Athena1.0249_Klimt

Athena1.02489Klimt

Kunsthistorisches Museum
ogcma s.v. "Athena"

Gustav Klimt, "Art of Ancient Greece I" (Athena wearing gorgoneion and holding figurine of Nike), 1890-1891, frescoe in spandrel, Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum, in situ.

Athena is readily recognizable with her aegis (including gorgoneion), her helmet and spear. She extends in her right hand a Nike.

Klimt personifies the art of Greece, among other foundational artistic cultures, in the guise of Athena, the Greek goddess of artists. Athena stands in stark contrast to the personifaction of Egyptian Art. (Compare Klimt's 1898 masterpiece, 1.0249.

Collage of paintings featuring architectural details and two close-up portraits of women with ancient Egyptian and Greek aesthetics

OGCMA slides are designed by Roger T. Macfarlane for use in Classical Civilization 241 courses at Brigham Young University.
The present resource contains information assembled for The Oxford Guide to Classical Mythology in the Arts, 1300 - 1990's, edited by J. Davidson Reid (Oxford 1994), and it is used with express permission from Oxford University press.
Address concerns or inquiries to macfarlane@byu.edu.