The Lord of Dance Nataraja, Bronze Sculpture

Photo: Nataraja, the Lord of Dance, a bronze sculpture admeasuring 30 × 22.5 × 7 in (76.2 × 57.2 × 17.8 cm) dated between 950 CE and 1000 CE located at the South and Southeast Asian Art Department, Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), USA.

The above photograph of the bronze sculpture depicts Lord Shiva in his cosmic dance pose as Shiva Nataraja, the god of all dance and dramatic arts. Apart from the symbolic meanings of the expressions of his legs, hands, face and other body parts, and the objects held by him, the lord is enclosed in a ring of flames. He is shown as lifting his left leg while balancing himself with the other leg on a dwarf demon that is interpreted as symbolic of ignorance. His flowing, whirling hair on both sides of his head shows the spread of cosmic energy.

You can get the correct but varied interpretations of all the artwork related to Nataraja from various scholars especially from Indian scholars who excelled from 12th century onwards and also scholars from other countries who are specializing in Indology and also Indian art and dance forms.

With slight variations of depiction, Shiva-Nataraja figures can be seen, including in temple art and paintings, mainly from the sixth century onwards. The art and culture of many countries such as Indonesia (Siwa in Bali and Java), Thailand, Cambodia (Nrittesvara), and even some central Asian countries were influenced by this form of dancing Shiva. Nataraja is praised, worshiped and revered as the god who created dance and drama, especially, as this form of Shiva in his dancing style is sculpted as per the Hindu texts such as Natya Shastra (attributed to sage Bharata) that describes various aspects of performing arts.

The style and form for all dancing Shiva depictions is the one at Chidambaram Temple in Tamilnadu. The same form is depicted in several Shiva temples in the southern states of India.

In the area comprising and around today’s Tamil Nadu, around the tenth century, the dancing Shiva became a symbol of royalty, and an unavoidable part of Hindu religious practices and festivals. The Cholas who became a major military and economic power during this period were followers of Shaivism. May be for this reason, rightly or wrongly, the Nataraja Bronzes are often referred to as Chola bronzes.

Some scholars, quoting archeological and other evidences also associate the dancing Shiva to the Pallava dynasty (275 to 897 CE).

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

Mystical marriage of St. Catherine with the Child Jesus

Public Domain Photo: Mystical marriage of St. Catherine with the Child Jesus, lime wood sculpture with gold coloring and gilding, Master of Morlin-Epitaphs, Augsburg (1510), Bavarian National Museum, Munich

According to tradition, Saint Catherine of Alexandria (also known as ‘The Great Martyr Saint Catherine’ and ‘Saint Catherine of the Wheel’) became a martyr when she was beheaded on the orders of the Roman Emperor Maxentius.

Born in Alexandria, Egypt, in 282 AD as the daughter of Queen Sabinella and King Costus who governed Alexandria, she was of extraordinary intelligence and a reputed scholar well-versed in sciences, arts, philosophy, etc. Though born a pagan princess, she became a Christian in her teens, and vowed to remain a virgin throughout life. Catherine had a vision of Jesus Christ and Virgin Mary who gave her to Jesus in mystical marriage.

On reaching adulthood, Catherine visited the Roman Emperor Maxentius and tried to convince him of his moral errors in persecuting Christians who refused to worship pagan gods. In response, the emperor asked his best pagan orators and philosophers to debate on the issue with Catherine. She defeated them in the debate and converted them to Christianity. But, enraged at this, Maxentius executed all the converted philosophers and orators and tortured Catherine by imprisoning her.

During her imprisonment, over two hundred people, reportedly, visited her, including Empress Valeria Maximilla (wife of Maxentius) and all of them too converted to Christianity. The emperor responded to the conversions by executing all of the converted people.

Convinced that imprisonment and torture did not change Catherine’s views, the emperor tried to win over her by proposing to marry her. But she told him that she had consecrated her virginity to Jesus Christ. Upon this, the emperor sentenced her to death on the breaking wheel (also known as the Catherine wheel), a torture device used for capital punishment. But, miraculously, the wheel was destroyed and Maxentius had to order her beheading in 305 AD.

According to some traditions, angels carried her body to Mount Sinai where, Emperor Justinian (483-565, the Byzantine Emperor from 527 to 565) built the Saint Catherine's Monastery on the Sinai Peninsula at the foot of Mount Sinai (now in the city of Saint Catherine in Egypt). In fact, it was dedicated to the Transfiguration of Jesus Christ, an event in which Jesus is transfigured and becomes radiant atop a mountain.

Over the years, the monastery has become an important pilgrimage center and repository of early Christian architecture and art that is open to visiting scholars and tourists.

Angkor Wat style sculpture of a goddess

Public Domain Photo: Late 9th century Angkor Wat style sandstone sculpture of a Goddess (Apsara) from Bakong (Siem Reap Province) in Cambodia; currently located at the Guimet Museum (Musée Guimet), Paris.

Jean-Balthazar Keller: Adonis, bronze sculpture

Public Domain Photo: Adonis,a bronze sculpture inspired by an antique sculpture from the French royal collections, created by the Swiss sculptor and gunfounder Jean-Balthazar Keller (1638-1702), cast in 1687, dimensions H: 1.62 m (5 ft. 3 ¾ in.), W: 70 cm (27 ½ in.), located at Louvre Museum, Paris.

Tanagra Figurine: Lady in blue (Dame en bleu)

Public Domain Photo: Lady in Blue, painted terracotta figurine of the type Large Herculaneum Woman, Tanagra Figurine dating 330 to 300 BC, height 32.5 cm (12 ¾ in.), Louvre Museum, Paris

The Lady in blue (Dame en Bleu) is a terracotta figurine that used to be produced in Tanagra, a town north of Athens in Greece from the later part of 4th century BC. They were often painted with natural colors, and were about 4 to 8 inches tall.

Tanagra figures were discovered by ploughmen of Vratsi in Boeotia, Greece by the end of the 1860s when they dug up ancient tombs. The largest collection of figurines were found in 1874 from the tombs of the Hellenistic period, which shows that the city was the main source of these figures which were also exported to distant places.

Cleopatra on stamps of Germany, 1984

Here is a scan of a 30 Pfennig postahge stamp of Germany depicting the image of Cleopatra VI, issued on 12 January 1984. The offset-printed issue had a circulation of 14.5 million stamps. The image used for the stamp was the photo of the marlbe head of Cleopatra VI, the last Pharao of Ptolemaic dynasty of Egypt (30-40 BC), from the Altes Museum Berlin (Berliner Museumsinsel). The photo of the original marble figure is below:

Statue of Shakira in Barranquilla, Colombia

Public Domain Photo: Statue of Shakira (Escultura de Shakira) in Barranquilla, Colombia.

The Colombian singer, musician, dancer, songwriter and record producer Shakira (born Shakira Isabel Mebarak Ripoll on February 2, 1977) emerged in the music scene of Colombia and Latin America in the early 1990s. Shakira is a multitalented artist with vocal ability in Rock and Roll, Latin American and Middle Eastern music and dance influences, marked by her own original version of Belly Dance. She was born and raised in Barranquilla in northern Colombia, where there is a huge following of music groups inspired by the musical style of Shakira.

Christ the Redeemer (Cristo Redentor), Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Public Domain Photos: Christ the Redeemer (Cristo Redentor), the statue of Jesus Christ in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil - the second largest Art Deco statue in the world and one of the New Seven Wonders of the World. These photos were taken between 2005 and 2009 released as public domain photos by the respective photographers. Click on the photos to view the original sizes/resolution and save to your hard disks for use in your website, blog, etc.

Christ the Redeemer (Cristo Redentor), the statue of Jesus Christ in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, constructed between 1922 and 1931, is considered the second largest Art Deco statue in the world. Visible from a distance of 20 miles, the statue is 39.6 meters (130 ft) tall and 30 meters (98 ft) wide, weighing 635 tons. It is atop the peak of the 700-metre (2,300 ft) Corcovado Mountain in the Tijuca Forest National Park, overlooking Rio de Janeiro.

Christ the King (Pomnik Chrystusa Króla), the statue of Jesus Christ in Świebodzin, Poland, completed on 6 November 2010 (is 33 meters (108 ft) tall (171 feet/ 52 meters with the mound) weighing 440 tons, is claimed to be the tallest statue of Jesus in the world.

The idea for the statue was first suggested in the mid-1850s, when Catholic priest Pedro Maria Boss requested financing from Princess Isabel to build it, but the idea was dismissed in 1889, when Brazil became an independent republic. The second proposal was made in 1921 by the Catholic Circle of Rio that organized an event called Semana do Monumento to attract donations that came mostly from Brazilian Catholics.

The Brazilian engineer Heitor da Silva Costa designed the statue and it was sculpted by French sculptor Paul-Maximilien Landowski. A group of engineers, architects and technicians who studied Landowski's submissions, decided to construct the statue out of reinforced concrete with the outer layers made of soapstone, designed by Albert Caquot. The Construction took nine years (1922-1931) and cost the equivalent of US$250,000 (approximately US$3.5 million in 2009). The monument was opened to the public on October 12, 1931.

In October 2006, on Christ the Redeemer’s 75th anniversary, Archbishop of Rio Cardinal Eusebio Oscar Scheid consecrated a chapel (under the statue), named after Nossa Senhora Aparecida, the patron saint of Brazil (Our Lady of the Apparition).

Christ the Redeemer was struck by lightning during a violent electrical storm on Sunday, February 10, 2008, causing some damages on the fingers, head and eyebrows, but the damages were repaired by the Rio de Janeiro State Government and the archdiocese.

Christ the Redeemer underwent restoration work in 1980, 1990, 2003 and early 2010. Maintenance work is needed periodically due to the strong winds and heavy rains to which the statue is exposed. In 2003, a set of escalators, walkways and elevators were installed to facilitate access to the platform surrounding the statue.

On 7 July 2007, Christ the Redeemer was named one of the New Seven Wonders of the World in a list compiled by the Swiss-based The New Open World Corporation (second in their list). The other New Seven Wonders of the World are Chichen Itza (#1), a large pre-Columbian archaeological site in Yucatán Peninsula (Mexico), The Colosseum (#3) or the Coliseum, the Flavian Amphitheatre in Rome (Italy), The Great Wall of China (#4) in northern China, consisting of several walls built since the 5th century BC, Machu Picchu or Machu Pikchu (#5), a pre-Columbian 15th-century Inca site, on a mountain ridge above the Urubamba Valley in Peru, Petra (#6), a historical and archaeological city established around the 6th century BC on the slope of Mount Hor (Jordan), and The Taj Mahal (#7), a mausoleum in Agra, India.

Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux: La jeune fille à la coquille (The girl in the shell)

Photo dimension: 2000×3000 pixels, size 1555 KB

Photo dimension: 2000×3000 pixels, size 1806 KB

Public Domain Photos (two views): La jeune fille à la coquille (The girl in the shell), bronze sculpture by French sculptor and painter Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux (1827-1875) located at Musée de Cambrai (Museum of Fine Arts of Cambrai at 15, rue de l'Épée, 59400 Cambrai, France).

Lord Shiva as Nataraja, the Cosmic Dancer

PD Photo: Sculpture of Lord Shiva as Nataraja, the Cosmic Dancer, in the Botanical Garden managed by the Polish Academy of Sciences at Powsin, a neighborhood of the Wilanów district of Warsaw, Poland, photo by Albert Stanisław Jankowski, Poland.

Seated Ganesha, schist sculpture

PD Photo: Seated Ganesha, 1200-1300, originally from Karnataka State of India, sculpted from schist (a medium-grade metamorphic rock) currently located in Asian Art Museum of San Francisco in San Francisco, California, United States.

Sculpture of Hanuman in Terracotta

PD Photo: A terracotta sculpture of the Hindu God Hanuman in India; the reddish color is due to iron oxide in the source clay of the ceramic, and clays with low iron content can result in paler colors on firing and processing terra cotta, ranging from white to yellow.

Hanuman Murti and Divali Nagar in Trinidad and Tobago

PD Photo: The 26 meter (85 feet) tall Hanuman Murti (statue) and Hindu Temple in Central Trinidad. This statue is the tallest Hanuman Murti outside India.

PD Photo: Divali Nagar (City of Lights) located in the town of Chaguanas: an annual exposition of the Hindu and Indo-Trinidadian culture, associated with the celebration of Diwali in Trinidad and Tobago.

Peace riding in a triumphal chariot

PD Photo: ‘Peace riding in a triumphal chariot’ (1828), a quadriga by French sculptor François Joseph Bosio (1768-1845), bronze mould by Charles Crozatier, height 3.5 meter (11 feet 5 ¾ inches).

François Joseph Bosio's quadriga is installed atop the Arc de Triomphe du Carrousel, a victory arch in Paris, located at the Place du Carrousel on the site of the former Tuileries Palace, which was destroyed in the upheaval during the suppression of the Paris Commune in until 1871.

A quadriga (triumphal chariot) is a chariot drawn by four horses abreast, and has been considered the symbol of triumph. Victory (Victoria) and Fame (Pheme or Fama) were often depicted as driving the quadriga. In classical mythology the quadriga is the chariot of the gods. For instance, Apollo was depicted driving his quadriga across the heavens.

In ancient Roman religion, Victoria was the personified goddess of victory, and the Roman equivalent of the Greek goddess Nike. In Greek mythology, Fame (‘Pheme’ in Greek and the Roman equivalent ‘Fama’) was the personification of fame and renown.

Venus of Lespugue, tusk ivory carving

PD Photo: Replica of the Venus of Lespugue, carved from tusk ivory (Gravettian/ Upper Paleolithic) located at Museé des Antiquités Nationales, Paris, France.

The age of Venus of Lespugue, now residing in France at the Museé des Antiquités Nationales, Paris, is estimated between 24,000 and 26,000 years. This Venus figurine, a statuette of a nude female figure of the Gravettian (named after the site of La Gravette in the Dordogne region of France), was discovered In 1922 by René de Saint-Périer (1877-1950) in the Rideaux cave of Lespugue (Haute-Garonne) in the foothills of the Pyrenees, a range of mountains in southwest Europe that form a natural border between France and Spain.

Venus of Lespugue, one among hundreds of Venus figurines of the Gravettian cultural stage discovered across central Europe (and into Russia), is linked to similar figurines and carvings. 147 mm (approximately 6 inches) tall, the Lespugue Venus is carved from tusk ivory, which was damaged during excavation, and restored later.

Of all Venus figurines discovered from the upper Paleolithic, the Venus of Lespugue defies logic that it is about 25000 years old, as it looks like any sculpture or art piece of the twentieth century. This Venus is well-attributed with the most exaggerated female secondary sexual characteristics, especially the extremely large pendulous breasts. The rest of the figure too complements well the beauty of Venus.

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.

Melusine by Ludwig Michael von Schwanthaler

Photo: 19th century sculpture entitled ‘Melusine’ (1845) by German sculptor Ludwig Michael von Schwanthaler (1802-1848) in the Russell Cotes Museum and Art Gallery, Bournemouth, Dorset, England.

Melusine, or Melusina, is a female spirit of springs and rivers, according to European legends and folklore. Usually she is usually depicted as a woman who is a serpent or fish from the waist down, as a mermaid is featured in paintings and sculptures.

According to one story, Elynas, the King of Albany (old name for Scotland), came across Pressyne, a beautiful lady, while hunting in the forest. He persuaded her to marry him but she agreed on the condition that he must not enter her chamber on when she birthed or bathed her children. She gave birth to the triplets Melusine, Melior and Palatyne. When the King violated the promise, Pressyne left the kingdom with her daughters to the lost Isle of Avalon.

The girls Melusine, Melior and Palatyne grew up in Avalon. On their fifteenth birthday, Melusine asked why they had been taken to Avalon. Upon hearing of their father's broken promise, Melusine wanted to take revenge. She and her sisters captured Elynas and locked him up in a mountain. Pressyne got enraged when she knew what the girls had done and punished them for their disrespect to their father. Melusine was condemned to take the form of a serpent from the waist down every Saturday. In other stories, she takes on the form of a mermaid.

Melusine’s legend is especially connected with the Celtic areas of France, Netherlands and other countries. Sir Walter Scott told a Melusine tale in ‘The Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border’ (1802-1803):

“The reader will find the fairy of Normandy, or Bretagne, adorned with all the splendour of Eastern description. The fairy Melusina, also, who married Guy de Lusignan, Count of Poitou, under condition that he should never attempt to intrude upon her privacy, was of this latter class. She bore the count many children, and erected for him a magnificent castle by her magical art. Their harmony was uninterrupted until the prying husband broke the conditions of their union by concealing himself to behold his wife make use of her enchanted bath. Hardly had Melusina discovered the indiscreet intruder, than, transforming herself into a dragon, she departed with a loud yell of lamentation, and was never again visible to mortal eyes; although, even in the days of Brantome, she was supposed to be the protectress of her descendants, and was heard wailing as she sailed upon the blast round the turrets of the castle of Lusignan the night before it was demolished.”

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.