Greek Statue Quotes

We had old architects and were working with what we had on hand. You’ve hired this new, young architect now, and, Pericles, I’m going to build you a statue of Athena—all gold and ivory, think of that, Pericles—and taller than our city walls.” Pericles raised his eyes toward the birds.

Hard. That was what he looked like. That was what you first noticed about him: a hard, chiselled face, like that that of some ancient Greek statue.

Every human being has within him an ideal man, just as every piece of marble contains in a rough state a statue as beautiful as the one that Praxiteles the Greek made of the god Apollo.

And yes,Percy,of course they are now in our United States. Look at your symbol,the eagle of Zeus. Look at the statue of Prometheus in Rockefeller Center,the Greek facades of our government builidings in Washington. I defy you to find any American city where the Olympians are not proeminently displayed, in multiple places. Like it or not-and believe me,plenty of people weren't very found of Rome,either-America is now the heart of the flame. It is the great power of the West.And so Olympus is here.And we are here.

The Greeks shape bronze statues so real they seem to breathe, And carve cold marble until it almost comes to life. The Greeks compose great orations, and measure The heavens so well they can predict the rising of the stars. But you, Romans, remember your great arts; To govern the peoples with authority, To establish peace under the rule of law, To conquer the mighty, and show them mercy once they are conquered." -Virgil, Aeneid VI, 847-853

I just think perfection and lasting through the ages is for Greek statues, not us mere humans.

I bitterly resent all that wasted time. And what I resent most of all is that the ones I did get never, never looked like the Greek statues.” “The Greek-statue types may have been too busy going out with other boys to notice you.

We are laying the foundation for some new, monstrous civilization. Only now do I realize what price was paid for building the ancient civilizations. The Egyptian pyramids, the temples and Greek statues—what a hideous crime they were! How much blood must have poured on to the Roman roads, the bulwarks, and the city walls. Antiquity—the tremendous concentration camp where the slave was branded on the forehead by his master, and crucified for trying to escape! Antiquity—the conspiracy of the free men against the slaves! .... If the Germans win the war, what will the world know about us? They will erect huge buildings, highways, factories, soaring monuments. Our hands will be placed under every brick, and our backs will carry the steel rails and the slabs of concrete. They will kill off our families, our sick, our aged. They will murder our children. And we shall be forgotten, drowned out by the voices of the poets, the jurists, the philosophers, the priests. They will produce their own beauty, virtue, and truth. They will produce religion.

With the stone question In the heads of Greek statues Who ask where their arms And legs and the tips of their noses Have gone.

Sweetie,” Dino said, coming over to put his arm around her shoulder. He tipped her head up and looked into her eyes with great empathy. “You can’t fuck a statue. At least not at that angle. You’d at least have to tip it onto its back first, and as a conservator, I can’t recommend it.

Lycurgus was of opinion that ornaments were so far from advantaging them in their counsels, that they were rather an hindrance, by diverting their attention from the business before them to statues and pictures, and roofs curiously fretted, the usual embellishments of such places amongst the other Greeks.

Rising up, rising down! History shambles on! What are we left with? A few half-shattered Greek stelae; Trotsky's eyeglasses; Gandhi's native-spun cloth, Cortes' pieces of solid gold (extorted from their original owner, Montezuma); a little heap of orange peels left on the table by the late Robespierre; John Brown's lengthily underlined letters; Lenin's bottles of invisible ink; one of Di Giovanni's suitcases, with an iron cylinder of gelignite and two glass tubes of acid inside; the Constitution of the Ku Klux Klan; a bruised ear (Napoleon pinched it with loving condescension)... And dead bodies, of course. (They sing about John Brown's body.) Memoirs, manifestoes, civil codes, trial proceedings, photographs, statues, weapons now aestheticized by that selfsame history - the sword of Frederick the Great, and God knows what else. Then dust blows out of fresh graves, and the orange peels go grey, sink, wither, rot away. Sooner or later, every murder becomes quaint. Charlemagne hanged four and a half thousand "rebels" in a single day, but he has achieved a storybook benevolence. And that's only natural: historiography begins after the orange has been sucked,; the peeler believes in the "great and beautiful things," or wants to believe; easy for us to believe likewise, since dust reduced truth and counterfeit to the same greyness - caveat emptor. But ends remain fresh, and means remain inexplicable. Rising up and rising down! And whom shall I save, and who is my enemy, and who is my neighbor?

The magnitude of these shattering changes can perhaps be grasped by imagining that the invasion had been in the reverse direction and that the Aztecs or Incas had arrived suddenly in Europe, imposed their culture and calendar, outlawed Christianity, set up sacrificial altars for thousands of victims in Madrid and Amsterdam, unwittingly spread disease on a scale that virtually matched the Black Death, melted down the golden images of Christ and the saints, threw stones at the stained-glass windows and converted the cathedral aisles into arms or food warehouses, toppled unfamiliar Greek statues and Roman columns, and carried home to the Mexican and Peruvian highlands their loot in precious metals along with slaves, indentured servants and other human trophies.

Every young sculptor seems to think that he must give the world some specimen of indecorous womanhood, and call it Eve, Venus, a Nymph, or any name that may apologize for a lack of decent clothing. I am weary, even more than I am ashamed, of seeing such things. Nowadays people are as good as born in their clothes, and there is practically not a nude human being in existence. An artist, therefore, as you must candidly confess, cannot sculpture nudity with a pure heart, if only because he is compelled to steal guilty glimpses at hired models. The marble inevitably loses its chastity under such circumstances. An old Greek sculptor, no doubt, found his models in the open sunshine, and among pure and princely maidens, and thus the nude statues of antiquity are as modest as violets, and sufficiently draped in their own beauty. But as for Mr. Gibson's colored Venuses (stained, I believe, with tobacco juice), and all other nudities of to-day, I really do not understand what they have to say to this generation, and would be glad to see as many heaps of quicklime in their stead.

It was the Greeks who coined the term Amazon. The word literally means “without breast”. It is said that in order to facilitate the drawing of a bow, the female’s right breast was removed, either in early childhood or with a red-hot iron after she became an adult. Even though the Greek physicians Hippocrates and Galen are said to have agreed that this operation would enhance the ability to use weapons, it is doubtful whether such operations were actually performed. Herein lies a linguistic riddle – whether the prefix “a-” in Amazon does indeed mean “without”. It has been suggested that it means the opposite – that an Amazon was a woman with especially large breasts. Nor is there a single example in any museum of a drawing, amulet or statue of a woman without her right breast, which should have been a common motif had the legend about breast amputation been based on fact.

The steam whistle will not affright him nor the flutes of Arcadia weary him: for him there is but one time, the artistic moment; but one law, the law of form; but one land, the land of Beauty - a land removed indeed from the real world and yet more sensuous because more enduring; calm, yet with that calm which dwells in the faces of the Greek statues, the calm which comes not from the rejection but from the absorption of passion, the calm which despair and sorrow cannot disturb but intensify only. And so it comes that he who seems to stand most remote from his age is he who mirrors it best, because he has stripped life of what is accidental and transitory, stripped it of that ‘mist of familiarity which makes life obscure to us.

In the Convention tomorrow I shall put him up to confront Saint-Just. Imagine it. Our man the picture of starched rectitude, and looking as if he has just devoured a beefsteak; and Camille making a joke or two at our man’s expense and then talking about ’89. A cheap trick, but the galleries will cheer. This will make Saint-Just lose his temper-not easy, since he cultivates this Greek statue manner of his—but I guarantee that Camille can do it. As soon as our man begins to bawl and roar, Camille will fold up and look helpless. That will get Robespierre on his feet, and we will all generate one of these huge emotional scenes. I always win those.

wasn’t confined to medicine. Think about all those ancient Greek statues with defined scrotum and penises (although the penises are on the small side because sexuality was apparently at odds with intellectual pursuits and so a big brain, not a big penis, was the ideal). The vulvas of the time were but mysterious mounds concealed by crossed legs.

After a moment, in which he stood with his mouth open, and scratched himself, and looked like he was modeling for a statue of the Greek god of Stupidity,

This is the temple of Zeus. And that is a statue of Zeus himself,” said Plato. “The Olympic Games are played in his honor. He is the chief god of the Greek gods and goddesses.

The statue of the mighty Greek god stared down at Jack.

Truth lights up the soul in proportion to its purity, not in any sense to its quantity. It isn't the quantity of metal which matters, but the degree of alloy. In this respect, a little pure gold is worth a lot of pure gold. A little pure truth is worth as much as a lot of pure truth. Similarly, one perfect Greek statue contains as much beauty as two perfect Greek statues.

The ancient Greeks enjoyed colors and it is assumed that they painted their statues. One can still see today small deposits of colors in classical statues. More than a thousand years later the Renaissance sculptors copied the ancient statues, leaving off the colors. I find that symbolic and telling; what else have we copied from the past, leaving off the colors, nuances, or even the essential meanings?

A fine statue of a naked Theseus stands proudly today in Athens' central place of assembly, the city's hub, Syntagma Square. Even today he is a focus of Athenian identity and pride. The ship he brought back from his adventures in the Labyrinth of Crete remained moored in the harbour at Piraeus, a visitor attraction right up to the days of historical ancient Athens, the time of Socrates and Aristotle. Its continuous presence there for such a long time caused the Ship of Theseus to become a subject of intriguing philosophical speculation. Over hundreds of years, its rigging, its planks, its hull, deck, keel, prow, stern and all its timbers had been replaced so that not one atom of the original remained. Could one call it the same ship? Am I the same person I was fifty years ago? Every molecule and cell of my body has been replaced many times over.

For many years Minos has been lucky to have in his court the most gifted inventor, the most skilled artificer outside of the Olympian forges of Hephaestus. His name is Daedalus and he is capable of fashioning moving objects out of metal, bronze, wood, ivory and gemstones. He has mastered the art of tightly coiling leaves of steel into powerful springs, which control wheels and chains to form intricate and marvellous mechanisms that mark the passage of the hours with great precision and accuracy, or control the levels of watercourses. There is nothing this cunning man cannot contrive in his workshop. There are moving statues there, men and women animated by his skill, boxes that play music and devices that can awaken him in the morning. Even if only half the stories of what Daedalus can achieve are true then you can be certain that no more cunning and clever an inventor, architect and craftsman has ever walked this earth.

I’d never known that skin could be so luminous, so translucent: ivory white with occasional blue veins visible just beneath the surface, like threads of color in white marble. She was a statue; a Greek goddess come to life in my hands.

If you could design a new structure for Camp Half-Blood what would it be? Annabeth: I’m glad you asked. We seriously need a temple. Here we are, children of the Greek gods, and we don’t even have a monument to our parents. I’d put it on the hill just south of Half-Blood Hill, and I’d design it so that every morning the rising sun would shine through its windows and make a different god’s emblem on the floor: like one day an eagle, the next an owl. It would have statues for all the gods, of course, and golden braziers for burnt offerings. I’d design it with perfect acoustics, like Carnegie Hall, so we could have lyre and reed pipe concerts there. I could go on and on, but you probably get the idea. Chiron says we’d have to sell four million truckloads of strawberries to pay for a project like that, but I think it would be worth it. Aside from your mom, who do you think is the wisest god or goddess on the Olympian Council? Annabeth: Wow, let me think . . . um. The thing is, the Olympians aren’t exactly known for wisdom, and I mean that with the greatest possible respect. Zeus is wise in his own way. I mean he’s kept the family together for four thousand years, and that’s not easy. Hermes is clever. He even fooled Apollo once by stealing his cattle, and Apollo is no slouch. I’ve always admired Artemis, too. She doesn’t compromise her beliefs. She just does her own thing and doesn’t spend a lot of time arguing with the other gods on the council. She spends more time in the mortal world than most gods, too, so she understands what’s going on. She doesn’t understand guys, though. I guess nobody’s perfect. Of all your Camp Half-Blood friends, who would you most like to have with you in battle? Annabeth: Oh, Percy. No contest. I mean, sure he can be annoying, but he’s dependable. He’s brave and he’s a good fighter. Normally, as long as I’m telling him what to do, he wins in a fight. You’ve been known to call Percy “Seaweed Brain” from time to time. What’s his most annoying quality? Annabeth: Well, I don’t call him that because he’s so bright, do I? I mean he’s not dumb. He’s actually pretty intelligent, but he acts so dumb sometimes. I wonder if he does it just to annoy me. The guy has a lot going for him. He’s courageous. He’s got a sense of humor. He’s good-looking, but don’t you dare tell him I said that. Where was I? Oh yeah, so he’s got a lot going for him, but he’s so . . . obtuse. That’s the word. I mean he doesn’t see really obvious stuff, like the way people feel, even when you’re giving him hints, and being totally blatant. What? No, I’m not talking about anyone or anything in particular! I’m just making a general statement. Why does everyone always think . . . agh! Forget it. Interview with GROVER UNDERWOOD, Satyr What’s your favorite song to play on the reed pipes?

From the faded inscriptions and the ivy-covered statues, Psyche guessed it had once been a shrine to Hera. I can’t leave it like this, Psyche thought. (Me, I would’ve have drawn eyeglasses and mustaches on all the statues and run away. But Hera and I have a history.)

Behind this lies not just impact or drama, but a typically Japanese tendency. The story of Pygmalion, the Greek myth — in which Pygmalion falls in love with the statue of a young woman that he creates and which is hen transformed into a human by Aphrodite who imbues it with life — represents a Western approach in which the statue represents the human body. In Japan, however, there is a unique predilection for dolls ... This can be interpreted as a decadent, necrophiliac erotic story but it can also be interpreted as a propensity for Japanese men to fall in love with figures. These men's desires are directed at the figure for the very reason that it is a doll. The overwhelming passivity of the doll is a reflection of the behavior of a certain type of Japanese man whose immaturity makes it very difficult for him to establish an equal relationship with a mature woman.

The tragic style of Aeschylus (I use the word "style" in the sense it receives in sculpture, and not in the exclusive signification of the manner of writing,) is grand, severe, and not unfrequently hard: that of Sophocles is marked by the most finished symmetry and harmonious gracefulness: that of Euripides is soft and luxuriant; overflowing in his easy copiousness, he often sacrifices the general effect to brilliant passages. The analogies which the undisturbed development of the fine arts among the Greeks everywhere furnishes, will enable us, throughout to compare the epochs of tragic art with those of sculpture. Aeschylus is the Phidias of Tragedy, Sophocles her Polycletus, and Euripides her Lysippus. Phidias formed sublime images of the gods, but lent them an extrinsic magnificence of material, and surrounded their majestic repose with images of the most violent struggles in strong relief. Polycletus carried his art to perfection of proportion, and hence one of his statues was called the Standard of Beauty. Lysippus distinguished himself by the fire of his works; but in his time Sculpture had deviated from its original destination, and was much more desirous of expressing the charm of motion and life than of adhering to ideality of form.

It was the Church, they told me, that had kept alive the Latin and Greek of the classical world in the benighted Middle Ages, until it could be picked up again by the wider world in the Renaissance. On holidays, we would visit museums and libraries where the same point was made. As a young child, I looked at the glowing gold of the illuminated manuscripts and believed in a more metaphorical illumination in ages of intellectual darkness. And, in a way, my parents were right to believe this, for it is true. Monasteries did preserve a lot of classical knowledge. But it is far from the whole truth. In fact, this appealing narrative has almost entirely obscured an earlier, less glorious story. For before it preserved, the Church destroyed. In a spasm of destruction never seen before—and one that appalled many non-Christians watching it—during the fourth and fifth centuries, the Christian Church demolished, vandalized and melted down a simply staggering quantity of art. Classical statues were knocked from their plinths, defaced, defiled and torn limb from limb. Temples were razed to their foundations and mutilated. A temple widely considered to be the most magnificent in the entire empire was leveled. Many of the Parthenon sculptures were attacked, faces were mutilated, hands and limbs were hacked off, and gods were decapitated. Some of the finest statues on the whole building were almost certainly smashed off then ground into rubble that was then used to build churches. Books—which were often stored in temples—suffered terribly. The remains of the greatest library in the ancient world, a library that had once held perhaps 700,000 volumes, were destroyed in this way by Christians. It was over a millennium before any other library would even come close to its holdings. Works by censured philosophers were forbidden and bonfires blazed across the empire as outlawed books went up in flames.

Excudent alii spirantia mollius aera, credo equidem, vivos ducent de marmore voltus, orabunt causas melius, caelique meatus describent radio, et surgentia sidera dicent: tu regere imperio populos, Romane, memento; hae tibi erunt artes; pacisque imponere morem, parcere subiectis, et debellare superbos.” “The Greeks shape bronze statues so real they seem to breathe, And carve cold marble until it almost comes to life. The Greeks compose great orations, and measure The heavens so well they can predict the rising of the stars. But you, Romans, remember your great arts; To govern the peoples with authority, To establish peace under the rule of law, To conquer the mighty, and show them mercy once they are conquered." -Virgil, Aeneid VI, 847-853” ― Virgil

The people of Rome had particular reason to associate a god more commonly worshipped as the patron of prophecy and self-discipline with vicious cruelty. In the Forum, next to the sacred fig tree, there stood the statue of a pot-bellied man with a wine-sack on his shoulder. This was Marsyas, a satyr who had once challenged Apollo to a musical contest, been cheated of the victory that was rightfully his, and then been flayed alive for his presumption. Such, at any rate, was the version of the story told by the Greeks – but in Italy an altogether happier ending was reported. Marsyas, they claimed, had escaped the irate Apollo and fled to the Apennines, where he had taught the arts of augury to the natives and fathered the snake-charming Marsians. Rome was not the only city to commemorate him. Statues of Marsyas were to be found in public squares across Italy.

That night was the most erotic, blissful night of my life. I spent hours exploring Kathy’s body. We made love all night, until dawn. I remember so much white everywhere: white sunlight creeping around the edges of the curtains, white walls, white bedsheets; the whites of her eyes, her teeth, her skin. I’d never known that skin could be so luminous, so translucent: ivory white with occasional blue veins visible just beneath the surface, like threads of color in white marble. She was a statue; a Greek goddess come to life in my hands.

I have given a brief explanation of the various meanings of dharma according to the Abhidharma, but what I want to say next is much more important. In Mahayana Buddhism, and especially in Dōgen Zenji's teachings, the meaning of dharma has more depth. According to the concepts we accept, we think that everything exists as objects outside the self. For example, we usually think that all phenomenal things that appear before our eyes, or this twentieth-century human society, have existence outside our individual self. We believe that when we are born we appear on this world's stage, and when we die we leave that stage. All of us think this way. But the truth is that this common-sense concept is questionable. Mahayana Buddhism began from a reexamination of this common-sense attitude. I'll give you one of my favorite examples. I am looking at this cup now. You are also looking at the same cup. We think that we are looking at the very same cup, but this is not true. I am looking at it from my angle, with my eyesight, in the lighting that occurs where I am sitting, and with my own feelings or emotions. Furthermore, the angle, my feeling, and everything else is changing from moment to moment. This cup I am looking at now is not the same one that I will be looking at in the next moment. Each of you is also looking at it from your own angle, with your eyesight, with your own feelings, and these also are constantly changing. This is the way actual life experience is. However, if we use our common-sense way of thinking, we think we are looking at the very same cup. This is an abstraction and not the reality of life. Abstract concepts and living reality are entirely different. The Buddhist view is completely different from our ordinary thinking. Western philosophy's way of thinking is also based on abstractions. It assumes that all of us are seeing the same cup. Greek philosophers went further and further in their abstractions until they came up with the concept of the idea that cannot be seen or felt. One example is Venus, the goddess of beauty. In the real world, no woman is as well-proportioned as Venus, or embodies perfect beauty as she does. Yet the Greeks idealized beauty and created a statue of Venus, just as they had thought of the "idea" of a circle that is abstracted from something round. In other words, the Greek way of thinking is abstraction to the highest degree. Buddhism is different. Buddhism puts emphasis on life, the actual life experience of the reality of the self.

The uniqueness of a work of art is inseparable from its being imbedded in the fabric of tradition. This tradition itself is thoroughly alive and extremely changeable. An ancient statue of Venus, for example, stood in a different traditional context with the Greeks, who made it an object of veneration, than with the clerics of the Middle Ages, who viewed it as an ominous idol. Both of them, however, were equally confronted with its uniqueness, that is, its aura. Originally the contextual integration of art in tradition found its expression in the cult. We know that the earliest art works originated in the service of a ritual—first the magical, then the religious kind.

Saint Paul said the invisible must be understood by the visible. That was not a Hebrew idea, it was Greek. In Greece alone in the ancient world people were preoccupied with the visible; they were finding the satisfaction of their desires in what was actually in the world around them. The sculptor watched the athletes contending in the games and he felt that nothing he could imagine would be as beautiful as those strong young bodies. So he made his statue of Apollo. The storyteller found Hermes among the people he passed in the street. He saw the god “like a young man at the age when youth is loveliest,” as Homer says. Greek artists and poets realized how splendid a man could be, straight and swift and strong. He was the fulfillment of their search for beauty.

It is often said that Greek temples are oriented to the east. That is true, but the matter can be better stated. In a sanctuary the altar – which almost always preexists the temple – is oriented to the east, and the temple is oriented to the altar. Both thus face east, but the altar determines the orientation of the temple. As a result, we will have aligned, facing the east, our monumental statue of Poseidon Soter, the building in which he stands, and the altar. We should imagine that on his festival day, the Posidea of Posideon 8, when the cella’s doors are opened in early morning, the light of the sun rising in the east flows in upon Poseidon, illuminating him and bringing the bronze to life in an otherwise rather dark room. Poseidon’s gaze, in turn, is directed through the open doors and falls upon the activities around his own altar. Our bronze Poseidon will observe the acts of worship directed to the real Poseidon at his altar on his festival day.

The Greeks were the first people in the world to play, and they played on a great scale. All over Greece there were games, all sorts of games; athletic contests of every description: races—horse-, boat-, foot-, torch-races; contests in music, where one side out-sung the other; in dancing—on greased skins sometimes to display a nice skill of foot and balance of body; games where men leaped in and out of flying chariots; games so many one grows weary with the list of them. They are embodied in the statues familiar to all, the disc thrower, the charioteer, the wrestling boys, the dancing flute players. The great games—there were four that came at stated seasons—were so important, when one was held, a truce of God was proclaimed so that all Greece might come in safety without fear. There “glorious-limbed youth”—the phrase is Pindar’s, the athlete’s poet—strove for an honor so coveted as hardly anything else in Greece. An Olympic victor—triumphing generals would give place to him. His crown of wild olives was set beside the prize of the tragedian. Splendor attended him, processions, sacrifices, banquets, songs the greatest poets were glad to write. Thucydides, the brief, the severe, the historian of that bitter time, the fall of Athens, pauses, when one of his personages has conquered in the games, to give the fact full place of honor. If we had no other knowledge of what the Greeks were like, if nothing were left of Greek art and literature, the fact that they were in love with play and played magnificently would be proof enough of how they lived and how they looked at life. Wretched people, toiling people, do not play. Nothing like the Greek games is conceivable in Egypt or Mesopotamia. The life of the Egyptian lies spread out in the mural paintings down to the minutest detail. If fun and sport had played any real part they would be there in some form for us to see. But the Egyptian did not play. “Solon, Solon, you Greeks are all children,” said the Egyptian priest to the great Athenian.

If we had no other knowledge of what the Greeks were like, if nothing were left of Greek art and literature, the fact that they were in love with play and played magnificently would be proof enough of how they lived and how they looked at life. Wretched people, toiling people, do not play. Nothing like the Greek games is conceivable in Egypt or Mesopotamia. The life of the Egyptian lies spread out in the mural paintings down to the minutest detail. If fun and sport had played any real part they would be there in some form for us to see. But the Egyptian did not play. “Solon, Solon, you Greeks are all children,” said the Egyptian priest to the great Athenian. At any rate, children or not, they enjoyed themselves. They had physical vigor and high spirits and time, too, for fun. The witness of the games is conclusive. And when Greece died and her reading of the great enigma was buried with her statues, play, too, died out of the world. The brutal, bloody Roman games had nothing to do with the spirit of play. They were fathered by the Orient, not by Greece. Play died when Greece died and many and many a century passed before it was resurrected. To rejoice in life, to find the world beautiful

The Second Medusa meme appeared two years later, and its origins are somewhat more complicated. Ostensibly, it is a photograph of a statue made in 2008 by the Argentine-Italian artist Luciano Garbati. But it is extremely difficult to find any trace of the statue prior to the existence of the meme, which appeared at around the same time as Professor Christine Blasey Ford’s testimony of sexual assault to the US Senate Judiciary Committee. The image is striking and extremely shareable: a statue of Medusa stands alone in front of a completely black background. She is naked, just like Perseus in the Canova and Cellini images, and is lithe, young, strong. Her hair is a mass of snakes, but they are beautiful, not grotesque: they look more like curling dreadlocks. Her expression is calm, her eyes gaze out at us unapologetically. Her arms are by her side and she holds a sword in her left hand. In her right hand is the decapitated head of Perseus, which she holds by the hair. It is an exact reversal of the Canova image. Some versions of the meme came with an accompanying text. ‘Be thankful we only want equality’, it reads, next to Medusa’s head. Below Perseus’ decapitated neck, it continues, ‘and not payback.

In his well-known statement in the Poetics that poetry has a higher truth than history since it expresses truth of general application whereas that of history is partial and limited, he is not speaking as a scientist nor would the statement commend itself to the scientific mind outside of Greece. There is no evidence, again, of the scientist’s point of view in the great passage where he sets forth the reason for the work of his life, his search into the nature of all living things: The glory, doubtless, of the heavenly bodies fills us with more delight than the contemplation of these lowly things, but the heavens are high and far off, and the knowledge of celestial things that our senses give us, is scanty and dim. Living creatures, on the contrary, are at our door, and if we so desire we may gain full and certain knowledge of each and all. We take pleasure in a statue’s beauty; should not then the living fill us with delight? And all the more if in the spirit of the love of knowledge we search for causes and bring to light evidences of meaning. Then will nature’s purpose and her deep-seated laws be revealed in all things, all tending in her multitudinous work to one form or another of the beautiful. Did ever scientist outside of Greece so state the object of scientific research? To Aristotle, being a Greek, it was apparent that the full purpose of that high enterprise could not be expressed in any way except the way of poetry, and, being a Greek, he was able so to express it. Spirituality inevitably brings to our mind

What you call ‘Western civilization.’ Do you think it’s just an abstract concept? No, it’s a living force. A collective consciousness that has burned bright for thousands of years. The gods are part of it. You might even say they are the source of it, or at least, they are tied so tightly to it that they couldn’t possibly fade, not unless all of Western civilization were obliterated. The fire started in Greece. Then, as you well know—or as I hope you know, since you passed my course—the heart of the fire moved to Rome, and so did the gods. Oh, different names, perhaps—Jupiter for Zeus, Venus for Aphrodite, and so on—but the same forces, the same gods.” “And then they died.” “Died? No. Did the West die? The gods simply moved, to Germany, to France, to Spain, for a while. Wherever the flame was brightest, the gods were there. They spent several centuries in England. All you need to do is look at the architecture. People do not forget the gods. Every place they’ve ruled, for the last three thousand years, you can see them in paintings, in statues, on the most important buildings. And yes, Percy, of course they are now in your United States. Look at your symbol, the eagle of Zeus. Look at the statue of Prometheus in Rockefeller Center, the Greek facades of your government buildings in Washington. I defy you to find any American city where the Olympians are not prominently displayed in multiple places. Like it or not—and believe me, plenty of people weren’t very fond of Rome, either—America is now the heart of the flame. It is the great power of the West. And so Olympus is here.

Carol I must not be confused with his nephew’s son, Carol II. Whereas the latter was undisciplined and sensual, the former was an anal-retentive Prussian of the family of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen, who, in the course of a forty-eight-year rule (1866–1914), essentially built modern Romania, complete with nascent institutions, from an assemblage of regions and two weak principalities. Following 1989, he had become the default symbol of legitimacy for the Romanian state. Whereas Carol I signified realism and stability, the liberal National Peasant Party leader Iuliu Maniu, a Greek Catholic by upbringing, stood for universal values. As a mid-twentieth-century local politician in extraordinarily horrifying circumstances, Maniu had agitated against the assault on the Jews and in favor of getting Antonescu to switch sides against the Nazis; soon after, during the earliest days of the Cold War, he agitated against the Soviets and their local puppets. Nazi foreign minister Joachim von Ribbentrop once demanded Maniu’s execution. As it turned out, the Communist Gheorghiu-Dej regime later convicted Maniu in a show trial in 1947. Defying his accusers, he spoke up in court for free elections, political liberties, and fundamental human rights.16 He died in prison in 1953 and his body was dumped in a common grave. Maniu’s emaciated treelike statue with quotations from the Psalms is, by itself, supremely moving. But there is a complete lack of harmony between it and the massive, adjacent spear pointing to the sky, honoring the victims of the 1989 revolution. The memorial slabs beside the spear are already chipped and cracked. Piaţa Revoluţiei in 1981 was dark, empty, and fear-inducing. Now it was cluttered with memorials, oppressed by traffic, and in general looked like an amateurish work in progress. But though it lacked any

1 It was early December. The streets of Milan glistened with Christmas decorations, with people coming and going carefree, carrying elegant shopping bags. It was past eight, and several minutes earlier I had closed behind me the door of Passerella, the modelling agency I ran. I had let my assistant, Giovanni, file the photos of the new faces we had initially chosen for Dante’s summer collection. He was an up-and-coming designer. The minute I walked down Monte Napoleone, one of the city’s most commercial streets, the chilly air forced me to wrap up well in my brand new light green coat. An original piece of cashmere, the five letters embossed on its lapel making it even more precious in that cold weather. My fingers contentedly groped for the word “Prada” before I stuck my hand into its warm pocket, while clutching my favourite handbag tight. A huge red ostrich Hermes where you could find cosmetics, scarves, and accessories, which I could use throughout the day, giving a different twist to my appearance. I wanted to walk a little bit to let off steam. My job may have been pleasant as it had to do with the world’s most beautiful creatures, men and women, but it wasn’t without its tensions. Models went to and fro, trade representatives looking for new faces, endless castings, phone calls, text messages, tailors, photographers, reports from my secretary and assistants—a rowdy disorder! I had already left the building where my job was, and I was going past another two entrances of nearby premises, when my leg caught on something. I instantly thought of my brand new Manolo Blahnik shoes. I’d only put them on for the second time, and they were now falling victim to the rough surface of a cardboard box, where a homeless man slept, at the entrance of a building. My eyes sparked as I checked if my high heels were damaged. On the face of it, they were intact. But that wasn’t enough for me. I found a lighter, and tried to check their red leather in the dim light. Why should the same thing happen over and over again every time I buy new shoes? I wondered and walked on, cursing. Why had that bloke chosen that specific spot to sleep, and why had I headed for his damn cardboard box! As I held my lighter, my angry gaze fell on the man who was covered with an impermeable piece of nylon, and carried on sleeping. He looked so vulnerable out in the cold that I didn’t dare rouse him from his sleep. After all, how could I hold him responsible in this state? I quickened my gait. Bella was waiting for me to start our night out with a drink and supper at Galleria Vittorio Emanuele, the imposing arcade with a dome made of glass, its ambience warm and romantic. Bella’s office was nearby, and that meeting place was convenient for both of us. That’s where we made up our minds about how to spend the night.I walked several metres down the road, but something made me stop short. I wanted to have a second look at that man. I retraced my steps. He was a young man who, despite his state, seemed so out of place. His unkempt hair and unshaven face didn’t let me see anything else but his profile, which reminded of an ancient Greek statue, with pronounced cheekbones and a chiselled nose. This second time, he must have sensed me over him. The man’s body budged, and he eyed me without making me out, dazzled by the lighter flame. As soon as I realised what I had done, I took to my heels. What had made me go back? Maybe, the sense of guilt I felt inside my warm Prada coat, maybe, the compassion I had to show as Christmas was just around the corner. All I knew was that a small bell jingled within, and I obeyed it. I walked faster, as if to escape from every thought. As I left, I stuck my hand in my bag, and got hold of my mobile. My secretary’s voice on the other end of the line sounded heavy and imposing. Giovanni wasn’t the embodiment of “macho” man, but he had all it takes to be the perfect male. Having chosen to quit modelling, he still looked gorgeous at the age of

I once saw a striking contrast in the use made of material in Florence. I saw first in the Boboli gardens the two wonderful figures of the barbarians-you remember perhaps those antique stone statues. They are made of stone, consist of stone, represent the spirit of stone: you feel that stone has had the word! Then I went to the tombs of the Medici and saw what Michelangelo did to stone; there the stone has been brought to a super-life. It makes gestures which stone never would make; it is hysterical and exaggerated. The difference was amazing. Or go further to a man like Houdon and you see that the stone becomes absolutely acrobatic. There is the same difference between the Norman and Gothic styles. In the Gothic frame of mind stone behaves like a plant, not like a normal stone, while the Norman style is completely suggested by the stone. The stone speaks. Also an antique Egyptian temple is a most marvelous example of what stone can say; the Greek temple already plays tricks with stone, but the Egyptian temple is made of stone. It grows out of stone — the temple of Abu Simbel, for example, is amazing in that respect. Then in those cave temples in India one sees again the thing man brings into stone. He takes it into his hands and makes it jump, fills it with an uncanny sort of life which destroys the peculiar spirit of the stone. And in my opinion it is always to the detriment of art when matter has no say in the game of the artist. The quality of the matter is exceedingly important — it is all-important. For instance, I think it makes a tremendous difference whether one paints with chemical colors or with so-called natural colors. All that fuss medieval painters made about the preparation of their backgrounds or the making and mixing of their colors had a great advantage. No modern artist has ever brought out anything like the colors which those old masters produced. If one studies an old picture, one feels directly that the color speaks, the color has its own life, but with a modern artist it is most questionable whether the color has a life of its own. It is all made by man, made in Germany or anywhere else, and one feels it. So the projection into matter is not only a very important but an indispensable quality of art. Jung, C. G.. Nietzsche's Zarathustra: Notes of the Seminar given in 1934-1939. Two Volumes: 1-2, unabridged (Jung Seminars) (p. 948-949)

Another day, sheltering beneath trees in a rain-shower, I uncovered a doorway long obliterated by undergrowth. After pulling shrubbery aside, I stepped inside a long deserted summerhouse, fronted by cracked marble columns and ironwork, the rear extending deep into the hillside. Though still filthy, even after I cleared away the tenacious vines, the windowpanes gave sufficient greenish light for me to sketch indoors. In a cobwebbed corner stood a gardener's burner that must once have coaxed oranges or other delicate shrubs to life. With that alight, I found a chair and sat with my shawl muffled around me as I sketched. The marble statues that lined the walls were fine copies of the Greek masters, with muscular limbs and serene faces, though sadly disfigured with a blueish-green patina. As an exercise, I copied a figure of a handsome boy, admiring the sculptor's rendering of tensed muscle, the body frozen just an instant before extending in action. My mind drifted to Michael, the uncertainty hanging over us, my urges to please him, my need to move beyond this stupid impasse. As I sketched the statue's blind eyes I half-heartedly followed his line of sight. I stood and looked more closely at the statue. "What are you looking at?" I said out loud. A green stain blotted the boy's cheek, ugly but also strangely beautiful, for the color was a peacock's viridian. For the first time I noticed the description, "HARPOCRATES- SILENCE", engraved on the pediment, and had a vague recollection of a Roman boy-god who personified that virtue. He held one index finger raised coyly to his lips, while his other hand pointed towards a low arch in the wall. I paced over to the spot at which he pointed. The niche was filled with gardener's trellis that I removed with rising excitement. Behind stood an oak doorway set low in the wall. As I lifted the latch, it opened onto a blast of chilly darkness. Lighting the stub of a candle at the stove, I propped the door open and ventured inside. At once I knew this was no gardeners' store, but another tunnel burrowing into the hillside. Setting forth with the excitement of new discovery, my footsteps rang out and my breath fogged before me in clouds. The place had a mossy, mineral smell, and save for the dripping of water, was silent. Though at first the tunnel ran straight, it soon descended an incline, and my feet splashed into muddy puddles. Who, I wondered, had last passed through that door?

Heartened up by this story, I began to draw upon his more comprehensive knowledge as to the ages of the pictures and as to certain of the stories connected with them, upon which I was not clear; and I likewise inquired into the causes of the decadence of the present age, in which the most refined arts had perished, and among them painting, which had not left even the faintest trace of itself behind. "Greed of money," he replied, "has brought about these unaccountable changes. In the good old times, when virtue was her own reward, the fine arts flourished, and there was the keenest rivalry among men for fear that anything which could be of benefit to future generations should remain long undiscovered. Then it was that Democritus expressed the juices of all plants and spent his whole life in experiments, in order that no curative property should lurk unknown in stone or shrub. That he might understand the movements of heaven and the stars, Eudoxus grew old upon the summit of a lofty mountain: three times did Chrysippus purge his brain with hellebore, that his faculties might be equal to invention. Turn to the sculptors if you will; Lysippus perished from hunger while in profound meditation upon the lines of a single statue, and Myron, who almost embodied the souls of men and beasts in bronze, could not find an heir. And we, sodden with wine and women, cannot even appreciate the arts already practiced, we only criticise the past! We learn only vice, and teach it, too. What has become of logic? of astronomy? Where is the exquisite road to wisdom? Who even goes into a temple to make a vow, that he may achieve eloquence or bathe in the fountain of wisdom? And they do not pray for good health and a sound mind; before they even set foot upon the threshold of the temple, one promises a gift if only he may bury a rich relative; another, if he can but dig up a treasure, and still another, if he is permitted to amass thirty millions of sesterces in safety! The Senate itself, the exponent of all that should be right and just, is in the habit of promising a thousand pounds of gold to the capitol, and that no one may question the propriety of praying for money, it even decorates Jupiter himself with spoils'. Do not hesitate, therefore, at expressing your surprise at the deterioration of painting, since, by all the gods and men alike, a lump of gold is held to be more beautiful than anything ever created by those crazy little Greek fellows, Apelles and Phydias!

Some Greeks thought the name Amazon came from the word amazos, which means without a breast. They somehow got the idea—SERIOUS GROSS-OUT ALERT—that Amazon women removed their own right breasts so they could shoot a bow and throw a spear better. Okay, first of all, no. Just no. That’s not only gross; it’s dumb. Why would the Amazons do that? I mean, yeah, they were serious battle-hardened killers, but you can shoot a bow or throw a spear just fine without…you know. Also, if you look at any ancient statue or picture of the Amazons, there’s no evidence that the Amazons were, um, lopsided. Finally, I have met Amazons myself. They are not into hurting themselves unnecessarily. Other people? Sure! But not themselves. A few Greek writers realized this was a bonehead theory. One dude, Herodotus, called Otrera’s people the androktones instead, which means man-killers. Homer called them the antianeirai, meaning those who fight like men. Both of those terms are a lot more accurate than those-who-did-a-big-owie-so-they-could-shoot-a-bow-better. Me, I like the theory that Amazon comes from the Persian term ha-mazan, which means warriors. I like that theory because Annabeth likes that theory, and if I don’t like what she likes, she gets all ha-mazan on me.

Where’s your female Einstein, your Rembrandt? Women! Why were all the Greek and Roman statues of men? Because male beauty is superior in every way