In Our Own Image
Gods and Mortals
in Ancient Art

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Art shows us ourselves. Throughout the millennia we have sought to represent our humanity in images of stone, metal, terracotta and paint. And in this desire we have never been far from the company of our gods. It has been said that God created us in his own image, but surely in art we created gods in our own image?

This exhibition brings together works of art from ancient cultures of the Mediterranean, spanning a period of some three thousand years. They all speak to us today and they all show the human form through each period’s cultural aesthetic.

Five and a half thousand years ago the Greek Cycladic islands produced small figurative marble statues that were so stylised that it was not until the great changes brought by the abstract artists of the early twentieth century that similar images were seen again. In the delicate marble head (cat. 1) we seem to see all that is superficial pared away leaving only the essential. Is it a goddess or is it an image of a deceased woman buried with her for some votive reason? Whatever the purpose, it is a starkly beautiful depiction of the human form, immediately recognizable even though far from naturalistic. ...

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