Composition 19

Romance of ruins, the glories and mysteries of the classical past.
The eternal, the weight of ages.
But with the eternal, the fleeting.

A glorious white and green arrangement in a bronze Roman urn, and flanked by a head of Moses, an athletic torso, an imperial foot.
A broken slab of the finest Carrara and silks and gauzes of a patrician household.
Papier-mâché helmets from a Baroque play fight and a bronze Caesar surveying the scene.

Classical serenity. But look closely. Not all is calm in this mythical scene.
Momento mori and treacherous creatures abound.
Thyme for vigour and rosemary for remembrance, but among them a carved wooden skull. And hiding in plain sight, snails, a scorpion, a coiled serpent.
And a lizard, poised to bite the finger of a Caravaggio boy.