The Lord of the Rings is a Story of Good versus Evil, playing out in the setting of Tolkien’s Middle Earth. Tolkien’s Myths are Largely Based on Old English and Old Norse Mythology. Beowulf King Arthur The Viking Sagas In Norse Mythology, the World is Made up of 3 Levels. The highest level of…
Month: September 2022
Medusa: Clash of the Gods
“Clash of the Gods.” History Vault, watch.historyvault.com/shows/clash-of-the-gods. Accessed 6 Sept. 2022. Medusa Met Her Fate in the Parthenon, which was Athena’s Temple. Poseidon – God of Sea and Storms and Earthquakes Poseidon raped the Virginal Medusa. Athena punished Medusa by turning her into a monster whose hair was a nest of writhing, poisonous snakes. To make…
Perseus, Andromeda, and the Sea Monster
ANDROMEDA AND THE SEA-MONSTER As Perseus journeyed over land and sea on his great quest, he often thought of the dear mother he had left in Seriphus. Now that his task was done he longed to fly over the blue waters of the Mediterranean to see her, to know that she was safe from the cruel…
Dangerous Beauty: Medusa in Classical Art – The Metropolitan Museum of Art
“Dangerous Beauty: Medusa in Classical Art : The Metropolitan Museum of Art, www.metmuseum.org/exhibitions/listings/2018/dangerous-beauty. Accessed 6 Sept. 2022. “The exhibition publication explores the ways in which Medusa and other hybrid creatures were depicted from antiquity to the present day.” The Met “Beginning in the fifth century b.c., the Gorgon Medusa—a legendary monster whose gaze could turn…
Perseus and His Quest to Kill the Gorgon Medussa
THE QUEST OF PERSEUS Medusa and her two sisters were named the Gorgons. The sisters had always been plain and even terrible to see, but Medusa had once been fair to look upon. When she was young and beautiful her home was in a northern land where the sun never shone, so she begged Athene to…
Danae and the Tower – The Birth of Perseus
When you think of a hero, you think of a man who does brave, unselfish deeds. But to the Hellenes or Greeks a hero was one who was half god, half man—whose one parent was a god while the other was a mortal. So the god Zeus was the father of Perseus, the hero of…
Athena and Arachne
CHAPTER IV THE BIRTH OF ATHENE One day Zeus was ill. To us it is strange to think of the gods as suffering the same pains as mortals suffer, but to the Hellenes it seemed quite natural. Zeus was ill. His head ached so severely that he bade all the gods assemble in Olympus to find…
Contrapposto – A Gift from the Ancient Greeks
Before the era of Ancient Greece, artists and artisans depicted the human figure as a straight and rigid form. The Ancient Greeks discovered that the more natural, the more human way, to depict the figure is that presented in Contrapposto. In simplistic terms, a figure standing in Contrapposto will place his weight on only one…
Neoclassicism and the Classical Ideal
In terms of art history, the Classical Period of Art was Created During the Eras of Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome. Marble statue of Aphrodite 1st or 2nd century A.D. Roman – Copy of a Greek statue of the 3rd or 2nd century B.C. “The goddess of love is shown as though surprised at her…
The Art of Classical Greece (ca. 480–323 B.C.) – The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Terracotta amphora (jar) ca. 490 B.C. Attributed to the Berlin Painter “This work is a masterpiece of Greek vase-painting because it brings together many features of Athenian culture in an artistic expression of the highest quality. The shape itself is central to the effect. Through the symmetry, scale, and luminously glossy glaze on the obverse,…