OrpheusEurydice2.0074_Morignat

OrpheusEurydice2.0074_Morignat

OGCMA s.v. "Orpheus and Eurydice"
Classical Sources:
Plato, Symposium, 179c-e
Diodorus Siculus, Bibl., 4.25.4, 81-82
Vergil, Georgics 4.315-558
Ovid Metamorphoses 10.1-85, 11.66
Apollodorus Libr. 1.3.2
Hyginus Poet. Astron. 2.7

Valérie Morignat, "Orphée 1" photograph, ca. 2009.

A series of remarkable photographs by a contemporary French artist work with the Orpheus and Eurydice myth in her "Galerie du Portfolio 'Underwater'".

In an award-winning photograph, "Eurydice, 2009", the beloved sinks beneath the water's surface, eyes fixed in second death as the loveliness of her skin invites the viewer to ponder the tragedy of her loss.

Morignat's use of water's surface as the liminal boundary between our world and the other side brings to mind the work of Sarah Ruhl and others.

In this photograph at left, Orpheus penetrates through the water's surface, the boundary between life and death. Our point of view causes some disorientation: are we viewing from above or from below? But our perspective is on the dead side of the surface. The French forebear of Orpheus imagery, Jean Cocteau, worked especially creatively with the mirror as the divider between living and dead. Here Orpheus grips the challenge he must now overcome: finding his other, the complement that will justify his descent.

Another of Morignat's Orpheus photographs, "Orphée, 2009", (color) represents only the face of Orpheus as he searches beyond the veil into the other world.

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.