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Today is Easter Sunday. A time when ritual eggs are exchanged.It's obvious the egg would be widely regarded as a symbol for birth, rebirth, renewal, reincarnation or resurrection.
Below, for instance, is a protester's egg from the streets of Syria six weeks ago.
"A Yemeni anti-government protester holds an egg painted with the colours of his national flag and bearing the Arabic writing 'Leave Ali' during a rally demanding an end to President Ali Abdullah Saleh's rule outside Sanaa University on March 16, 2011."
Mostly, egg symbolism is obvious; however, a couple of egg scenarios, at hand here, have us speggulating.
The first of these is a 1904 German postcard, Fröhliche Ostern! (Happy Easter!) A portrait of an elf has just been painted on a large egg. Three elves now regard it; one appears to be crying. The egg is set among rocks on the ground. Is this a funery egg, marking the grave of the one depicted? If so, why an egg? Is it to symbolise a new life beyond this grave?
From that to thoughts of other funery portraits. Especially the Fayum mummy portraits: ancient Egyptian-Roman-Coptic portrait boards placed over or wound into the wrappings of mummies.
Our favorite death egg art is Lucio Fontana's series Concetto spaziale: La fine di Dio (Spatial Concept: The End of God). Here's a golden one, from 1963.
The second of today's two egg art portrait puzzlers is this :
detail
A Person Looks At A Work Of Art/
someone looks at something ...
LOGOS/HA HA