Taj Mahal by Moonlight, painting by Charles William Bartlett

Photo: The Taj Mahal by Moonlight (1923), oil on canvas painting by Charles William Bartlett, now located in Honolulu Museum of Art, Hawaii, USA

Charles William Bartlett was an English artist who settled in Hawaii, USA. In 1913, Bartlett along with his wife traveled to South Asia and the Far East during which he visited the Taj Mahal. The painting of the monument depicts it when it was in a state of disrepair and lack of proper maintenance. However, it had enough splendor to inspire him to paint the monument of love.

Ever since the Taj Mahal was built, it has been able to instill in the visitors a sense of emotional attachment with it. Incidentally, it creates different emotions in different people. This painting invokes a sense of lost grandeur as well as a majestic invincibility. Also there is a mystic, eerie atmosphere surrounding it. As it is the view of the monument lit by moonlight, which is a romantic experience to most visitors, the painting also makes the viewer remember her/his loved ones.

The Taj Mahal is a Mughal period mausoleum, constructed mainly with translucent Makrana marble and decorated with inlays of precious and semiprecious gemstones. It is situated on the south bank of the Yamuna River in the Indian city of Agra.

Commissioned by the Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan in 1631 in memory of his favorite wife Mumtaz Mahal who died giving birth to their 14th child, construction of the monument began in 1632. The main mausoleum was completed in 1643, work continuing for another ten years till the rest of the complex was completed.

The monument incorporates the architectural and art traditions of earlier Mughal and Persian buildings. It is considered the best example of Mughal Architecture.

The Taj Mahal complex, which has many other buildings, has esthetically landscaped lawns and magnificent gardens. There are several other mausoleums, including those of Jahan's other wives, and a larger tomb near the mausoleum for the favorite servant of Mumtaz.

This UNESCO World Heritage Site is one of the seven wonders of the modern world, and one of the New Seven Wonders of the World. Rabindranath Tagore described it as ‘the tear-drop on the cheek of time’. For many others it is the monument of love. The imperial court documents describe Jahan's inconsolable grief on the death of Mumtaz as the inspiration for the monument.

Soon after the completion of the monument, his son Aurangzeb deposed Shah Jahan and placed him under house arrest at Agra Fort. On his death, Aurangzeb buried in the mausoleum Jahan next to his beloved wife.

Francis Derwent Wood: Leda and the Swan

Public Domain Photos: Leda and the Swan (1912), marble sculpture by the British sculptor Francis Derwent Wood RA (1871-1926), height: 38 cm, private collection

Prince Paris with Apple by H. W. Bissen

PD Photo: Prince Paris with Apple, marble sculpture by H. W. Bissen, located at The Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek (an art museum) in Copenhagen, Denmark

Danish sculptor Herman Wilhelm Bissen or H. W. Bissen (1798-1868), changed styles of his sculptures from romanticism to neo-classicism, and finally settled in realism. Bissen’s famous sculptures include the monumental Landsoldaten (1858) in Fredericia, The Isted Lion (1862) that was originally in Flensburg but now Copenhagen, Iðunn (also spelt as Ydun, Idun, Idunn, Ithun, or even Iduna and Idunna) created in 1858 and the gold-plated statue of Bishop Absalon in the front of the Copenhagen City Hall.

Hermaphroditus and Hermaphrodites

PD Photo: Hermaphroditus, marble sculpture at Lady Lever Art Gallery, Port Sunlight Village, Wirral, England, photo taken on 15 July 2006.

PD Image: The metamorphosis of the nymph Salmacis and Hermaphroditus (alternatively known as ‘Verwandlung von Hermaphroditos und Salmicis’ or ‘De gedaanteverwisseling van Hermaphroditus en de nimf Salmacis’) by Flemish painter Jan Gossaert (1478-1532) created in the year ± 1517, oil on panel, size 32.8 cm x 21.5 cm (12.91 in x 8.46 in), located at Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam.

PD Image: The Nymph Salmacis and Hermaphroditus (1828) by Belgian neo-classical painter François-Joseph Navez (1787-1869).

The term ‘hermaphrodite’ is derived from the Greek mythological character Hermaphroditus, who fused with the nymph Salmacis, resulting in one individual possessing the physical traits of both male and female. Hermaphroditus was the son of Hermes and Aphrodite.

Salmacis is an atypical naiad (nymph) whose attempted rape of Hermaphroditus places her as the only nymph rapist in the Greek mythological canon. In Ovid's Metamorphoses, she becomes one with Hermaphroditus, and Hermaphroditus curses the fountain to have the same effect on others, or whoever comes to the fountain of Salmacis (located near the Mausoleum of Halicarnassus) will become effeminate.

Earlier, the word ‘hermaphrodite’ was used to describe a person incompatible with the biological gender binary, but it has recently been replaced by the word ‘intersex’ in medical science.

People with intersex conditions (hermaphrodites) may choose to live exclusively either as male or female, using clothing, social cues, genital surgery and hormone replacement therapy to blend into the sex they identify themselves with more closely. Some intersexual people outwardly appear completely female or male, without realizing that they are intersexual. Intersex is hypothesized to be caused by unusual sex hormones that may be caused by an atypical set of sex chromosomes.

The Crouching Aphrodite (Venus)

The so-called Lely's Venus ‘Aphrodite surprised as she bathes’, marble sculpture, Roman copy by an unknown artist from the 2nd century BC after an Hellenistic original, height 1.12 m (3 feet 8 inches), from the former collection of Sir Peter Lely; lent by H.M. Queen Elizabeth II, location at Main floor, room 23, Greek & Rome, British Museum, London, United Kingdom.

The Crouching Aphrodite (Venus), marble sculpture, Roman variant of the Imperial Era after a Hellenistic type (but the goddess is raising her left hand towards her neck whereas in the prototype used she to crosses her arms on her breast), height 71 cm (27 ¾ inches), seized during the French Revolution from the collections of Louis XIV of France, currently housed at Department of Greek, Etruscan and Roman Antiquities, Sully, ground floor, room 17, Louvre Museum, Paris, France.

Crouching Aphrodite (Venus) at Louvre Museum, view 2

The Crouching Aphrodite (Venus), marble sculpture, Roman copy by an unknown artist of the 1st or 2nd century CE after a Hellenistic original of the 3rd century BC, derived from the Cnidian Aphrodite by Praxiteles from Sainte-Colombe, Isère, France, height 96 cm (37 ¾ in.), Gerantet Collection (purchase 1878), current location at Department of Greek, Etruscan and Roman Antiquities, Sully, ground floor, room 17, Louvre Museum, Paris, France.

Capitoline Venus, marble copy of Venus by Praxiteles

Photo: Capitoline Venus, one of the best preserved copies of Cnidian Venus by Greek sculptor Praxiteles (4th century BC), height 1.93 m (6 ft. 3 ¾ in.), a gift of Benedict XIV in 1752, located at Palazzo Nuovo, First Floor, Cabinet of Venus, Capitoline Museums, Rome, Italy.

The Greek Slave by Hiram Powers

Photo: The Greek Slave (1851), marble sculpture by American sculptor Hiram Powers, 165.7 cm x 53.3 cm x 46.4 cm, located at Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, Connecticut.

The original of the marble statue ‘The Greek Slave’, the most famous and most popular work of the American sculptor Hiram Powers is in Raby Castle, situated near Staindrop in County Durham, one of the largest inhabited castles in England. The statue was carved in Florence in 1844. Critics claim that the design of the statue was based on the ‘Venus de' Medici’ in the Uffizi Gallery in Florence. Powers himself described his work, “The Slave has been taken from one of the Greek Islands by the Turks, in the time of the Greek Revolution; the history of which is familiar to all. Her father and mother, and perhaps all her kindred, have been destroyed by her foes, and she alone preserved as a treasure too valuable to be thrown away. She is now among barbarian strangers, under the pressure of a full recollection of the calamitous events which have brought her to her present state; and she stands exposed to the gaze of the people she abhors, and awaits her fate with intense anxiety, tempered indeed by the support of her reliance upon the goodness of God. Gather all these afflictions together, and add to them the fortitude and resignation of a Christian, and no room will be left for shame.”

Hiram Powers made replicas of the original Greek Slave for sale to collectors, such as the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., the Vermont State House, and Westervelt Warner Museum of American Art in Tuscaloosa, Alabama.

Eve Disconsolate by Hiram Powers

Eve Disconsolate, marble sculpture by American neoclassical sculptor Hiram Powers (1805-1873), designed in 1859-61 and carved in 1873-74, currently in Cincinnati Art Museum.