Persephone by multiple artists

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Another Pittsburgh cyclist called our attention to this mural. As we peddled north on Larimer Ave we could see a house sitting back from the road with almost the entire left side and front porch painted. It was very nice, but it was when we walked around to the far side that my jaw dropped. This was a mural that told a story. A story from Greek mythology actually. The entire house is painted (all four sides) but it's when you look at the north wall that you find the goddess Persephone and the pomegranate that irrevocably bound her to Hades.

As the story goes, Persephone's mother Demeter was basically Mother Earth. Goddess of fruitfulness, fertility and growth, she controlled the bounty and harvest. One day her daughter was abducted by Hades, taken to the underworld, and forced to be his wife – and Persephone's father Zeus was a co-conspirator in the abduction. Demeter wandered the earth in search of her daughter for days. Sad and grieving, she ignored her divine duties and the crops ceased to flourish. In her subsequent anger she refused to restore fertility to the Earth until her daughter was returned. Eventually Zeus had to contact Hades and insist that Persephone be sent back to her mother. Hades relented, but gave Persephone the seeds from a pomegranate, and when she ate them she was forever bound to the underworld. It was decided that she could return to Demeter 2/3 of the year, but she would be forced to spend 1/3 of the year with her husband. Each year when she's sent to Hades, growth stops until her return in the spring.

This mural was designed as a Green Mural. One of the artists, Lucas Stock, explained to us that after painting it, it would

"then have various types of sustainable vine plants and flowers planted around and on top of it, which would eventually grow and cover parts of the mural and the building when in bloom. The landscape design, installation and planting were done by various members of The Pittsburgh Green Team and The Western Pennsylvania Conservancy."

Mr Stock also pointed out some other things in the artwork that we hadn't recognized like large, leafy mandalas, mint leaves, and a tree of life, and said that it’s all meant to represent the cyclic nature of life.

This mural is a continuation of the Persephone mural on the building next door.