Special Exhibitions
Magna Graecia
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Special Exhibitions |
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Magna Graecia |
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Magna Graecia: Greek Art From South Italy and Sicily
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Exhibition Highlights
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Gorgon Tablet (about 610-590 BC)
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Gorgon Tablet (about 610-590 BC) This magnificent tablet likely served a similar function to both the Gorgon antefix and silenus antefix--that is to say, an apotropaic function--to ward off evil. Despite the fact that she is heavily restored, the remains of brightly colored paint and her menacing grimace leave no question as to her ferocity.Her head is frontal --so the viewer may get the full effect of her frightening visage--and her torso is frontal, yet her legs are in profile in what is known as a pinwheel pose. This pose indicates that she runs with a quickness unmatched by any mortal, further indicated by her winged boots and the wings on her back. Her toothy grin is augmented by fangs and her tongue sticking out. Her wide eyes peer at the viewer, but lest we forget that she was once a beautiful woman, we see a small dab of red paint on her right earlobe; she wears earrings. Under her right arm she carries her child, the winged horse Pegasus, and under her right would have been her other child, Chrysaor (kree-sa-or). Bearing both her children with the god of the sea Poseidon, she was pregnant with the two when Perseus lopped off her head and they sprung from her body. Here, she holds her children, yet she is very much alive. This proleptic device is part of a composition that is used over and over in the Greek world. The three, mother and her two children, appear all over the Greek world on architecture in the form of pedimental sculpture as well as painted tablets, such as this one which may have once adorned a temple in Syracuse. Page 13 of 23 | On the next page: Pinax with Woman Packing a Chest (about 470-460 BC ) |
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