“Hermes”

24in. x 24in., Oil & Acrylic on wooden panel

“Hermes” was completed in 2022 by artist Nancy Hilliard Joyce. This painting is symbolic of traveling and the boundary between life and death. Hermes is represented here with his symbols of the caduceus, tortoise, lyre, cattle, sun and moon.

Hermes was the ancient Greek god of boundaries, roads and travelers, wealth, wit, sleep, and messenger of the gods and guide to the underworld. As one of the cleverest and most mischievous of the Olympian gods, as an infant, he raided his older brother’s cattle herd and made his brother believe his cattle had mysteriously disappeared. To earn back his brother’s love and trust, he invented and gifted him a lyre made from a tortoiseshell.