The Colossus of Rhodes (1914) by the Spanish painter Antonio Muñoz Degrain (1840-1924). When he painted this Muñoz Degrain had long moved to impressionism and done several journeys to Turkey, Syria and Egypt. So the painting is less a historical but much more a reflection about light and life in the Near East.
Saturday, August 28, 2010
The Colossus of Rhodes
The Colossus of Rhodes (1914) by the Spanish painter Antonio Muñoz Degrain (1840-1924). When he painted this Muñoz Degrain had long moved to impressionism and done several journeys to Turkey, Syria and Egypt. So the painting is less a historical but much more a reflection about light and life in the Near East.
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The actual statue, one of the original seven wonders of the world, was destroyed in an earthquake and subsequently melted down. It's said that one of the statue's toes was too wide for a full-grown man to reach his arms around. Since no one knows what it actually looked like, artists have relied on their imaginations and the scant written records of the time, which has led to plenty of interesting variations. However, we may be able to get some insight into its design from our own statue of Liberty in NY - it fits the ancient descriptions of the Colossus's sun-rayed crown and uplifted torch pretty well!
ReplyDeleteThe Statue of Liberty's working title was
ReplyDelete'The New Colossus'.