Aries Constellation Linocut - Constellations of the Zodiac Collection Aries Print by minouette

22.00 USD

The white stars and silhouette of Aries the ram are illustrated in this handmade block print. I printed an edition of six prints, 8.75 inches by 7.5 inches (22 cm by 19 cm) on lovely, deep blue, handmade, Japanese kozo (or mulberry) paper. The word Aries and symbol ♈ appear at the base of the image, with an actual star at the apparent dot on the 'i'. The lines linking the constellation appear in white-on-blue or blue-on-white as appropriate.

Aries has been identified as a ram since Babylonian times. It later became associated with the ram whose fleece became the Golden Fleece in Ancient Greece. If you imagined all celestial bodies we see in the night sky as mapped onto a sphere (the Celestial Sphere) around our Earth, the ecliptic would be the line you would draw to map the apparent path of the Sun through the various constellations. The ecliptic is marked as the dashed line in this print. Since the constellation of Aries straddles the ecliptic, its stars were incorporated into different constellations in different cultures, including twin inspectors in China and a porpoise in the Marshall Islands. The modern International Astronomical Union includes all the surrounding stars shown in this print as part of the Aries constellation.

The constellation overhead at a person's birth was thought to provide insight into their character and fate. Well into the Renaissance, medical doctors were expected to be trained in astrology, as it was deemed an important diagnostic tool. Though today, astronomy tells us that Sun now appears in the constellation Aries from April 15 to May 15 (approximately), the traditional dates which determine an Aries 'sun sign' are 20 March – 19 April.