A Midsummer Nightmare
Digital Painting
Robin Goodfellow, a name made most famous from Shakespeare’s A Midsummer’s Night Dream, as the mischevious faery ‘Puck’. It is a name dating far earlier though, it seems. In early medieval history, his name is synonymous with mishief and used as another name for ‘demon’ or ‘hobgoblin’. The Catholic church portrayed pagan spirits in this way, and law courts viewed reference to ‘Robin Goodfellow’ as black magic and witchcraft, an attempt to demonise Pagan beliefs. The name ‘Robin’ is an ancient connection to the devil, and ‘Puck’ in Celtic cultures was a ‘shapeshifting creature’ or a ‘Pouka’. ‘Robin Goodfellow has been with you tonight’ is a reference from 1531 describing anyone who is lost or bewildered, no doubt as a result of trickery’
My painting uses the snow globe as a metaphor for the mind, the tiny demon sleeping sound within, waiting for it to get all shaken up.