Father Time


Father Time is the personification of time. In recent centuries he is usually depicted as an elderly bearded man, sometimes with wings, dressed in a robe and carrying a scythe and an hourglass or other timekeeping device.
As an image "Father Time's origins are curious". The ancient Greeks themselves began to associate chronos, their word for time, with the agricultural god Cronos, who had the attribute of a harvester's sickle. The Romans equated Cronos with Saturn, who also had a sickle, and was treated as an old man, often with a crutch. The wings and hourglass were early Renaissance additions and he eventually became a companion of the Grim Reaper, personification of Death, often taking his scythe. He may have as an attribute a snake with its tail in its mouth, an ancient Egyptian symbol of eternity.

New Year

Around New Year's Eve, the media use the convenient trope of Father Time as the personification of the previous year who typically "hands over" the duties of time to the equally allegorical Baby New Year or who otherwise characterizes the preceding year. In these depictions, Father Time is usually depicted wearing a sash with the old year's date on it.
Time is often depicted revealing or unveiling the allegorical Truth, sometimes at the expense of a personification of Falsehood, Fraud, or Envy. This theme is related to the idea of veritas filia temporis.

In the arts

Father Time is an established symbol in numerous cultures and appears in a variety of art and media. In some cases, they appear specifically as Father Time while in other cases they may have another name, but the characters demonstrate the attributes which Father Time has acquired over the centuries.

Art

;Paintings
, National Museum in Warsaw, is a 17th-century depiction of Titan Cronus as "Father Time" wielding the harvesting scythe
;Sculpture
"Father Time" is a Folk Ballad composed by Alan W. Gray "Internal Affairs" album,'TENEBO' Records 2003