E-Books →Sex, Symbolists and the Greek Body

That classical legacy was once again a vehicle for artists to express their dreams, ideas and revelries. And so too their anxieties. For at times the frightening spectre of the sexual unconscious drove them to a new and innovative engagement with antiquity, including in ways never before tried in the history of the classical tradition. The unnerving sirens of Gustave Moreau, unearthly heroines of Odilon Redon, or leering fauns of Felicien Rops all played their role, among others, in this novel and unprecedented chapter in that tradition. This book shows how in their painting, drawing and sculpture the Symbolists re-invented Greek statuary and transposed it to new and unwonted contexts, as the imaginary inner worlds of artists were mapped onto the landscapes of Greek myth. It shows how they made of the Greek body, whether female, male, androgyne or sexual other, at once an object of beauty, desire, fear, and - at times - of horror.
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