OrganicSculpture on DeviantArthttps://www.deviantart.com/organicsculpture/art/The-End-of-Life-32279563OrganicSculpture

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The End of Life

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Description

This painting is based on a story contained in gene Wolfe's "Book of Days". I'd fogotten the specifics of the story when I worked on the painting, and remembered only the ideas, so please forgive me for not matching the scenery exactly. Done in my painstakingly slow fashion over a few months. Almost entirely digital painted in PhotoShop, with a few texture overlays. The cracked earth in the foreground, for example, is a composite from a photograph.

Here is the story:
----
Once a man such as I, a man who walks the corridors of time, was approached by a rich woman. "I wish to see the end of the world," she said. "Show it to me, and I will double your fortune."
"Doubled, my fortune would remain but small," said the scholar.
"Tripled, if you like," said the woman.
"It is forbidden to use such powers as mine to satisfy idle curiosity," said the scholar.
Then the rich woman told him all her riches should do to him and his children if he did not obey her.
"Very well then," said the scholar. "Would you see the time when the sun swells and Urth falls thereto like a cinder in a grate?"
"No," said the rich woman. "That is only a larger fire, and I have seen many fires."
"Then would you see the Grand Gnab, when the universe shall fall into itself?"
"No," said the rich woman. "For that is not the end of anything, but the beginning of a new universe."
"Then tell me what I must show you," said the scholar.
The rich woman took thought with herself, and at last she said, "Show me the end of Life. I would see the last agonies of the last creature to live upon Urth."
"Very well," said the scholar; and they stood upon a plain of ice, with the red sun no brither than the moon.
"Where is the last creature?" said the woman. "That is what I wish to see. Here everything is already dead." A cold wind scoured the plain, and she drew her furs more tightly around her.
"Why no," said the scholar. "You live, and so do I." Handing her a mirror, he vanished down the corridors of time.
Image size
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© 2006 - 2024 OrganicSculpture
Comments4
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Jesszcar's avatar
nice colors. what paints did u use? u could sell this one as a print i think if you haven't already...