¶ … Athena Sculpture The Hope Athena

Sculpture History

According to the Greek mythology, the people that resided in a place called Attica (Greece) derived the name to the current, capital city of Greece (Athens) in honor of the Goddess Athena. People from Athens built a brilliant temple on the Acropolis, which they then called the Parthenon. The word 'Parthenos' stands for maiden when translated into Greek. An ancient myth stated that the gods established a decree that the goddess Athena was supposed to remain single and virgin. The myth is has been proven true as its perceptions realistically happened. The Hope Athena sculpture was excavated together with another statue (Hygeia) in the year 1797, in the port of Rome at Ostia (Murrin 2007). Thesis- The Hope Athena is a sculpture is a representation of ultimate impersonation, predictability and innovation towards Greek history. The assumption underlain by the sculpture's stylistic nature is depictive of the issues of patronage, visual portrayal and subjective Greek themes.

Athena's Patronage

Athena is an important goddess for the Greek whose patronage is greatly respected by the Greeks for being a goddess of wisdom, as well as a goddess of war. She was noted for her compassion and liberty, and so she was a goddess of peace. People also considered her to be a goddess of arts and crafts, more specifically when it came to weaving and spinning. Goddess Athena was looked to as a guardian of cities in Greece, remarkably in Athens, which was the capital of Greece, where the Parthenon temple was erected in her honor. Athena once contested with Poseidon (god of the sea) regarding to dominion over Attica and made an olive tree grow on the Acropolis as Poseidon made a salt-water stream gush from the Acropolis, a ruling was made in favor of Athena by the other Olympians. Despite being a virgin, Athena was greatly concerned with...

Goddess Athena's patronage drove Athens to prosperity and managed to be more influential city in Greece. The worship of the goddess Athena was conspicuously maternal at Athens and Elis.
Display and Style

The Hope Athena sculpture has perspective representations from its display and addition artifacts attached to it. The goddess figure displays a cultural exhibit of the historic attributes of the Greek. Similarly, its outward expression towards its viewers is dependent in defining the characterized presentations it displays. According to Palagia et al., the Greek people due to humane condition that was portrayed in counterpoints exponentially valued the existence of the gods' sculpture. The physical display of goddess Athena instigated worship practices that revolutionized the Athenian status and insured the endurance of identity and race. It was to bring favor among the people, though other rituals were conducted at the presence of such sculptures (Palagia et al. 50).

The statue of Hope Athena is a classical art being a Roman copy of Greek originality. It is widely known Hope-Farnese Athena, named after Los Angeles County Museum of Art's (LACMA's) sculpture, which was once owned by Thomas Hope; and the other fair version in Naples, which came from the princely Farnese family (Baker 24).

Classically, the Hope Athena sculpture stands out facing forward with signature armor; the aegis that included a gorgon's head made using ivory in the middle and its fringes fashioned of snakes. She wears an elaborate helmet decorated with sphinx in the middle and Pegasos constitutes the other side of it. There is an outstretch of the right arm, whereby its holds a Nike representation (Pope 16). The symbol depicts the characteristic of victory as a goddess. Her left arm on the other side holds the rim of the shield she carries with…