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…
Category: Art of the Ancient Greeks
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…
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…
Bull-Leaping Fresco from the Palace of Knossos
Bull-leaping fresco from the east wing of the palace of Knossos (reconstructed), c. 1400 B.C.E., fresco, 78 cm high (Archaeological Museum of Heraklion, photo: Jebulon, CC0) Taking the bull by the horns “Bull sports—including leaping over them, fighting them, running from them, or riding them—have been practiced all around the globe for millennia. Perhaps the…
Minoan Art
“The Bronze Age culture of Crete, called Minoan, after King Minos of Crete from Greek mythology, is one of the most vibrant and admired in all of European prehistory. Coastline of Crete in 2017 (photo: belpo, CC BY-NC 2.0) “The island itself is no doubt part of the story; at the watery intersection of Asia,…
Knossos – An Ancient Greek Palace
“The Aegean world is a very beautiful one. The Islands rise out of the sea like jewels sparkling in the sunshine. It is a world associated with spring, of “fresh new grass and dewey lotus, and crocus and hyacinth,”[1] a land where the gods were born, one rich in legend and myth and fairy tale,…
The Snake Goddess from Knossos
An enticing mystery “It has been said that the image of the Snake Goddess, discovered by Sir Arthur Evans at Knossos on Crete, is one of the most frequently reproduced sculptures from antiquity. Whether or not this is true, it is certainly the case that she is a powerful and evocative image. What she meant to the…