81-90 mythological survey
TRANSCRIPT
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Art ist : Benvenuto Cel l in i
(1500 - 1571)
Date: 1545 1554
Locat ion: The Loggia dei Lanzi in
the Piazza del la Signoria ,Florence
Descript ion: This eighteen foot
sculpture was the f irst
monumental bronze to be cast in
Florence during the Sixteenth
Century. Cel l in i writes in his
Aut ob iography about the way he
simulated the pouring of molten
metal in the blood which f lows
from the severed head and the
torso of the Gorgon. I t was from
the blood of Medusa that the
winged horse Pegasus arose (see
page 77) and f lew to Parnassus
where it became a symbol of
art ist ic inspirat ion. Cel l in i thus
transforms his mythical source
materia l into a k ind of self-
portrait which is a lmost unique
in Renaissance Art , with its
humble yet noble
acknowledgement of heroic
achievement and its oddly
beautiful treatment of apotentia l ly gris ly subject .
The goddess Minerva, indignant at the vanity of the mortal Medusa (one of three s isters
col lect ively known as the Gorgons), transform ed her hair into a nest of writhing serpents
and cursed her with a stare that turned other mortals to stone. When Medusa further
insulted the goddess by making love to Neptune in one of Minervas shrines, the hero
Perseus was recruited, outfitted, tra ined, and dispatched as an assass in. For his miss ion
he used the talar ia of Mercury (see p. 67) and approached the s leeping Gorgon by walking
backwards and us ing a pol ished shield as a mirror. When Perseus presented the head of
Medusa to his divine patroness, she aff ixed it to the aegis which her father Jupiter had
given her (see page 74).
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Art ist : Annibale Carracci (1560 -
1609) was arguably the most
eclect ic of the three Baroque
art ists who operated a family
studio in late Sixteenth Century
Rome. His brother Agost ino and
their cousin Ludovico were a lsoprol if ic , however, and the three
painters frequently col laborated
on large-scale projects .
Date: 1597
Locat ion: The Farnese Gallery,
Rome
Descript ion: Polyphemus Furioso
represents the blinded giants
fut i le attempts to crush Ulysses
and his men after discovering
that they had escaped from his
cave.
Polyphemus the Cyclops ( l i teral ly, s ingle wheel-s ized eye) was NOT related to the threegigantic sons of Tel lus who worked in Vulcans forge and manufactured thunderbolts for
Jupiter (see pages 62, 65). Polyphemus was a son of the Sea God Neptune and l ived a lone
in a cave on the is land of Sic i ly. Although he was famil iar with f ire, he subsisted a lmost
exclus ively on raw meat and cheese. In one of the most well-known episodes from
Homers Odyssey, when Odysseus/Ulysses and his men ventured ashore near the s ite of
modern Catania to forage, they took wine with them to barter for food in case they
encountered local inhabitants .
When they found the cave of Polyphemus, they proceeded to help themselves to his
cheese and were caught in the act . The giant imprisoned them by blocking the door of his
dwell ing with an enormous boulder and announced his intention to eat th em, but promptly
fel l into a stupor when he swigged down an amphora or two of the Greeks a lcohol, a
beverage unknown to him. Ulysses and his men managed to bl ind their s leeping captor
with a log which they sharpened and heated in the caves hearth f ire. They then hid by
cl inging to the underbell ies of Polyphemuss apparently huge sheep and escaped when,
despite his raging attempts to bar their exit , he routinely released his f lo ck to graze.
In the Carracci paint ing above, Polyphemus vainly attacks the interlopers who maimed
him. Clearly, the myth ra ises quest ions of various sorts about brut ish versus so -cal led
civi l ized behavior and about the nature of wil iness. I t a lso accounts for the wrath of
Neptune which contributed to the eventual deaths of Uly sses whole crew.
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Dates and Locat ions: Cast circa 400 BC, this bronze depict i on of the Chimaera was
discovered near what is now the modern Tuscan city of Arezzo in 1553 and immediately
became a prize possess ion of the Medici Grand Duke Cosimo I . Cosimo placed it on display
in the Palazzo Vecchio. He kept the smaller bronzes unearthed along with it in his private
chambers at the Pitt i Palace where he a lone polished them. The Chimaera is now in the
col lect ion of Florences National Archeological Museum. Part of its ta i l was restored in
the Eighteenth Century.
Descript ion: The word TINSCVIL which appears on one of the sculptures legs remains a
subject of scholarly debate. Because the Etruscan language has yet to be ful ly cracked
by class ic ists , the prevai l ing hypothesis interprets the word as a vot ive inscript ion to T in
(or T inia) , the Etruscan God of Dayl ight. The Etruscans divided the year into three
seasons, named for the Serpent, the Goat, and the Lion, so the hybrid Chi maera may well
have been more important to them than we real ize.
In the oldest Greek mythological sources (e.g. , Hesiod and Homer), the Chimaera is
described as a f ire-breathing female creature which terrorized the land of Lycia. I t was
the offspring of the monsters Typhon and Echidna; Cerberus (see Divider for C. I I I ) was one
of its s ibl ings; i t was said, moreover, to have mated with Orthrus and given birth to both
the Nemean Lion and the Sphinx.
King Iobates asked the hero Bel lerophon, who had tamed Pegasus ( see pages 77 and 81), to
destroy the Chimaera. In an interest ing l iterary a l lus ion to the metal lurgic arts ,
Bel lerophon flew above his prey with a large chunk of lead which he t r icked the rampant
beast into melt ing over itself , thus stopping i ts mouth and permitt ing him to spear it .
For many centuries thereafter, s ight ings of the Chimaera were associated with natural
disasters , especia l ly volcanic eruptions. I t became a popular decorat ive motif in ceramics ,
and its name eventual ly came to be used for many differen t zoomorphic hybrids.
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Art ist : Leonor Fini (1908 1996) ,
though born in Argentina, grew
up in her I ta l ian mothers
hometown of Trieste before
sett l ing for most of her l i fe in
Paris . She is perhaps the most
internat ional of the greatSurreal ist painters , and left an
enormous body of dist inct ively
erot ic and borderl ine-hideous
art .
Date: This original color
l ithograph was published in an
edit ion of 195 s igned
impress ions in 1970. Every
major modern art col lect ion
includes works by Fini .
Descript ion: Ent it led
Vespert i l ia, this image of a
mythological harpy is remarkable
for its stubby, seemingly
ineffectual wings and its savage
raptor- l ike ta lons.
The earl iest depict ions of Harpies appear on Ancient Greek grave markers. The Harpies
were, etymological ly, pluckers who swept down on humans and fed on their l i fe-forces.
Three in number (Aello = storm wind, Celaeno = darkness and Ocypete = swift
wing), they were the s isters of I r is , the goddess of the r ainbow. Like the deadly,
seduct ive Sirens (to whom they were NOT related ge nealogical ly) these creatures
possessed the attributes of both birds and women.
The Harpies appear in the story of Jasons Quest for the Golden Fleece (and as such made
Claymation history in 1963). They also appear in Vergi l s epic poem The Aeneid. In these
two contexts they befoul their v i ct ims food in order to starve them. In Fini s print , the
pastel colors are characterist ica l ly paradoxical , and the mask at the upl ifted end of the
unusual ta i l adds a note between mockery and mystery.
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Art ist : Alessandro Bott icel l i
(1444 1510)
Date: This paint ing, completed in
1482 for the townhouse of
Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco (1463 -
1503) was presumed lost forcenturies. In 1895, it was
discovered in a storage c loset of
the Pitt i Palace. I t may have
been hidden there to protect it
from Savanarola s Bonfires of
Vanit ies , the most infamous of
which occurred in 1497.
Locat ion: The Uffizi Gal lery,
Florence
Descript ion: This paint ing,
analyzed below, does not depict
a specif ic myth or even a specif ic
centaur. I t is an a l legorical
treatment of a theme from the
writ ings of Mars i l io F ic ino (1433
1499), a phi losopher in the
court of the Medici whose
synthesis of ancient Greek
concepts with Christ ian doctrine
produced a radical ly new
(Neoplatonic) v iew of the world
which deeply influenced many
Renaissance art ists .
In c lass ical mythology, centaurs (human and horse hybrids) , l ike satyrs (see page 86), are
associated with drunkenness and predatory sexual behavior. In Bott icel l i s composit ion, a
centaur has invaded a precinct guarded by the goddess Miner va shown carrying the
halberd of a F lorentine sentry. The wilderness creature, c learly out of place in a c ivic
context and - - to the l iterate mind - - a personif icat ion of lust , bends one f inger as i f to
prepare his bow for some violent act . The goddess, a personif icat ion of chast ity, has
grabbed the intruder by the hair, interr upting his intentions, and painful ly twi sts his head
to confront her unagitated gaze. This somewhat ambiguous encounter, read from the
perspect ive of Fic inos writ ings, symbolizes the self-control led individuals arrest of
sensual pass ion and the victory of cerebral aspirat ions to enl ightenment .
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Date: F irst Century BC
Locat ion: Recovered in 1830
from a cubiculum , or bedroom, in
the so-cal led House of the Faun,
one of Ancient Pompeii s most
richly furnished privateres idences, this mosaic is now in
the col lect ion of the National
Archeological Museum in Naples.
Descript ion: The eruption of
Mount Vesuvius in AD 79
precipitated torrentia l ra in and
contributed a huge amount of
ash to the mudsl ides which
buried Pompeii . Centuries later,
a series of internat ional ly-
sponsored digs unearthed a
surpris ingly intact c ity as well as
an enormous number of art ifacts
and works of art . Three of the
most magnificent mosaics to
survive the natural disaster in
Campania came from the House
of the Faun (see detai ls below).
Inscript ions at the House of the Faun suggest that it belonged to the Saturnini branch of
the Satrian gens. This may account, as a k ind of word-play-key-to- interior -design, for thelarge number of satyrs ( fauns in Lat in) e xecuted in mult iple media found at this part icu lar
s ite. The mosaic above uses tesserae , or meticulously-shaped and precisely-colored stone,
glass , or glazed ceramic cubes - - as opposed to pebbl es and stone chips of approximately
s imilar shape and hue.
In c lass ical mythology, satyrs/fauns were demons who populated woo dlands and
uninhabited areas. They were represented in a variety of ways, but a lways - - as in the
ears of the sun -burnt f igure above - - with one or more goat- l ike features ( goat- l ike
being the Ancient Greek adject ive most often used to describe ind iscriminately ravenous
and horny adolescent boys). Satyrs were frequently depicted in ant iquity as fol lowers of
Dionysus/Bacchus (see page 68) and as the companions of nymphs who were more or less
reluctant vict ims of their lechery.
I have included a highl ight on satyrs/fauns here, because the y are extremely common
figures in a variety of decorat ive schemes, from frescoes to fountains. They are a
reminder of the animist ic origins of re l igion in the Ancient World, and their ubiquity a lso
proves that the f irst Romans had a pronounced interest in erot ic art .
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Art ist : Michelangelo Buonarott i ( 1475 1564)
Date: 1533
Locat ion: The Royal Col lect ion - - Windsor Cast le, Eng land
Descript ion: This drawing in black chalk is an excel lent example of what we wil l see at
Florences Casa Buonarott i . I have included it here chiefly in order to showcase yet
another genre in which Michelangelo excel led.
The goddess Juno enraged (as she often was) by one of her husbands extra-marita l affa irs ,
dispatched the giant T ityus to the is l and of Delos where the goddess Leto/Latona had just
given birth to Apollo and Diana. T ityus was instructed by the aggrieved Queen of the Gods
to ravish and murder Leto (whom Juno herself had ineffectual ly harassed for months).
The twin deit ies , however, protected their mother and pierced her assai lant with
presumably infant-s ized arrows (see pages 66, 75, and 78). Jupiter consigned Tityus for
eternity to Tartarus, a sect ion of the Underworld where punishments were perpetual. Two
eagles dai ly ate the giant s l iver, which grew back overnight only to be eaten again.
T ityus is not a common subject in either Ancient or Renaissance Ar t , but other denizens of
Tartarus appear often in admonitory contexts . Michelangelo, in The Sist ine Chapels Last
Ju dgment, invented a punishment worthy of Tartarus for his nemesis Biagio da Cesena, the
Vaticans Master of Ceremonies. When de Cesena recognized himself among the damned
being sucked in a very sensit ive area by a snake, he protested to the Pope, who al legedly
replied, Your authority does not extend to Hell . The paint ing wil l not be altered.
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Date: Circa 440 B.C.
Locat ion: Presumably once part
of a series (see note below), The
Wounded Niobid was discovered
during the excavat ion of the
Hort i Sal lust iani and is now oneof the major attract ions in
Romes mult i-s ite Museo
Nazionale, currently on display
at the Palazzo Massimo al la
Terme venue.
Descript ion: An original Parian
marble, this work by an unknown
art ist is relat ively rare,
especia l ly s ince much Ancient
Greek sculpture is known to the
modern world exclus ively
through Ancient Roman copies.
Many a mortal in c lass ical
mythology meets with personal
tragedy by dishonoring or
unconsciously defying the gods.
One such individual was the
Theban Queen Niobe, who not
only boasted proudly (even
just i f iably) about her fourteen
children, but dared to contrastherself with the goddess
Leto/Latona whose only
offspring were Apollo and Diana
(see page 67).
The offended lesser deity turned to her Olympian twins for vindicat ion, and one-by-one
Apollo s lew s ix of Niobes seven sons while Diana s lew s ix of the seven Theban princesses.
For a number of reasons, this massacre was a frequently treated subject in the l iterature
and plast ic arts of the Ancient World. Typical ly, each of the twelve innocent young adult
vict ims col lect ively cal led Niobids is portrayed dying in a sudden and dist inct ively
different manner (not unl ike the characters in a s lasher f i lm, though with much m ore
poignance).
After f leeing to her fat her on Mt. Sipylus in Asia Minor, the griev ing Niobe grew so pale
and motionless that some of the gods, taking pity on her, transformed her into a weeping
rock, or c l i ff face with a tr ick l ing waterfa l l . As works of art , the Niobids, part icularly in
groups, were both reminders of mortal it y and warnings to avoid impiety.
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Artists: According to the Roman writer Pliny the Elder, this life -size grouping was the handiwork ofthree contemporary artists principally active on the island of Rhodes: Agesander, Athenodoros and
Polydorus.
Dates and Locations: Most likely sculpted between 42 BC and 20 BC, this masterpiece was unearthed
in 1506 by laborers tilling soil for a vineyard within what had once been the Emperor Neros
expansive Domus Aurea compound. Immediately called to the attention of Pope Julius II, who was
an avid antiquarian, Michelangelo accompanied the pontiff to witness the excavation and to oversee
its transfer to the Belvedere Garden, where it is officially launched the formation of todays Vatican
Museums.
Description: The Phrygian priest Laocoon was one of only two individuals to recognize the Trojan
Horse as a deadly ruse. The god Neptune, who had thrown his support to the Greek alliance during
the course of its protracted war in the Troad, sent sea serpents to silence the priest. When Laocoon
and his sons (depicted here as collateral damage in a prominence/importance ratio) were strangled
by the supernatural creatures, Troy naturally assumed that the warnings were blasphemous.
A quintessential image of mankinds tragic condition, the Laocoon grouping evokes pathos because
the central figures only misdeed was to tell a truth that certain gods wished to keep hidden. The
absolute futility of the trios struggle and the agony on the face of the fathe r whose final moments
amount to a soul-crushing anagnorisis, or eleventh-hour epiphany, account in part for the unique
power of the work.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agesander_of_Rhodeshttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Athenodoroshttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polydorushttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polydorushttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Athenodoroshttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agesander_of_Rhodes -
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Artists: The singer/dancer/swimmers in this photo are visiting artists from the Solistenensemble
Kaleidoscop Vocalconsort performing with the German dance company Sasha Waltz and Guests.
They are shown here enacting a scene from Dido and Aeneas (1689) by the British court composer
Henry Purcell (1659 1695) in an innovative production ofthe worlds first underwater opera.
Waltz (b. 1963) choreographed the work in a one-ton water tank large enough for seventeen actors
who are all submerged at some point but who surface when it is their time to sing.
Date: World Premiere Berlin, 2005
Description: To bring this binder full circle from page 01, I have returned to the story of Aeneas, as
immortalized by the Roman poet Virgil.
A refugee from Ancient Troy who has not yet discerned that his destiny lies in Italy, Aeneas is
shipwrecked along with his small fleet of followers on the coast of North Africa (thus the aquatic
setting for this tragic tale-set-to-music of an impossible love affair during the interruption of a
voyage). The Trojans, whose tragic story has preceded them, are welcom ed by the Phoenician
Queen Dido, herself the survivor of a coup in her native Sidon. Dido has just founded Carthage, the
capital of an Empire which will eventually wage three wars with Rome (see page 05).
Juno, whose hatred for Troy sets a highwater mark in world literature, conspires with Aeneas
mother Venus to ignite romance between the hero and his hostess. While this dalliance postponesthe founding of Rome by a few months, it ends abruptly with emotionally drastic repercussions for
Queen Dido, who watches the departing Trojan ships (refurbished at her own expense) and takes
her life swearing that her kingdom will one day rise against the descendants of Aeneas. The
vulnerability and suffering of Dido in Romes national epic The Aeneidtogether with the long-term
ramifications of her dying curse reinforce the fundamental notion in Ancient Literature and Religion
that the gods --almost capriciously, often pettily -- set in motion chains of deeds and consequences
which topple unlucky mortals while advancing divine favorites.