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  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
The Weeping Rock: Revisiting Niobe Through 'Paragone', 'Pathosformel' and Petrification

The Weeping Rock: Revisiting Niobe Through 'Paragone', 'Pathosformel' and Petrification

Baert, B.

Paperback

Series: Studies in Iconology, Book 17

General Art

Currently unavailable to order

ISBN10: 9042942029
ISBN13: 9789042942028
Publisher: Peeters
Published: Aug 14 2020
Pages: 125
Weight: 0.85
Height: 0.48 Width: 6.70 Depth: 9.46
Language: English
Publius Ovid (43 BC-17/18 AD) describes in his MetamorphosesNiobe's transformation into a weeping rock. Niobe's transformationincorporates the form and matter of the medium of sculpture. Accordingto the humanist paragone debate, painting and sculpture struggleto be the medium with the highest qualities of virtuosity. Aby Warburg(1866-1929) refers to the Niobe motif's Nachleben in his Tafel5: Beraubte Mutter. (Niobe, Flucht und Schrecken). This displays theimages of both the bereaved mother (Niobe) and the murderous mother(Medea). The montage also introduces the theme of the descent to theunderworld. It becomes clear how the cluster of motifs around the figureof Niobe - hybris, lamentatio and the chthonic substrate -functions as a direct entry to a bipolar hermeneutics of the visualmedium: the 'historical psychology of human expression' that navigatesbetween Apollo and Dionysus. The 'weeping rock' that according to legendstill stands on Mount Sipylus in Turkey, draws upon deeperanthropological patterns. Petrification indicates inertia, frigidity anda Medusan psychosis of fear. In nature, stones and rocks have a'slumbering insistence' that can be captivating. Stones are after allvisible but impenetrable, they index an irrevocable absence in theirpresence, and 'have abode' in an otherworldly region of utter blindnessand silence. From a psychoanalytical perspective, Niobe's petrifactionsymbolises the straitening of her life and the loss of anima within aculture divorced from authentic feeling, nature, and instinct. HereNiobe meets Echo.

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