Tag: Greek deities

I’ve always had a fascination for Greek deities, an interest that makes me appreciate the art that has been created around their personalities.

As I was strolling through the National Gallery of Art one day, marveling at the Greek deities and Roman gods and goddesses involved in their adventures around nearly every corner, I was reminded of a wonderful summer I once spent immersed in classical mythology. The names forming the cast of characters came rushing back as I spotted a marble sculpture of a Nereid next to a bronze statue of Neptune; and saw a fleet-footed Mercury dance nimbly atop a fountain in the rotunda while one of Diana’s nymphs posed prettily on her pedestal.

Carved from marble by Jean-Louis Lemoyne, the latter was titled A Companion of Diana (shown below), and though she was chiseled from hardened stone, the fabric clinging to her rococo physique made her body seem downright supple. The statue was one of ten that Louis XIV commissioned for the grounds of his Château de Marly, each to serve as an artful representation of the goddess’s nymphs. After his death in 1715, Louis XV installed some of the completed statues in the forests of La Muette, another hunting retreat favored by the Bourbon kings.

Though the nymph drew me a bit off course when I spotted her, I wasn’t simply ambling at the time. I was making my way through the sculpture hall to find a painting I’ve always wanted to see in person—Giovanni Battista Tiepolo’s Apollo Pursuing Daphne. It was magnificent to stand in front of it and soak in the luminescence emanating from the chaotic scene. I am grateful to museums for housing such magnificent examples of art and I enjoy writing about them here on The Diary of an Improvateur.