Creation from gaea_to_athena 2012

Misc. images of Hesiod’s account of the creation of the

world and the gods.

Hesiod, the sleeping shepherd, visited by a Muse who inspired him to tell this

story. By Delacroix, a 19th c. French artist

The personification of Geae, Mother Earth

Eros, visualized by the Greeks as a handsome

youth, is the personification of

sexual love and desire.

Know that there are 2 different account for the creation of Eros (Roman name, Cupid, see below). You now know the lesser known of the two accounts—this

Eros is not really associated with Venus whom we’ll encounter later

The 3 Fates (Moerae). Notice that one is spinning the wool (birth), another is measuring the thread (of life), and the third is cutting it (death)

A Cyclops. Notice that he

has a single eye on his forehead.

Cyclopes serve different

functions in different myth stories. Our 3 Cyclopes make the lightening bolts for Zeus

The Cyclops in Homer’s

Odyssey (left, being blinded

by Odysseus) is not the same as

one of those that appear in

our story

True or False: Are Cyclopes

real?

Okay—enough of the Cyclopes. How about

their brothers, the 3 Hecatonchires (100-

handers)

A photograph I found on the web, called Hecatonchires

The Mutiliation of Uranus by Cronus, by Vasari and Gherardi

Focus on the central scene in this painting. All the Titans are inside of Mother Earth (inside her womb). Cronus is holding a scythe, given to him by his mother, to castrate

Uranus, and thus release her from perpetual intercourse...that's why Uranus is inside with the Titans.

Saturnus, or Saturn, is the Roman name for

Cronus. This is a photograph of a Roman

fresco. Saturn is holding his sickle, without which we

could not identify this figure

The most important sequel to the castration of Uranus by Cronus is the birth of Aphrodite, the goddess of sexual attraction. After Cronus castrated his father, he threw the severed genitals into

to the sea. Aphrodite was born from the foam created by the mixture of sea water and the genitals. The severed genitals floated first to Cythera (1). Aphrodite finally stepped on land on

Cyprus, a larger island farther east (2)

1

2

Greek relief depicting Aphrodite rising out of the sea for the first time. Her maidens or nymphs are covering her with a robe. She is nearly

always depicted nude.

The Birth of Venus (Roman name) by Botticelli, an Italian Renaissance painter (1485). In the Ufitzi gallery in Florence. Notice the triad of figures (three is the magic number in art): Our eyes are drawn to Aphrodite, the central nude figure standing on a shell as she approached the shore. To our left are personified winds blowing her to shore, and

to our right are nymphs waiting to clad the goddess

Venus (the Roman Aphrodite) as depicted on a fresco found on a wall in Pompeii, Italy. Again, notice the triad structure: Venus is in the center with cupids flanking her. The one on our left holds a scythe, which helps put this scene in context (these iconographic symbols are necessary to identify most

figures)

The place is the Underworld and the three

figures in the air are Furies, female figures with snakes

for hair (here seen with snakes wrapped around

their bodies) and wings on their backs. In the

Upperworld, they appear only to those who have

spilled the blood of kin. They are personified

vengeance.

In the following slide you’ll see the 3 Furies haunting Orestes, the young male in the

foreground, after he killed his mother (left, with the knife in her chest). He killed his

mother because she killed his father (her own husband). She killed her husband because he

killed their daughter. We’ll learn about myth’s most dysfunctional family in several weeks. But for now, check out the Furies

haunting Orestes…

The Greeks believed that their world was a flat disc surrounded by a fresh water river called Oceanus or Ocean. On top of this disc sat a solid dome called the sky, much like an inverted tea cup sits on a saucer. Across this dome from east to west rides Helios (or sometimes Apollo), the

personification of the Sun (notice the rays emanating from his head), in his fiery chariot; and every night he returns to the east in a cup which floats along in the river Ocean.

This piece depicts a scene from a myth that we’ll read soon, but for now I point out the sun god (Helios or Apollo) on our left. Without the rays of light emanating from his

head, we would not know both who this is and the context of this scene. The 3 figures on the right are the Cyclopes, makers of Zeus’ lightening bolts and whatever else needs to be manufactured on Mt. Olympus. They’re in the workshop of Hephaestus, the fifth

figure in the foreground

Helios, the son of Hyperion (a Titan,

and brother of Cronus), had a son named Phaethon. Know this story

well. Here, Phaethon asks his father to lend him

his sun chariot

Phaethon is depicted in his father’s chariot, trying to

control the 4 horses that pull the sun across the sky. He loses control and the horses pull the sun too close to the

earth, which sets the earth on fire and burns the Africans (aetiological story of why

Africans have dark skin and how a desert was made)

In order to save the earth, Zeus ( in the upper

right) must blast Phaethon out of the sky

with his lightening bolts. Zeus’ iconographic

symbols are his crown, lightening bolts, and the eagle, one wing of which

we can see.

A favorite scene for artists to depict

Rubens, the 17th c. Flemish master,

captures the moment when

Phaethon is blasted out of the chariot

by Zeus

“Phaethon” by Michelangelo.

Zeus sits upon his eagle, above, about to throw his lightening bolt (cut off) at

Phaethon. The central scene depicts Phaethon among the horses falling from the sky. At the bottom Phaethon’s sisters lament their dead

brother.

Another offspring of Hyperion, the Titan, is

Selene, the moon goddess. She also drives a chariot (2 horses, not 4)…across the NIGHT sky. We are able to make out her two horses, and she is

flanked by stars and wearing the moon-disk on her head. She is the

subject of a very famous story which involves

Endymion, for which you are not responsible.

Poussin, an 18th c. French artist, was interested in the story's erotic overtones--notice the little Cupids throughout. Here we see Selene leaving Endymion, a shepherd whom Selene would regularly visit at night as he slept. Apollo the sun is in his chariot in the background (right) and Eos the dawn precedes him, sprinkling

the morning dew. Night (right foreground) is forced to pull back her black pall. Endymion apparently is begging her to let him sleep on forever (they had sex in his dreams) as the god of sleep, Somnus, sleeps on in

the background.

POUSSIN

Caracci, a 16th c. Italian painter, depicts one of

Selene’s nightly visits to the sleeping shepherd. How do

we know it’s Selene? A crescent

moon appears on her head.

You're looking at a painting fired into the inside of a Greek shallow drinking vessel. You tip the cup to sip some wine and see Eos and Tithonus. Eos fell in love with the mortal and asked Zeus to make him immortal, but forgot to ask for eternal youth. He

soon grew so old that he was unable to satisfy his eternal youthful wife.

In this baroque ceiling painting Aurora (the

Roman name for Eos) leaves the now aged

Tithonus for her daily trip across the morning sky. In this depiction

her companions sprinkle the dew for

her.

Interpretation of three scenes from

this story…

Goya, 18th c. Spanish master, painted this one as one of a series of frightening murals which adorned

the walls of a small house where he suffered through a long illness as a recluse. Although the text states

that Cronus swallowed his children, Goya depicts him as eating them.

His eyes symbolize the brutality and violence of this part of the story of

the creation of the universe.

Ruben’s Cronus and Child

Roman relief of Rhea giving a rock to Cronus instead

of his last born son, Zeus, who

was then spirited away to Greece where he was

raised

Zeus spent his infancy on Mt. Dikte in Crete

And there’s a cave on Mt. Dikte where Zeus is said to have been raised

Poussin shows us the nymphs (spirits of natural places personified) of Mt. Dikte nurturing Zeus on the goats' milk provided by a friendly Satyr

who milks the goats

The marriage of Zeus, the sky god, and Hera, the earth

and fertility goddess (symbolized by

Zeus’ grabbing of Hera’s breast).

Archaic sculpture

Zeus and Hera again, this time more subdued.

A later, Classical version.

A scene from a well preserved Greek vase. Prometheus or Hephaestus is said to have whacked Zeus on the head to alleviate his migraine. Athena with her shield (one of her iconographic symbols) is then born from his head, fully grown and armed for battle. She is the offspring of Zeus and

Metis (who is still inside of Zeus)

A view inside of a shallow Greek wine vessel. On the left is Atlas, a Titan, who

holds up the sky at the edge of the world, as

punishment for fighting against the Olympians.