Art History's Most Eligible Bachelors: Antinous

New contender for Art History's most eligible bachelor: Antinous. Check out this new hottie in his guise as Apollo or an Egyptian pharoah, or sample his party side as he takes on the oenophilic role of Bacchus. Don't let his tendency to drown in the Nile fool you, he's got a Roman Emperor at his back and isn't afraid to smite you with his devilishly good looks and posthumously divinized power source from the world beyond. This curly coiffed beaut is every girl's, and male Roman Emperor's, dreamboat (just don't let him fall over the edge, cause he can't swim alone).



Publius Aelius Hadrianus, better known simply as Hadrian, ruled the Roman Empire from 117 to 138 AD. He was a highly intellectual and powerful ruler with both military prowess and an appreciation for the arts. In addition to his many achievements in the Roman world, Hadrian possessed a strong affinity for Greek culture, no doubt heightened by his amorous relationship with a young Greek named Antinous. While their relationship in both public and private was not questioned, Hadrian’s reaction to Antinous’ untimely death in the Nile in 130 AD caused a great deal of controversy. Antinous was granted many honors by his imperial companion, leading many Romans to either worship or reject the young man after his death. His portrait became a symbol widely recognized throughout the empire. The sculpture "Antinous in the guise of an Egyptian Pharaoh" serves as an archetype of the posthumous portraiture of the young Greek found throughout the Roman world and alludes to the social and political implications that were embedded in his image.

Speculation of how Antinous met his end has been highly controversial. Whether he died tragically, sacrificed himself in a ritualistic attempt to prolong Hadrian’s life, or committed suicide to prove his love for a man he had grown too old to continue a relationship with is not as important as recognizing the legacy established by the emperor’s means of mourning his death. Hadrian planned and named a city for his deceased lover. The place was to be called Antinoopolis, directly honoring the newly divinized figure. Because of this and Hadrian’s institution of a cult at Mantinea commemorating him, Antinous had an extensive life after death. Hadrian did not require the worship of his lost lover outside of these two established commemorations, but to gain favor with the ruling body, many members of the elite class commissioned temples and statues in honor of Antinous. His image was repeated throughout the entire empire, almost as widely distributed as the imperial portraiture of the ruler himself. Continuity in his representation suggests an artist appointed by Hadrian created an archetype for his portrait. His curly hair, muscular body, handsome face, and downcast eyes can be found across the Empire from Rome to Greece and all the way to Egypt.


At first glance the statue of "Antinous in the guise of an Egyptian Pharaoh" appears to be a standard Egyptian portrait in the round. True to Egyptian sculptural form, it shows the full, three-dimensional view of a semi-nude male body. The body is shown frontally with the head straight forward, arms held down to the sides, and one foot stepping in front of the other. He is wearing the traditional royal accoutrement of an Egyptian pharaoh. His head is adorned with the Nemes headdress that covers the forehead and crown of the head and hangs down over each shoulder. Not as elaborate as some of the examples of this garb found in ancient statuary, the Nemes here is decorated with a simple banded design as the headdress bows out in a triangular shape from the top of the head. Though the Nemes covers Antinous’ characteristically curly coif, we can compare his facial features to other depictions of the figure, such as "Antinous in the guise of Apollo" from Delphi, to identify him. Around his waist is the royal kilt, the Shendyt, which is a standard piece of clothing for the pharaohs. The flap of fabric that hangs in the center between the folds designates the garb as that of a pharaoh rather than a deity. These visual cues immediately bring to mind the iconic imagery of the Egyptian leaders.

Upon closer observation, however, it becomes obvious that this statue is not one of traditional Egyptian origin. This image lacks the stylized rigidity of the pharaohs of the ancient kingdoms. Placement of the left leg protruding forward is the same, but in this version, the leg is slightly bent, in a realistic example of weight shift, instead of impossibly straight making the leg awkward and unnaturally long as it was in pharaonic portraits. In response to the bent leg, the hips shift slightly, further emphasizing a naturalistic stance. This contrapposto is a prime example of Greek influence in the portrait, a nod to the subject’s national origins as well as Roman figurative style. Contrapposto weight shift in the hips and legs, though it typically involves the shoulders as well, is a Greek, and later Roman, motif most notably seen in Polykleito’s "Doryphoros" and carried throughout the subsequent span of classical statuary. His shoulders remain perfectly forward to maintain the Egyptian standard, but his arms bend slightly at the elbows to appear more natural and alive.

Unlike the highly stylized body shape of the Egyptian pharaohs, Antinous is depicted with a more naturalistic figural rendering. The individual musculature and fuller body features appear to be anatomically accurate except for a slightly bizarre display of the pectoral muscles. Free space separates his limbs and appendages from the core of his body, no longer needing to follow the Egyptian belief that the ka, or spirit, of a person would return to the statues in the afterlife requiring them to keep from breaking or losing fragments. To further ensure stability of the sculpture, Egyptians used much stronger material such as diorite rather than the marble found here that was typical of Roman statuary.

Antinous gathered a vast following with his separation from Hadrian that even outlasted many of the emperors before, during, and after his time. His portrait was distributed throughout the empire in a seemingly organized fashion reminiscent of the dissemination of imperial portraiture to the empires provinces and colonies. Representations of his image went beyond statuary to both works of art and banal objects of every day use. His godlike body and individualized, sensuous face made him an almost pagan-like deity worthy of consideration and praise in the public, in people’s homes, and even in history. This godly appearance, in accordance with his posthumous divination, however, left many of the Christian Romans unhappy with the spread of the Antinous cult. They saw the worship of his image as a sort of divine adversary to the worship of the spirit of Christ.

Hadrian did not care to acknowledge the controversies surrounding his commemorative efforts on behalf of Antinous and had his own set of statues made to appease his bereavement. "Antinous in the guise of an Egyptian Pharaoh" was one of dozens found at the emperor’s villa at Tivoli. Recent archaeology at the site has revealed that the emperor most likely had a shrine built to honor Antinous-Osiris, making this image of him not only important for our understanding of his many guises but also of our understanding of how Hadrian chose to remember one of the most important figures in his life.

Antinous, of Greek origins, also became a symbol for the Greek people’s personal identity while still celebrating their fidelity to Rome. He became a symbolic personification of the reunion of Greece and Rome, the Mediterranean world’s two classically principal cultures. This statue shows these aspects of the man, while also bringing in the importance of the Egyptian provinces for the Roman Empire at the time.

Review: "Dali's Classicism, Surrealism's Hijack"

Dr. Elliot King of the University of Essex, Colchester, England, left art students of Rhodes College in a surreal bliss of intellectual wonderment after his spectacular lecture “Dali’s Classicism, Surrealism’s Hijack” on Monday afternoon.

King commanded and integrated the room with his intellectual charm and wit behind his all too noticeable height and outstandingly vibrant spectacles. The art history scholar provided a unique perspective on the infamous Spanish painter Salvador Dali, proving quite effectively the lack of significant change between the artist’s self titled “Surreal” and “Classic” periods. Dali was once a member of the Surrealist group of the early twentieth century, led by Dadaist Andre Breton, but was rejected by his contemporaries due to inconsistencies in theoretical processes of the members.

Prior to King’s publications, the works of Dali’s “Classic” period were mostly disregarded by art scholars who found his association with the Surrealists much more interesting. This previously ignored phase, however, spanned the majority of Dali’s artistic career and was the setting for some of his most astonishing works. Though his most famous work is undoubtedly “Persistence of Memory” (also known as the melting clocks), from his Surrealist period, his work continued to reflect a Freudian inspired, three-dimensional, dreamlike quality until the end of his career. His later works increasingly incorporated religious and historical imagery and utilized double images for “surreal” effect.


Dali’s fantastical dreamscapes, however, were still shown through conventional methods of art composition, rather than the phallic, abstract approach preferred by the Surrealist group. In spite of his self-labeled classical style, Dali was recorded to have said that the only difference between him and the Surrealists was that he was a Surrealist. Whether by self-proclamation or actual development in his aesthetic processes, his move away from Surrealism is not obviously much of a progression. One could even claim that by separating himself from the Surrealist group and establishing his own form of dreamscape, Dali created his own branch of Surrealism, one that was better known and more greatly appreciated than the original.

Dali made surrealism a product for the world to cherish. He capitalized his paintings and style, taking the movement in his own direction away from the Bretonian Surrealist group that rejected him early in his career. Much like the Baroque split between the Carracci and the Caravaggesque painters, Dali split the surrealist movement and set his style as the standard for Surrealist imagery and theory at the time and in subsequent generations.

King’s vast knowledge of Dali raised new questions about how the artist viewed himself and his artwork, while also expanding the audiences understanding of the artist’s stylistic distinctions. Though he spoke of increasingly dense theoretical material, King’s presentation was as fun and interesting as the purple Venetian glasses that he sported, and Dali will hopefully be more appreciated in the future because his academic endeavors.

Art in the Digital World

“Just as water, gas, and electricity are brought into our houses from far off to satisfy our needs in response to a minimal effort, so we shall be supplied with visual or auditory images, which will appear and disappear at a simple movement of the hand, hardly more than a sign.”

This statement by Paul Valery, reused by Walter Benjamin in his essay “Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction,” accurately predicted the significant growth of technological advancement in the arts throughout the 20th and 21st centuries. In the past few decades, we have seen the growing use of photography and digital media to spread once unique works of art throughout the world. But reproductions of artwork can only go so far.

“Even the most perfect reproduction of a work of art is lacking in one element: its presence in time and space, its unique existence at the place where it happens to be. This unique existence of the work of art determined the history to which it was subject throughout the time of its existence. This includes the changes which it may have suffered in physical condition over the years as well as the various changes in its ownership.” As early as 1936, Benjamin already recognized the negative impact – mostly in the loss of the in situ specificity that qualifies genius in a single work – that mechanical reproduction would have on the art world.

Our society has become used to this overabundance of easily accessible art, however. Rather than take long pilgrimages to art galleries all over the world, we can purchase a postcard of da Vinci’s Last Supper or a poster of van Gogh’s Starry Night. Once a one of a kind splendor, Picasso’s Les Demoiselles d’Avignon is reduced to the kitch world of a night-light.

Most recently, websites such as “Google Art Project” (http://www.googleartproject.com/) and “Arounder” (http://www.arounder.com/) have provided people with easy access sources for online interaction with works of art and the museums that house them. We are given 360 degree views of cathedrals, temples, and ancient landmarks without having to leave the comfort of our homes. These revolutionary websites give anyone and everyone the chance to observe notable art havens all over the world.


So what is the problem with this? The problem comes from trying to find a balance between preserving the ingenuity and integrity of high quality works of art in their original location while spreading knowledge and appreciation for the arts to people of all classes and backgrounds around the world. There is no way of determining which is right. Progression is inevitable, and the art world would have no place in contemporary society without keeping up with the times. We just have to find a way to keep people interested in the arts and make them continue to support the works themselves beyond the digital reproductions that lace our walls and computer screens.

What is Pop Art?

Each of the Pop artists had a different definition of what they thought Pop Art was. There was an almost general consensus that it was all based on the rise of American consumerism and industrialism, but each utilized these developments in slightly varying ways to keep Pop from having a set standard of Aesthetic principles. Pop is understood to be an art that is to be readable by the masses, as opposed to the art work of the previous Abstract Expressionist and Surrealist movements that focused on art as a visual representation of theories posed by the artists.

Pop Art reintroduced the connection between art and the present world. “Everything is possible in Pop,” because according to Warhol, “Pop is everything.” It incorporates the mundane objects of everyday life and presents them in a glorified manner, but it does not bind the artist to a particular style or aesthetic quality. It allows the artist the freedom to produce images instantly, anywhere, and in mass quantity if he/she so wishes. The spontaneity of Pop, along with the use of iconic subject matter of the decade, therefore, gave it a sort of mortality that bound it to the time period in which it was created. Audiences today do not understand the artwork as immediately as those of the 1960s, much like audiences today do not read the symbolism of Medieval Christian art like the church-goers and readers of the Bible for the Illiterate did in the Middle Ages.

Does this mean that the artwork of the Pop Art movement will last throughout art history despite the artists’ initial intentions of creating a disposable work of art? Have art historians taken away one of the primary qualities of Pop art by immortalizing what was possibly supposed to be a mortal image?

Nefertiti and Marilyn Monroe: comparing past and present portraiture

Portrait Bust of Queen Nefertiti, Thutmose, 1345 BCE
Turquoise Marilyn, Andy Warhol, 1962 CE

While their styles (ancient portraiture vs Pop) and medium (stone vs silkscreen), not to mention culture and time period of production (Ancient Egyptian vs Modern American), are vastly different, there are many notable similarities between the portraits of the Egyptian Queen and the American Celebrity. The two pieces of artwork require the viewer to focus on a central image of the female’s face. A simple yet clearly defined color palette makes up each image, with darker more natural browns, red, green, and blue in the Nefertiti sculpture and reds, blue, yellow, and green in the Marilyn portrait.

Each utilizes a medium that is a product of its time. Nefertiti is a limestone sculpture, making it a unique image that only a single artist at a specific time could have created. This makes it slightly more difficult to reproduce than Warhol’s Marilyn, which was created using a silkscreen, a modern technique made possible through significant technological advancements of the early 20th century, that allows the art to be reproduced numerous times by anyone.

Both display only the portrait of the female’s head from the neck up, though one is frontal and three-dimensionally in the round while the other is two-dimensional and set at a three-quarter angle. Though begun in likeness of their subject each is highly stylized. Nefertiti’s over emphasized feminine features - larger, smiling lips, large eyelids, and shapely eyebrows along with make up and decorative coloration - makes her an ancient representation of the feminine ideal. Likewise, Marilyn is illustrated with simplified, smooth young skin that creates the illusion of youth as a lasting feature.

Both works of art are portraits of prominent women of their time. Each would have been known by almost everyone in their respective regions. The images set a standardization of appearance for depicting the queen and Marilyn that were used in many different representations and they set the bar for remembering them throughout history. Through this unique, representative rendering, each was established as an icon of her time. These artworks were set to immortalize the image of the figure as it is, and to this day when we are asked about either woman, these two images are among the first portrayals that come to mind.