Like much of Orlik’s work, this intriguing image leads the imagination through multipleassociations and suggestions to a multiplicity of interpretations.

The scene is a dense winter forest with trees weighed down by and bending over beneath their thick covering of snow which clings to their branches in bulbous globules; in the sky is a fiery red sun which seems to emit rays which are solid and shaped like horns, tendrils, branches, hands, antlers and a unicorn’s horn. In Orlik’s playful imagination, the sun is also a 1970s space hopper which had two twisted handles like horns which was bounced on by children. Thin spikes appear out of the top of the trees – presumably to burst (or ward off) the sun/space hopper if it gets too close.

The trees are also candles, with their wick (the spike) at the top and layers of wax melting and dripping down their bodies. They melt beneath the heat of the sun which perhaps could be a reference to climate change and the intense warming of the atmosphere. Here, they protect themselves with their spikes, just as trees protect us by locking up carbon in the process of photosynthesis. At points, the trees suggest the human form or animated snowwomen or men trying to cover themselves against the burning rays of the sun.

The ‘sun’ could also be a spiked bomb which suggests the ‘rope trick’ effect which is the lines and spikes which emanate from the fireball after a nuclear explosion. Trees and other kind of vegetation have proved to be remarkably resilient to the intense radiation around nuclear disaster zones, surviving at the Chernobyl site and overtaking and re-wilding the land which remains uninhabitable for humans.

The ‘sun’ is also like a bacteria cell which has pili and flagella coming out of its cell wall. A flagellum is a hairlike appendage that protrudes from certain plant and animal cells, sperm cells and fungal spores and provides motility to a wide range of microorganisms. The study of flagella provides insights into the diversity of life, in molecular biology, evolution and the mechanisms behind bacterial cell movement. The ‘sun’ becomes an individual atom or the first primary source of life out of which other cells have generated.

The snow hangs off the tree, like blobs of meringue or icing dripping down a cake or like pendulous breasts. There is a suggestion of the famous statue of the Ephesian Artemis, which in its distinctive form has, what was once thought to be, many-breasts covering her torso. The statue was seen as a fertility goddess and from late antiquity onwards was interpreted as Aphrodite/Venus. However, later study revealed that the statue was of Artemis, and the evidence suggests that the oval objects on her chest were not part of her anatomy but were decorations hung ceremonially on the original wood statue, possibly eggs or the scrotal sacs of sacrificed bulls. In a votive inscription dating from 3rd century BC, mentioned by Florence Mary Bennett (in Religious Cults Associated with the Amazons, 1912, Chapter III, ‘Ephesian Artemis’), the Ephesian Artemis was the ‘Healer of diseases’ which is an interesting interpretation if the ‘sun’ in the painting is bacteria.

Artemis is the virgin goddess of the hunt, the wilderness and the moon, known for her chastity and who often in myth appears in a forest setting. With this interpretation the trees, in their wilderness, perhaps fight off the sun (the antithesis of their moon) which is also a sperm cell. Similarly, if the trees become Artemis, then the sun is their twin brother, Apollo, the god of the Sun and light and also healing and diseases.