Description
The cicada in this painting is a Linne’s Cicada (Neotibicen Linnei). Cicadas have been associated variously with music, immortality, and rebirth in different cultures around the world since antiquity. I think the association with rebirth is particularly salient given their life cycle. Like leaves, the nymphs drop to the ground in fall, burrowing deep, only to emerge years later to sing until death. For me, the song of the cicada is the sound of summer.
The leaf is that of a Sugar Maple (Acer saccharum). The source of maple syrup, the Sugar Maple is native to the forests of the Eastern United States and Canada. While its natural range extends as far south as Tennessee and North Carolina, it reaches its greatest size in Canada and the Northern United States from Wisconsin to Massachusetts. It is the state tree of New York, Vermont, West Virginia, and Wisconsin, and the leaves closely resemble that on the Canadian flag.
