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The name Dionysus occurs in the Linear B tablets, so it seems very likely that his worship was a part of Mycenaean religion. His devotees, armed with thyrsoi (wands tipped with a pinecone and wreathed with grapevine or ivy leaves) and known as maenads (literally “mad women”), were reputed to wander in thiasoi (revel bands) about mountain slopes, such as Cithaeron or Parnassus; the practice persisted into Roman imperial times. They were also supposed, in their ecstasy, to practice the sparagmos, the tearing of living victims to pieces and feasting on their raw flesh (ōmophagia). While such behaviour continued in the wild, in the cities—in Athens, at any rate—the cult of Dionysus was tamed before 500 bce. Tragedy developed from the choral song of Dionysus.
Actor in disguise performing a “sparagmos” scene with a musician accompanying his performance by playing a double aulos.
A maenad wearing a short chiton leaving her breasts naked, dances ecstatically with a wide stride and flowing hair to the sound of a double aulos player. With her head tilted to the right, she looks straight out of the picture, holding a bleeding deer leg in her raised left hand and a sword in her lowered right. Above her head the inscription (KΑΛΟΣ). The aulos player is dressed in a long sleeve chiton decorated with circles and dots; he wears a dotted band and a wreath painted in red and a band, phorbeia, to hold the mouthpiece of his aulos.
This scene is mostly interpreted as an early representation of a tragic theater performance. The aulos player appears in the typical stage costume, the ankle-length, richly decorated sleeve chiton: the costume of the musician of a theater choir. The maenad, although not recognizable at first glance, is an actor in disguise. The bare breast is usually only found only in hetaerae. The hairstyle of the maenad with the upright hair is striking. A mask may be indicated by this detail.
CAV /( CAVI @ www.beazley.ox.ac.uk
Athenian red-figure pelike
H 36,2 cm; D. 25 cm.
Attributed to an Earlier Mannerist Painter
ca. 470–460 BC.
Berlin, Antikensammlung, Staatliche inv. V.I. 3223
Vase fragment depicting the "sparagmos", or the wild ritual act of dismembering a living animal practiced in Dionysiac context. Dionysos was the god of all wild nature, and his reveling train of ecstatic followers were Satyrs, Silens, Nymphs and Maenads, all celebrating the god's rites with wine and music, song and dance, and sometimes, in their ecstasy, tearing animals to pieces, “sparagmos”, and eating the flesh raw, “omophagia”.
Here Dionysos is portrayed standing between a maenad and a satyr; in his hands he holds a dismembered goat. According to the rite the “sparagmos” was followed by “omophagia”: Dionysos followers, maenads and satyrs, ate the raw flesh of the sacrificed animals. The picture shows the gesture of Dionysus offering to his followers the pieces of goat quartered with his own hands.
Attic white-ground black-figured fragment
Attributed to Dokimasia Painter [?]
480 – 470 BC
Paris, Musée du Louvre
Depictions of “sparagmos” – the ritual dismemberment of wild animals connected with Dionysos’ myth are relatively rare on Attic vases.
This beautiful and rare scene shows the winter dance for Dionysos when we know that “sparagmos” took place. The central maenad holds the torn halves of a fawn and, turning her back to the observer, dances with legs spread wide apart.
The two maenads who move together, arm around one another, are a group that has long attracted attention and thought to be derived from large scale Polygnotan wall-painting. The three-quarter face of the maenad in peplos is exceptional.
Despite the restorations, the exquisite quality of the drawing is obvious. A good sense of the ecstasy connected with the Worship of Dionysos is brilliantly reflected on this Vase, and the subject matter could not be more appropriate for a wine storage jar.
Source: John H. Oakley, The Achilles Painter
CARC / CAVI @ www.beazley.ox.ac.uk/
Red-figure pointed amphora – Inv. 357
Height 61,9 cm; great diameter 40,7 cm
Attributed to The Achilles Painter
450 - 445 BC
Paris, Department of Coins, Medals and Antiquities
Dionysos in a procession with maenads and satyrs is one of the most popular themes on Attic vases starting in the second quarter of the sixth century B.C. One of the finest red-figure examples is this pointed amphora in Paris, where eight maenads and two satyrs accompany the god of wine around the body of the vase. He is dressed in a long chiton, “pardalis” (leopard skin), “endromides” (boots), and a thick fillet wrapped around his head. Moving swiftly right, but looking back, he holds a branch up in his left hand, and a kantharos down in the right.
Each maenad is different. One plays “tympamum”, another “auloi”; another dances in a twisted pose with head turned down and left hand raised; two cling to one other, the right one of whom has a snake wrapped around her left arm; another holds the torn halves of a fawn and dances with legs spread wide apart. Their dress shows variety and includes chitons, peploi, “nebris”, wreaths, sakkos, and headband. The two satyrs dance with one arm raised. Torches, branches and thyrsoi are carried by both types of figures.
A good sense of the ecstasy connected with the Worship of Dionysos is brilliantly reflected on this Vase, and the subject matter could not be more appropriate for a wine storage jar.
Source: John H. Oakley, The Achilles Painter
Source: John H. Oakley, The Achilles Painter
CARC / CAVI @ www.beazley.ox.ac.uk/
Red-figure pointed amphora – Inv. 357
Height 61,9 cm; great diameter 40,7 cm
Attributed to The Achilles Painter
450 - 445 BC
Paris, Department of Coins, Medals and Antiquities
In Greek mythology, Pentheus was a king of Thebes. His father was Echion, the wisest of the Spartoi. His mother was Agave, the daughter of Cadmus, the founder of Thebes, and the goddess Harmonia. His sister was Epeiros.
Much of what is known about the character comes from the interpretation of the myth in Euripides' tragic play, The Bacchae.
The story of Pentheus' resistance to Dionysus and his subsequent punishment is presented by Euripides as follows.
Cadmus, the king of Thebes, abdicated due to his old age in favor of his grandson Pentheus. Pentheus soon banned the worship of the god Dionysus, who was the son of his aunt Semele, and did not allow the women of Cadmeia to join in his rites.
An angered Dionysus caused Pentheus' mother Agave and his aunts Ino and Autonoë, along with all the other women of Thebes, to rush to Mount Cithaeron in a Bacchic frenzy. Because of this, Pentheus imprisoned Dionysus, thinking the man simply a follower, but his chains fell off and the jail doors opened for him.
Dionysus, disguised as a woman, lured Pentheus out to spy on the Bacchic rites, where Pentheus expected to see sexual activities. The daughters of Cadmus saw him in a tree and thought him to be a wild animal. They pulled Pentheus down and tore him limb from limb (as part of a ritual known as the sparagmos). When his true identity was later discovered, officials exiled the women from Thebes. Some say that his own mother was the first to attack him, tearing his arm off and then tearing off his head. She placed the head on a stick and took it back to Thebes, but only realized whose head it was after meeting her father Cadmus.
The name "Pentheus", as Dionysus and Tiresias both point out, means "Man of Sorrows" and derives from πένθος, pénthos, sorrow or grief, especially the grief caused by the death of a loved one. His name appeared to mark him for tragedy. Pentheus was succeeded by his uncle Polydorus.
Before or possibly after Pentheus was killed, his wife gave birth to a son named Menoeceus, who became the father of Creon and Jocasta. He became the grandfather of Oedipus.
The story of Pentheus is also discussed by Ovid in his Metamorphoses (3. 511–733). Ovid's version diverges from Euripides' work in several areas. In Ovid's Metamorphoses, King Pentheus is warned by the blind seer Tiresias to welcome Bacchus or else "Your blood [will be] poured out and defile the woods and your mother and her sisters..." Pentheus dismisses Tiresias and ignores his warnings. As Thebes succumbs to the "dementia and the delirium of the new god", Pentheus laments the fall of his kingdom and demands the arrest of Bacchus. His guards instead arrest Acoetes of Maeonia, a sailor who confirms the divinity of Bacchus and tells how the crew of his ship ended up being turned into dolphins after trying to kidnap the young god.
Pentheus, convinced that Acoetes is lying, tries to throw him in jail. But when the guards try to shackle Acoetes, the chains fall off. In a rage, Pentheus ran to deal with Bacchus himself. He charged through the woods straight into a bacchanal. Driven to a frenzy the participants thought Pentheus was a boar and attacked him. His mother was the first one to spear him and then the group tore his flesh apart with their bare hands.
Finally, all acknowledged Bacchus as a god (Wikipedia).
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See also the album: www.albelli.nl/onlinefotoboek-bekijken/3af1427e-1eae-4620...
The story of Pentheus' resistance to Dionysus and his subsequent punishment is presented by Euripides as follows.
Cadmus, the king of Thebes, abdicated due to his old age in favor of his grandson Pentheus. Pentheus soon banned the worship of the god Dionysus, who was the son of his aunt Semele, and did not allow the women of Cadmeia to join in his rites.
An angered Dionysus caused Pentheus' mother Agave and his aunts Ino and Autonoë, along with all the other women of Thebes, to rush to Mount Cithaeron in a Bacchic frenzy. Because of this, Pentheus imprisoned Dionysus, thinking the man simply a follower, but his chains fell off and the jail doors opened for him.
Dionysus, disguised as a woman, lured Pentheus out to spy on the Bacchic rites, where Pentheus expected to see sexual activities. The daughters of Cadmus saw him in a tree and thought him to be a wild animal. They pulled Pentheus down and tore him limb from limb (as part of a ritual known as the sparagmos). When his true identity was later discovered, officials exiled the women from Thebes. Some say that his own mother was the first to attack him, tearing his arm off and then tearing off his head. She placed the head on a stick and took it back to Thebes, but only realized whose head it was after meeting her father Cadmus.
The name "Pentheus", as Dionysus and Tiresias both point out, means "Man of Sorrows" and derives from πένθος, pénthos, sorrow or grief, especially the grief caused by the death of a loved one. His name appeared to mark him for tragedy. Pentheus was succeeded by his uncle Polydorus (Wikipedia).
Sparagmos (Oudgrieks: σπαραγμός van σπαράσσειν, sparassein, "verscheuren") betekent het offeren van een levend dier of levende persoon tijdens een religieus ritueel door het lichaam uiteen te rijten, in het bijzonder ter verering van de Griekse god Dionysos.
From the House of the Vettii in Pompeii, this fully-frescoed 'exedra' room, south-east of the peristyle, features a wall painting of Pentheus being torn apart by the maenads (the woman in blue is probably his own mother).
Note the two 'robber holes', which were part of a tunnel system that looters dug to find easily portable items like statues or bronze objects - this was before the house was excavated and it lay under several meters of volcanic material. The Bourbon kings wanted anything they could get their hands on, but this unfortunately caused great damage to frescoed walls.
Sparagmos (Ancient Greek: σπαραγμός, from σπαράσσω sparasso, "tear, rend, pull to pieces") is an act of rending, tearing apart, or mangling, usually in a Dionysian context.
In Dionysian rite as represented in myth and literature, a living animal, or sometimes even a human being, is sacrificed by being dismembered. Sparagmos was frequently followed by omophagia (the eating of the raw flesh of the one dismembered). It is associated with the Maenads or Bacchantes, followers of Dionysus, and the Dionysian Mysteries. Historically, however, there is little indication that women celebrating the rites of Dionysus dismembered animals or ate raw flesh.
Examples of sparagmos appear in Euripides's play The Bacchae. In one scene guards sent to control the Maenads witness them pulling a live bull to pieces with their hands. Later, after King Pentheus has banned the worship of Dionysus, the god lures him into a forest, to be torn limb from limb by Maenads, including his own mother Agave. According to some myths, Orpheus, regarded as a prophet of Orphic or Bacchic religion, died when he was dismembered by raging Thracian women.
Medea is said to have killed and dismembered her brother whilst fleeing with Jason and the stolen fleece in order to delay their pursuers, who would be compelled to collect the remains of the prince for burial. The Italian film director Pier Paolo Pasolini staged a sparagmos ritual as part of a long sequence near the beginning of his film Medea (1969), before dramatising the episode in which Medea kills her brother in a similar way.
Interpreting the ritual through the lens of the Freudian Oedipus complex, Catherine Maxwell identifies sparagmos as a form of castration, particularly in the case of Orpheus.
In contemporary literature, this is used in Tennessee Williams's play Suddenly, Last Summer.
Sparagmos is also briefly mentioned in Donna Tartt's The Secret History.
Sparagmos is a central theme in Dimitris Lyacos's The First Death recounting the torments of a mutilated protagonist stranded on an island.
I uploaded an image of this plant on the 22nd of April. It was a collage of what the plant looks like. The above image is a close up of each of its flowers. You can see what the plant looks like here:
I uploaded an image of this plant on the 22nd of April. It was a collage of what the plant looks like. The above image is a close up of each of its flowers. You can see what the plant looks like here:
I uploaded an image of this plant on the 22nd of April. It was a collage of what the plant looks like. The above image is a close up of each of its flowers. You can see what the plant looks like here:
Exhibition Review - Jeff Elrod at Simon Lee Gallery, London till 21st October 2017.
“With Sparagmos and Synecdoche, Elrod offers up a wreckage in a mediated glow, found off kilter."- Drenched Co.
Notes: "I loved Blade Runner 2049. Did you? Watch it and then go take a spin at Simon Lee's Jeff Elrod exhibition. You'll sense the buzz, the glow and simulated warmth of 'computer monitors' and you'll feel like you have been shoved sideways into time. You will struggle with the illusory space of his increasingly opaque mediated 'screens' and you might draw the parallels between the movie and his paintings. Elrod uses ideas behind Science Fiction to make new thinking possible and communicable and his is more than a complex Instragram filter. Fabulous! " - FaSa
See www.simonleegallery.com/exhibitions/119/
See also www.soaked.space/2017/10/exhibition-review-jeff-elrod-at-...
See also www.woundsthatbind.com/2017/10/exhibition-review-jeff-elr...
Caption: Image above: Installation view Jeff Elrod Simon Lee Gallery, London 2017.
Image courtesy of artist and Simon Lee Gallery, London Photo credits: Todd-White Art Photography
We take great care not to harm the image in any way. And these views, they are ours only and not those of the gallery or artist.
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I uploaded an image of this plant on the 22nd of April. It was a collage of what the plant looks like. The above image is a close up of each of its flowers. You can see what the plant looks like here: