Art
In classical art the fish-tailed merman with coiling tail was a popular subject, usually portrayed writhing in the wrestling grasp of Heracles. A similar wrestling scene shows Peleus and Thetis, often accompanied by a host of small animal icons representing her metamorphoses.
In Hellenistic art, the theme of the marine thiasos or "assembly of sea-gods" became a favorite of sculptors, allowing them to show off their skill in depicting flowing movement and aquiline grace in a way that land-based subjects did not.
In Roman times with the construction of bath houses throughout the empire, mosaic art achieved primacy in the depiction of sea gods. Foremost of these were scenes of the Triumph of Poseidon (or Neptune), riding in a chariot drawn by Hippocamps and attended by a host of sea gods and fish-tailed beasts. Large mosaic scenes also portrayed rows of sea-gods and nymphs arranged in a coiling procession of intertwined fish-tails. Other scenes show the birth of Aphrodite, often raised in a conch shell by a pair of sea centaurs, and accompanied by fishing Erotes (winged love gods). It was in this medium that most of the obscure maritime gods of Homer and Hesiod finally received standardised representation and attributes.
Read more about this topic: Greek Sea Gods
Famous quotes containing the word art:
“The greater the decrease in the social significance of an art form, the sharper the distinction between criticism and enjoyment by the public. The conventional is uncritically enjoyed, and the truly new is criticized with aversion.”
—Walter Benjamin (1892–1940)
“It is an art apart. Saint Francis of Assisi said—”All saints can do miracles, but few of them can keep hotel.””
—Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835–1910)
“Happy thou art not,
For what thou hast not, still thou striv’st to get,
And what thou hast, forget’st.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)