0002Achilles_Westmacott

ogcma@byu

ClCv241

Mastery

MythMatters

Ovid Met.

Emil Wolff, “Eros,”
1836–37, Friedrichswerdersche Kirche, Berlin

Full-length white marble sculpture of a nude winged male figure with a lion skin hood, standing next to a draped cloth

This is a very playful depiction of the mischievous god of love, Eros. He’s wearing the lion’s skin of Herakles, and holding his club, standing with confidence as Herakles might have, but his wings give him away as being an imposter.

The Romantic period in Germany often dealt with the themes of war and German nationalism, due to the Wars of Liberation which freed Germany from French rule under Napoleon. The figure has Teutonic characteristics, taking the Greek mythological figure and making it German. The combination of the famous hero and the famous lover link the domestic world and the world of warfare, the militia amoris, a theme popular at the time in the works of Goethe but borrowed from the Roman elegists and earlier. Claire Monson prepared.

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, 1400 – 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.