Sculpture
Perseus Arming
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Like Hamo Thornycroft's "Teucer" (#2007.6), seen to the left, "Perseus Arming" combines classical subject matter with a close attention to naturalistic surface details. Gilbert shows Perseus in a scene from Ovid's "Metamorphoses," where the young hero, the son of Zeus and the mortal woman Danaë, puts on the winged sandals of Hermes. He then takes up the curved sword of Minerva before departing to save the life of Andromeda. The sculptor depicts Perseus in a posture that is both awkward and full of boyish grace. Gilbert and Thornycroft were leaders of the New Sculpture, a term used to describe a dynamic group of late 19th-century British sculptors who sought to revitalize their medium.
