, and excerpt – something “plucked” from a text. Tempus fugit is often translated into English as “time flies.” Virgil’s lines have been translated variously, by Dryden in 1709 as “time is lost, which never will renew, while we too far the pleasing Path pursue; surveying Nature, with too nice a view,” and by Rhoades in 1900 as “fast flies meanwhile the irreparable hour, as point to point our charmed round we trace.”

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