Table with sculpture of a baby's head, 20 May 2020

In a red dawn the bronze sculpture of a baby's head asks to be drawn. Made by Joseph Conroy it is a model of our son's head at four weeks old. It was perturbing to hear reports of the deaths of eleven mothers, and some children from domestic violence so far in the Covid 19 lockdown. The fragile child is the centre of existence, really, even though you won't find motherhood/babyhood widely represented in contemporary art. In early Australia many children used to wander away from unfenced houses and get lost in the bush. Living for years in a remote eucalyptus forest I used to hear at night the persistent crying of a baby among the pinpricks of crickets and the hoots of bookbook owls.

The earliest Greek myths have violent imagery of the Titan god Cronos swallowing all the children that his wife Rhea bore him, because his son was destined to be greater than he was. When Zeus was born, Rhea handed Cronos a stone wrapped in swaddling clothes to swallow, and hid the child. Once grown, Zeus gave Cronus an emetic so that he vomited up the stone and all his brothers and sisters who became the Olympian pantheon.  The stone became the navel stone at Delphie, adorned with wool. After this ancient hint of human sacrifice, Hellenistic imagery finds a place for the poignant individuality of even a sleeping baby, such as the one carved in marble in Paphos, a little Eros.  Two stories; the child as the enemy of the parent and the child as future strength - they are probably still with us.

Diana Wood Conroy 'Table with sculpture of a baby's head', watercolour on Arches paper, 15 x 21 cm, 20 May 2020.