DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.14144#0536
5oo ARTISTS AJSID WORKS OF ART OF THIS PERIOD.
veiled head, seated in a chair, was discovered by Mr. Newton1 in the
temenos of a sanctuary of Demcter and Persephone at Cnidos in
1850, and immediately recognised as the great Goddess herself.2 The
chief beauty of this work is a comparatively rare one in Greek
plastic art, viz. beauty of expression in the face, in which it is only
surpassed by the Niobe. We see in it the deep and settled melancholy
caused by the absence of a beloved object—the sweet sad yearning
„ look of the bereaved mother. The paroxysm of
Fig. 210. 1 J
grief, the loud cry pressed from the heart by the
sudden weighty calamity, has died away, and is
succeeded by an expression of submissive, hopeless,
sadness far more pathetic than the loudest expres-
sion of grief. It is in this face, still beautiful,
though no longer young, that, as Brunn remarks,
' Classic and Christian art, the central female
figures of Greek mythology and Christianity, the
Demetcr and the Madonna, meet.'3 The figure of
the Goddess, and her drapery, which consists of
the peplos over the talaric chiton, arc so inferior to
the face in style that we can hardly believe them to
be by the same hand. The head-dress is plain and
demeter. of cnidos. simple, as best suits the self-forgetfulness of grief.'1
1 Diseov. in Halicarn. &*c. vol. ii. part
2. P- 377-
• Demeter, says Clemens Alex. (Cohort ad
Gcnles, i. p. 50, ed. Potter), may be re-
cognised into Tjjs VVfAtpopas. Conf. Preller,
Demeter, p. 91.
3 Our cut gives no idea of the touching
beauty of the face. The original in the Brit
Mus. must be seen.
' Vid. Brunn, ' Demeter of Cnidos,' in
Transactions of Royal Soe. of Literature,
vol. xi. new series.
veiled head, seated in a chair, was discovered by Mr. Newton1 in the
temenos of a sanctuary of Demcter and Persephone at Cnidos in
1850, and immediately recognised as the great Goddess herself.2 The
chief beauty of this work is a comparatively rare one in Greek
plastic art, viz. beauty of expression in the face, in which it is only
surpassed by the Niobe. We see in it the deep and settled melancholy
caused by the absence of a beloved object—the sweet sad yearning
„ look of the bereaved mother. The paroxysm of
Fig. 210. 1 J
grief, the loud cry pressed from the heart by the
sudden weighty calamity, has died away, and is
succeeded by an expression of submissive, hopeless,
sadness far more pathetic than the loudest expres-
sion of grief. It is in this face, still beautiful,
though no longer young, that, as Brunn remarks,
' Classic and Christian art, the central female
figures of Greek mythology and Christianity, the
Demetcr and the Madonna, meet.'3 The figure of
the Goddess, and her drapery, which consists of
the peplos over the talaric chiton, arc so inferior to
the face in style that we can hardly believe them to
be by the same hand. The head-dress is plain and
demeter. of cnidos. simple, as best suits the self-forgetfulness of grief.'1
1 Diseov. in Halicarn. &*c. vol. ii. part
2. P- 377-
• Demeter, says Clemens Alex. (Cohort ad
Gcnles, i. p. 50, ed. Potter), may be re-
cognised into Tjjs VVfAtpopas. Conf. Preller,
Demeter, p. 91.
3 Our cut gives no idea of the touching
beauty of the face. The original in the Brit
Mus. must be seen.
' Vid. Brunn, ' Demeter of Cnidos,' in
Transactions of Royal Soe. of Literature,
vol. xi. new series.