The Greek Play

In addition to theatre and drama, the Classical Greeks also delved into the plastic arts.  We saw this incredible marble sculpture in the Greek Archelogoical Museum.  The first is a marble sculpture of Pan making a move on the most beautiful being ever created, Aphrodite (with Cupid fluttering above).  As experienced by one of our recent American presidents, Pan is rebuffed with a shoe.  This led one of our students, Katrina Wiechmann, to dub Aphrodite the “slipper slapper.” 

One question the students pondered: Is this sculpture comic or tragic?  Let us know your judgment by clicking on “comments” below (click on each for larger image).

 Here’s one more sculpture, this time in bronze, of the god Zeus (or perhaps Poseidon — no one knows for sure).  It was unearthed and raised from the sea floor, having been lost in a shipwreck.  Even though he’s lost his thunderbolt, this is one bad dude, someone you definitely want on your side.  

This entry was posted on Monday, June 8th, 2009 at 5:49 am and is filed under 2009 Athens Trip. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.