Reflections from Medusa's Face Quiz

Answer: False

Venus de Milo (Aphrodite of Milos) is one of the most recognized ancient Greek sculptures. It was found on the Greek island of Milos in 1820 and was given as a gift to the French King Louis XVIII who donated it to the Louvre. It is of the Hellenistic era (130 to 100 BC) and Alexandros of Antioch is credited with her carving.

Thick mystery surrounds the sculpture, as to what she was holding in her hands, if she even is a statue of the goddess Venus, if there was paint on the statue or not. However, it is certain that she stands 2,03 meters tall, around 6'8", well above actual size for a woman.

Answer: Achilles

Empress Elisabeth of Austria built the palace on the island of Corfu and she withdrew there to escape her sadness from the tragic loss of her son, Crown Prince Rudolph. She asked the architects to design it around the theme of Achilles, the hero of Homer's "Iliad" and the Trojan War and so the name of the palace is "Achilleion".

The marble statue of "Achilles dying" was made in 1884 by German sculptor Ernst Hester who created most of the sculptures in the palace's rooms and gardens.

The statue shows a beautiful young warrior in a majestic helmet, his face, contorted in the agony of death, turned to the sky. With his right hand he's pulling at the arrow embedded in his foot.

Answer: Praxiteles

Hermes of Praxiteles, as the sculpture is also known, is one of the most famous Greek marble statues, as it is unique in the sheer perfection of its sculpting, the highly polished finish of its surface and the impressively athletic male body. The composition shows a naked Hermes holding an infant Dionysus in his left arm.

The missing right arm was supposedly holding a bunch of grapes. The statue is carved from a single block of the best Parian marble.

Answer: The Vatican Museums

"Laocoon and his Sons," also, "the Laocoon Group" was discovered in an excavation on the Esquiline Hill in Rome in 1506 and it was bought by Pope Julius II to adorn the Vatican Museums. According to Pliny the Elder it is of the Hellenistic era (approximately 40-30 BCE) and it is attributed to three sculptors from Rhodes, Hagedander, Athenodorus and Polydorus.

According to the epic "The Aeneid," by Roman poet Virgil, during the Trojan War, Laocoon tried to warn the Trojans against taking the Greek wooden horse inside the walls of their city. Poseidon and Athena, who were on the Greek side, sent two giant sea-serpents, Porces and Chariboea, who killed Laocoon and his two sons Antiphas and Thymbraeus. Aeneas, a Trojan prince who took Laocoon's advice seriously and left Troy, became the founder of Rome.

Answer: The Kiss of Death

The Kiss of Death ("El Petó de la Mort" in Catalan, and, "El beso de la muerte" in Spanish) dates back to 1930, when it was commissioned by the family of textile manufacturer Josep Llaudet Soler to be placed on his grave. It is a marble composition of a handsome young man in the embrace of a winged skeleton who kisses him on his forehead.

The man appears as if he welcomes the kiss while the tenderness in the skeleton-angel's hold is evident. The statue has evoked mixed responses, varying from praise to horror and it is probably a good thing that it is located in a faraway corner of the cemetery.

Answer: Lion

Delos, the birthplace of Apollo and Artemis, was considered a holy island in Ancient Greece. It was not inhabited and was only used as a sanctuary and place of worship. The Terrace of the Lions was dedicated to Apollo by the people of Naxos in the 7th century BCE. It is situated north of the sanctuary of Apollo, overlooking the Sacred Lake.

Originally, there were between nine and twelve lions, made of the grainy Naxian marble and placed parallel to each other, with their mouths open as in roaring. They were considered a symbol of majesty and power.

Today, only seven of them remain and most are damaged because of their exposure to the elements of weather. They are inside the museum in Delos and are replaced in situ by replicas.

Answer: Cerberus

A stunning example of Baroque art, the statue was commissioned to Bernini by Cardinal Scipione Borghese in 1621-22. It was eventually bought by the Italian state and it is now exhibited in the Galleria Borghese in Rome.

In mythology, Hades saw Persephone gathering flowers and decided to take her as his wife and make her queen of the Underworld. The myth is responsible for the seasons, the death and resurrection of nature.

The composition is quite large, 2,55 m tall, curved out of Carrara marble in the very realistic manner of Bernini, where the marble has a flesh-like quality.

The fighting bodies of Persephone and Hades are twisted and the scene is filled with intensity and motion. The three heads of Cerberus are barking by Persephone's feet, adding horror to the dramatic moment.

A clarification: In the context of language use at the time of the sculpture, the word "rape" meant "abduction" and it was widely used in many works of art with a classical theme, as in "The rape of Europa", "The rape of the Sabine women", and so on.

Answer: Erechtheion

A Caryatid is, literally, a maiden from Karyes, a village in the Peloponnese with a famous temple of Artemis. Karyes means walnut trees.

The strangest building on the Acropolis, the Erechtheion (421-406 BCE), has a porch of six Caryatids, supporting the entablature of the porch on their heads. Although, all six are of the same height and proportions, each one is different in the clothes they were, their faces and the way they wear their hair. Their thick, intricately weaved braids, enforce their weakest structural point, their necks, and provide the right support for the weight they carry.

The five that were on the Acropolis were moved inside the new Acropolis Museum in a special mezzanine floor designed for them, where they can be observed from all sides.

Answer: Auguste Rodin

In 1882, French sculptor Auguste Rodin created a marble sculpture, originally named "Francesca da Rimini." The story behind the sculpture was that of a noble Italian woman who fell in love with her husband's brother while the two of them were reading the story of Sir Lancelot and Queen Guinevere. While the two lovers were about to commit adultery and their lips barely touched, they were discovered by Francesca's husband who stabbed them to death.

Rodin received his inspiration for the sculpture from Dante's "Inferno" in which Paolo and Francesca are caught eternally in a violent whirlwind.

Answer: Athens

The grave stele of Ampharete is a late Classical (ca 400 BC) Pendelic marble relief, found in the museum of the Kerameikos cemetery, in Athens. It shows a veiled woman holding a baby with her right arm and a bird with her left arm. Her name, Ampharete (ΑΜΦΑΡΕΤΗ), is inscribed above her head and a two line epigram is inscribed on the architrave, which translates as follows:

"Here I have my daughter's darling child which I used to hold on my knees when we were both alive and enjoyed the sunlight and now, dead I, hold it dead."

The Kerameikos cemetery was established in the potters' neighborhood, northwest of the Acropolis, in ancient Athens. For its excavation, towards the end of the 19th century, a large number of blocks of houses were demolished. Still, a large portion of the cemetery lies underneath modern Athens.