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| The title of this work refers to an architectural element known since antiquity: a pillar in the shape of a woman carrying a basket on her head. According to myth, Caryatids commemorate an Athenian victory over the town of Karyae. After killing the men the victors carried the Karyae women “into slavery, without permitting them, however, to lay aside the long robes and other marks of their rank as married women, so that they might be obliged not only to march in the triumph but to appear forever after as a type of slavery, burdened with the weight of their shame and so making atonement for their State.”
Male counterparts of the unfortunate Caryatids are the Atlanti, prisoners from the Persian War, who are condemned to carry eternally the weight of architecture on their shoulders.*
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Aristide Maillol (1861 – 1944)
Venus (1918-1928), Bronze
Private collection, St. Louis
Maillol’s Venus, an idealized nude, stands opposite the entrance doors and echoes Brancusi’s Caryatid in that she is a female figure and refers to antiquity. Like her counterpart, she does not take any notice of the spectator. |
* Vitruvius, Ten Books on Architecture, First Book, Chapter I, 5-7 |
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