Aug

29

Mythic Imagination.

Posted by Christopher Waldrop

August 29, 2008 |

Photo credit: Vintage Interiors

Art is about choices. It’s about choosing one subject over another, and then one way of presenting that subject. I thought this in a back corner of the Saint Petersburg Museum of Fine Arts (Florida, not Russia) where I found a striking sculpture in alabaster. The work of Bertel Thorvaldsen (1770-1844), an eminent Danish sculptor, it’s titled Mercury About To Slay Argus. What really got my attention about this sculpture is its unbridled, almost aggressive eroticism. In keeping with mythology Mercury is portrayed as a young man, although, fittingly enough for this subject, he’s not at all boyish, or, if he is, he’s on the cusp of manhood. There’s also a multitude of phallic symbols, especially the sword sheath positioned provocatively under Mercury’s right calf. His helmet, in conjunction with the overall vertical composition, gives his entire body a phallic quality, and then there’s that pan flute he’s holding in his left hand, having just pulled it away from his mouth. The most obvious non-symbol, of course, is covered–barely–by a sheet, but it’s obvious that, as soon as Mercury is in position to slay Argus he’ll be completely uncovered. He’ll be exposed in one way, but his sword, unsheathed, will then be buried in Argus.

Thorvaldsen did some religious subjects, as well as a few sculptures of famous people, including Byron, but he was mainly a Neoclassicist. Classical subjects dominate his oeuvre, although, oddly enough, this is his only sculpture of Mercury as a solo figure. Mercury appears in a couple of other sculptures, but with other figures. Ganymede and Cupid, on the other hand, were obvious favorite subjects of Thorvaldsen’s—there are multiple solo statues of each, including a beautiful kneeling Ganymede holding a cup for an eagle who is actually Jupiter in disguise–but that’s another story.

Why did Thorvaldsen choose this particular subject, Mercury about to slay Argus? That’s really an impossible question to answer—I’m not even sure Thorvaldsen could give an answer himself. The fact that it’s a small moment in a minor myth isn’t really an answer since he was very fond of illustrating such moments. (As just another example, he made a frieze of Cupid stung by a bee, from an obscure poem by Anacreon.) In Ovid’s version, from The Metamorphoses, the story really started when Jupiter fell in love with nymph Io and came to her as a white bull. His wife Hera suspected Jupiter was up to something (the marriage of Jupiter and Hera reads like an extended episode of Cheaters) so Jupiter changed Io into a white cow. Hera still suspected something so she enlisted the multi-eyed monster Argus (who would be eventually transformed into a peacock’s tail) to watch this strange white cow. Jupiter got Mercury to kill Argus. Mercury first put Argus to sleep by telling him the story of Syrinx and Pan, explaining the invention of the pan flute. In other versions Mercury (or Hermes to the Greeks) puts Argus to sleep by playing the flute–after all, music soothes the savage breast. It’s Mercury who’s really the savage, though; acting on orders he slaughters Argus. It’s not even a fair fight. Jupiter had been burying his metaphorical sword in Io, but Mercury’s act transforms sex into aggression and hostility; le petit mort is subsumed by le grande mort.

At least one reason Thorvaldsen could have chosen the particular moment when Mercury is drawing his sword is because there is so much tension at this point in the story. If Argus wakes up it’s potentially all over for Mercury. We could feel sorry for poor Argus–he’s just a guy doing a job–but, unlike Giacomo Amiconi’s rather clumsy rendering of the same subject in paint, Thorvaldsen doesn’t let us see Argus. All our attention is focused on Mercury and what he’s about to do and, given his beauty, it’s hard not to be on his side. And yet there’s something very contradictory here, something very disturbing, about this beautiful young man about to kill. Is Thorvaldsen making a statement about war, or simply adulthood? I don’t know whether he was a pacifist, and, even though Argus is a monster, it would be too simplistic to suggest that Mercury is slaying his own metaphorical demons. In Mercury’s mythology, though, it is a rather strange moment. As far as I know it’s the only time he’s a murderer, the only time he demonstrates any real, outright violence–and it’s rare for him to act on orders from anyone. He’s more of a trickster, and, rather than the sword, he normally carries a caduceus–an instrument of healing rather than one of destruction. He leads the souls of the dead to the afterlife, giving them comfort. He’s a god of messengers and thieves, not killers.  In his essay Hermes from the book The Olympians Robert Sardello describes him as the source of knowledge, but not the cool, calculated wisdom of Athena. Hermes (or Mercury) is a latecomer to Olympos. When he arrives everything available, from love to war, has been apportioned to the eleven existing gods. He has to carve out his own niche by trickery or just plain stealing. He may be a god of wisdom, but it’s the wisdom of intuition, of finding the truth by taking it by surprise. In his book Great Zeus And All His Children, Donald Richardson tells how the young Hermes (the Greek name for Mercury), son of the nymph Maia, assumed the position of god after he was caught stealing the cattle of Apollo. Instead of admitting any guilt, Hermes explained that he offered two of the cows as a sacrifice to the twelve gods of Olympos.

“Twelve?” said Apollo. “Our father Zeus most certainly, and white-armed Hera, the earth-shaker Poseidon, Hestia, Demeter, my sister Artemis and I, Ares, gray-eyed Athene, and, oh yes, bandy-legged Hephaistos and laughter-loving Aphrodite. But that’s only eleven. Who, pray tell, is the twelfth?”

Glorious Hermes bowed deeply. “Yours truly,” he said.

Myths are, of course, often fixed, but they’re also expandable and adaptable. Art often allows us to sneak up on the truth mercury.jpgas well, or it gives the truth a chance to sneak up on us. While an artist can’t present infinity a work of art can inspire infinite interpretations, infinite thoughts, infinite views. We can look at Mercury About To Slay Argus from every direction, and either let it guide our thoughts or simply use it as a starting point.


Comments

2 Comments so far

  1. Peptodismal on August 29, 2008 6:43 am

    An amazing commentary, but in the photo it looks as though Mercury is about to slay a flower arrangement from the Little Shop of Horrors next to him. In the bottom sketch, it appears that Mercury has just exited a closet and has brought along a souvenir. Somewhere in between, there lies the truth.

  2. Christopher Waldrop on August 29, 2008 12:56 pm

    The photo at the top is from an exhibit called “Art in Bloom”. Since I wasn’t smart enough to take the camera with me (what could there possibly be in an art museum I’d want to photograph?) I’ve borrowed someone else’s.
    The picture is from an 1869 book of engravings of all of Thorvaldsen’s works. It does seem something was lost in translation.

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