A History of Art for Beginners and Students: Painting, Sculpture, ArchitectureWaters, Clara Erskine Clement
History
A History of Art for Beginners and Students: Painting, Sculpture, Architecture
Waters, Clara Erskine Clement
Art -- History
The various designs upon these marbles seem to have no connection with
each other, and are executed in a rude manner. The most interesting one
represents Heracles, or Hercules, struggling with a Triton (Fig. 16).
The female figures represent Nereids, who are terrified by seeing
Heracles in contest with the sea-monster. There are many proofs that
these reliefs belong to a very ancient day.
[Illustration: FIG. 17.--HERACLES AND THE CECROPS.]
An interesting relief from the temple of Selinus represents Heracles
striding off with a pole across his shoulders, to which are hung two
Cecrops who had robbed and tormented him (Fig. 17).
A very fine work is also from Selinus, and represents Actaeon torn by his
dogs. The mythological story was that Zeus, or Jupiter, was angry with
Actaeon because he wished to marry Semele, and the great god commanded
Artemis, or Diana, to throw a stag's skin over Actaeon, so that his own
dogs would tear him. In the relief Artemis stands at the left (Fig. 18).
[Illustration: FIG. 18.--ACTAEON AND HIS DOGS.]
There is in the British Museum a monument which was discovered at
Xanthos in 1838. It is thought to have been made about 500 B.C., and is
called "The Harpy Monument," It is a tower, round the four sides of
which runs a frieze at a height of about twenty-one feet from the
ground. The frieze is of white marble, and is let into the frieze which
is of sandstone. The Lycians, in whose country it was found, were
accustomed to bury their dead at the top of such towers.
There is very great difference of opinion among scholars and critics
concerning the meaning of the various scenes in these sculptures; and as
all their writing is speculation, and no one knows the truth about it, I
shall only say that it is a very interesting object in the history of
art, and shall speak of the four corner figures on the shortest parts of
the frieze, from which the whole work takes its name. The Harpies are
very curious; they had wings, and arms like human arms, with claws for
hands, and feathered tails. Their bodies are egg-shaped, which is a very
strange feature in their formation. We cannot explain all these
different things, but there is little doubt that, with the little forms
which they have in their arms, they represent the messengers of death
bearing away the souls of the deceased. In the Odyssey, Homer represents
the Harpies as carrying off the daughters of King Pandareus and giving
them to the cruel Erinnyes for servants. For this reason the Harpies
were considered as robbers, and whenever a person suddenly disappeared
it was said that they had been carried off by Harpies (Fig. 19).
[Illustration: FIG. 19.--_From the Harpy Monument, London._]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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