In Greek and Roman mythology, Hermes/Mercury, is the messenger of the gods. All religions have such go-betweens but each has their own name for this creature. The message given by the gods is never straight forward and literal though. It takes a special interpretation to understand what the message means. The study of interpretation is called 'hermeneutics', after the Greek god. Those who follow any of the sacred scriptures of the traditional faiths in a literal fashion generally miss what the relevance of the text might be in today's world. A hint though would be that if the interpretation divides people, it is usually wrong.In this painting, Hermes is moving from the dark to the light - from unknowing to knowing. He is coming through the portal (book,ritual,prophecy,etc.) but he has no formed facial features as that is left for those he is coming to craft.
