The Pomegranate
The pomegranate is a symbol that spans many different cultures, but is most commonly associated with the Greek goddess Persephone - symbolizing the reason behind her time/imprisonment in the Underworld with Hades.
As the Queen of the Dead, Persephone brought about winter and lack of fertility while she was in the Underworld, only to be the opposite along side her mother, Demeter, when back above ground.
The pomegranate as a symbol, is that of royalty, death, life, love, blood, fertility, etc…it’s a fruit of dichotomies. Split down the middle, the seeds are in two distinct pockets.
Like everything else in the painting, it’s about life and death and the cycles, the inner confluence of the stages of life, the power that love can hold, what may spring forth from the blood of a dead demi-god.
It’s an interesting thing that the majority of death gods also look over the realm of fertility. Death is the best form of fertilizer, life always leads to death, and the Underworld always has passage back to the living.
