Persephone2.0012_Gorzegno

Persephone2.0012_Gorzegno

JanetGorzegno.com
OGCMA s.v. "Persephone"
Classical Sources:
Hesiod, Theogony 453-506, 767-74, 908-14
Homeric Hymn to Demeter
Orphic Hymn 29, "To Persephone"
Ovid Fasti 4.417-54
Ovid Met. 5.344-571
Apollodorus Libr. 1.5.1-3
Hyginus Fabulae 141, 146
Claudian De raptu Proserpinae

Janet Gorzegno, "Persephone", gouache on paper, 2010

"Resembling a fresco (a painting on plaster), this painting introduces the idea of Persephone's death: she seems to be decomposing before the viewer's eyes. Persephone, though, is serene and seemingly unaware of her own dissolution. As such, she is an icon for our relationship to our own mortality as much as she is the lost daughter of Demeter." Maurizio p. 195 (citing Gorzegno?)

Perhaps the development in this image goes from left to right, i.e. Persephone is emerging from the corruption into orderly beauty (as in a resurrection or rebirth)?

The image at left is copied from failbetter.com. Permission applied for.

OGCMA slides are designed by Roger T. Macfarlane for use in Classical Civilization 241 courses at Brigham Young University and other contexts.
This resource contains information assembled for The Oxford Guide to Classical Mythology in the Arts, and it is used with express permission from Oxford University Press.
Address concerns or inquiries to macfarlane@byu.edu.