Aaaand … To spoil the fun there really is a two thousand year old religious code in this piece. Or was this intentional? Either way, clever, cool and funny image. I hope you had a good Christmas.
Hi Nancy
Here I must quote His Holiness the very Reverend Dr Wikipedia:
Iota (i) is the first letter of Iēsous (Ἰησοῦς), Greek for “Jesus”.
Chi (ch) is the first letter of Christos (Χριστός), Greek for “anointed”.
Theta (th) is the first letter of Theou (Θεοῦ), Greek for “God’s”, the genitive case of Θεóς, Theos, Greek for “God”.
Upsilon (y) is the first letter of (h)uios[6] (Υἱός), Greek for “Son”.
Sigma (s) is the first letter of sōtēr (Σωτήρ), Greek for “Savior”.
Ichthys spells out Jesus Christ, son of God, Saviour
fish = Ichthys = Christ
Hence your apt pun Merry Fishmas = Merry Christmas. Just add squeezed lemon.
If, like me, you’re an atheist, I’ve either tickled you with this or spoilt your fun. If the latter …. Sorry. I still love your picture!
Ah the ‘fish’ thing, I had forgotten that! Thank you 😀
Being Atheist of course I did have an alternative interpretation that is very sensible and plain: it is a mass of fish; the fish are merry 😉 …though in truth it was just that I wanted to do a fishy christmas picture because swimming and art is generally what I mostly do nowadays and the ‘Fishmas’ was a pun because it sounded a little bit like ‘Christmas’.
I wondered if you had spotted any significance in the single fish going in the other direction. I haven’t, but there might be 😀
It occurs to me that a lot of ‘encoded’ pictures might just be artists messing about after all!
You are right, it’s just fish being merry at Xmas. Sorry to be a show off. I always found that kind of thing fascinating. I started just by liking your picture.
Art by Nancy Farmer 
LOL. Oh you. 😀 Such fun. Merry Christmas.
and to you too! 🙂
Aaaand … To spoil the fun there really is a two thousand year old religious code in this piece. Or was this intentional? Either way, clever, cool and funny image. I hope you had a good Christmas.
No it was not intentional!… I mean, ah yes, you see how clever I am? 😉 So what is the code?
Hi Nancy
Here I must quote His Holiness the very Reverend Dr Wikipedia:
Iota (i) is the first letter of Iēsous (Ἰησοῦς), Greek for “Jesus”.
Chi (ch) is the first letter of Christos (Χριστός), Greek for “anointed”.
Theta (th) is the first letter of Theou (Θεοῦ), Greek for “God’s”, the genitive case of Θεóς, Theos, Greek for “God”.
Upsilon (y) is the first letter of (h)uios[6] (Υἱός), Greek for “Son”.
Sigma (s) is the first letter of sōtēr (Σωτήρ), Greek for “Savior”.
Ichthys spells out Jesus Christ, son of God, Saviour
fish = Ichthys = Christ
Hence your apt pun Merry Fishmas = Merry Christmas. Just add squeezed lemon.
If, like me, you’re an atheist, I’ve either tickled you with this or spoilt your fun. If the latter …. Sorry. I still love your picture!
Happy New Year!
Ah the ‘fish’ thing, I had forgotten that! Thank you 😀
Being Atheist of course I did have an alternative interpretation that is very sensible and plain: it is a mass of fish; the fish are merry 😉 …though in truth it was just that I wanted to do a fishy christmas picture because swimming and art is generally what I mostly do nowadays and the ‘Fishmas’ was a pun because it sounded a little bit like ‘Christmas’.
I wondered if you had spotted any significance in the single fish going in the other direction. I haven’t, but there might be 😀
It occurs to me that a lot of ‘encoded’ pictures might just be artists messing about after all!
You are right, it’s just fish being merry at Xmas. Sorry to be a show off. I always found that kind of thing fascinating. I started just by liking your picture.
No need to apologise! I like nerdy things like that too 😀
Good. It’s difficult to judge when commenting on someone else’s blog.
🙂