Arabian Nights 4

Paper collage, acrylics and oil pastels on illustration board (matted and framed).

10.50x14.50"

The original artwork size is 5.5 x 9.5 inches.

One Thousand and One Nights is a Persian story about Shahryar; a king who is ruling in "India and China", once shocked to learn that his wife is unfaithful, so he has her killed. In his bitterness and grief, he decides that all women are the same. Shahryār begins to marry a succession of virgins only to execute each one the next morning before she has a chance to dishonor him. Eventually, the vizier, whose duty it is to provide them, cannot find any more virgins. Scheherazade (the vizier's daughter, offers herself as the next bride and her father reluctantly agrees. On the night of their marriage, Scheherazade begins to tell the king a tale but does not end it. The king, curious about how the story ends, is thus forced to postpone her execution to hear the conclusion. The next night, as soon as she finishes the tale, she begins (and only begins) a new one, and the king, eager to hear the conclusion of this tale, postpones her execution once again. This goes on for 1,001 nights.

The tales include historical tales, love stories, tragedies, comedies, poems, burlesques, and various forms of erotica. Numerous stories depict jinies, ghouls, apes, sorcerers, magicians, and legendary places, which are often intermingled with real people and geography, not always rationally.