Sterrenbeeld steenbok 1880 - 1946

Henri van der Stok created this striking woodcut print of the Capricorn constellation, which is held at the Rijksmuseum. Notice how the Capricorn, a mythical creature with the body of a goat and the tail of a fish, stands proudly against a celestial backdrop, its image rooted in ancient Babylonian and Greek astrology. This symbol, Capricornus, is not merely a marker of time, but a repository of human hopes and fears, embodying ambition and perseverance. Consider the persistence of animal-human hybrids in art across millennia. From the Egyptian sphinx to the centaurs of Greek mythology, these figures represent humanity's quest to understand itself in relation to the natural world. The Capricorn, climbing towards the stars, echoes this archetypal struggle. It suggests the psychological tension between our earthly limitations and our yearning for the divine. The image of the Capricorn resonates in our collective memory, a reminder of the symbolic power animals exert on our psyche.