Metamorphosis

Material: agate.

Height: 83 mm.

Author: Vyacheslav Leontiev.

In a complicated piece of agate, the sculptor stripped away everything superfluous and created an image – a metamorphosis, as if it was born out of mythology or someone’s ancient dream. On one side is a rare-colored fish, and on the other is a portrait that amazingly combines strict, avaricious facial features with a soft, expressive expression .Is this portrait a romantic image of a young boy, an amphibian man, who symbolizes the unity of two opposing forces? Or is it the profile of a beautiful young Egyptian woman, perhaps Nefertiti herself, whose facial features were so chiseled and universal that they combined the best of femininity and masculinity.

Combined in one pice of stone anthropomorphic features and the image of the inhabitant of the water depths gives rise to an image of the duality of the world, the unity of the elements, the connection of opposites.

Almost throughout the work we can read the ornamental element repeating the shape and pattern of the fan from ancient Egyptian rock reliefs: you can see it in the plastic of the fins, and in the finely cutted pattern of the tail. The fan, as one of the symbols of ancient Egypt, the object that protects from the sun and creates air movement, appears here as something that symbolizes the spirit and dignity belonging to the image of the sculpture.

The diverse finest workmanship of the stone is also engaged in shaping the image, emphasizing its duality: the uneven but at the same time as if slippery scales on one side, and the matte, silky feel of the human profile surface on the other. The transparent, smooth in places and textured in places, the tail shimmers like ripples on water, characterizing the environment in which the two-faced mythological hero of the work inhabits.

The mystery and depth of the image are completed by the natural lines and gradients of the material: the dominant graphite black that turns into a deep dark blue-violet color, a reddish-ginger hue in the fin and the tail – give the work an independent inner glow, and the stone pattern emphasizes the general plastic movement of the work.