The image is based on Aristophanes’ humorous personification of love as a destructive force in Plato’s Symposium. The story behind the creature is that it kept attempting to scale the heights of heaven and plotted to set upon the gods. Reluctant to kill the creatures and deprive himself of their offerings, Zeus decides to split the creatures in two distinct halves, in which the halves were driven to find each other and become whole again. To make things more entertaining, Zeus made it so the creature would never know if the creature found its other half. Still not satisfied, he then went on to allowing the same distinct half to combine with another. From then on, the creature spent most of its life searching for its corresponding part, only returning to its primal nature upon becoming whole.

I drew the image on a whim after having a conversation with a friend, who told the story while I was working. Later, I found that my interpretation of the creature fitted the description that Aristophanes gave, lacking only a few details. This was my first attempt at lithography, so I didn’t want it to be a part of my current project. The “AP” in the corner stands for “artist proof”.