‘The Threefold Sun: The Meteorological Sun. The Luminous Sun’ (2011)

One of the books from the series ‘The Threefold Sun’ by Vaira Vīķe-Freiberga. The series contain five books in total: ‘The Threefold Sun, Vol. I: The Cosmological Sun’ (1997), ‘The Threefold Sun, Vol. II: The Chronological Sun’ (1999), ‘The Threefold Sun, Vol. III: The Meteorological Sun. The Warm Sun’ (2002), ‘The Threefold Sun, Vol. IV: The Meteorological Sun. The Luminous Sun’ (2011), and ‘The Threefold Sun, Vol. V: The Mythological Sun’ (2016).

In the book ‘The Threefold Sun: The Meteorological Sun. The Luminous Sun’ the author explores the third main aspect of the physical sun. It focuses on the sun and sunlight as visual phenomena, including everything that affects the glow and brilliance of the sun, and the contrast between light and shadow or darkness.

In the introduction of the book Vaira Vīķe-Freiberga writes, ‘In this volume we will try to highlight the motifs of folksongs that focus on the brightness and incandescence of the sun, and will try to look into the very rich symbolic associations that the sunlight and its brilliance had entailed in the minds of people, who then created the foksongs – dainas.’

Artist – Ilmārs Blumbergs