Hermes and the Infant Dionysos, is a sculpture thought to be done by Praxteles. Praxteles was son of Cephisodotus the Elder, also a sculptor. Praxteles was the first to sculpt a nude women shape in life size form. It was found in Temple of Hera in Olympia in 1887, and it is argued whether it is indeed the original or not. Dating suggest that it was done back in the 4th century BC.
In Greek mythology, Dionysos is the God of winemaking, ritual madness, and ecstasy. The myth states the Zeus had given left Hermes in charge of Dionysos, hence the inspiration for that sculpture, or that is what I would imagine. Zeus was Dionysos father, and his mother was Semele.
The statue is made of Parian marble. The measurements of Hermes are as follows: 2.10/2.12 m, 3.70 m with the base. This sculpture was made in the classical era of Greece. It was found with many parts missing, his forearm, some fingers, his penis, and still are missing today. It took eight discoveries to find other parts that had been missing before.
The statue itself portrays Hermes standing upright, holding the child, and it is said it is suppose to represent him playing with the child.
I personally love sculptures, and they are so mysterious and glorious to me, all at the same time. This is a beautiful piece of work. It shows tenderness from Hermes side, the way he is holding the child and it seems as if his gaze is on him. The child looks like he is looking away, or maybe Hermes was doing something to lead his attention somewhere else. A lot, if not most, of the Greek sculptures are done representing the person in nudity. It shows that they didn’t think it was something so out of this world, like we do today. We put such emphasis that nudity is wrong, or ill minded. When indeed it can be something so admirable like this sculpture. Of course, it’s a thing that we might all disagree on, but I’m sure they had their reasons as to why they used nudity so much in their work.
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