Mycenae­an Grave Goods

I was tidy­ing up and found some bits from art school ten years ago. Here’s some prelim­in­ary sketches I did for a project based on Mycenae­an arte­facts. Rather than draw direct, I drew vari­ous motifs on some acet­ate with mark­er, and then held it on the cyan­o­type paper with glass to expose the pictures. These prints were not the final project, I don’t know where that has gone. They were more prelim­in­ary explor­a­tion work.

“I cried for madder music and for stronger wine”

I have Bacchae prints avail­able again. The text says “I caught this young lion myself without a trap”. Based on the scene from Eurip­ides’ Bacchae where Pentheus’ moth­er tears her own son’s head off with her bare hands while under Dionysus’ spell and parades it round the stage. Avail­able from me as a print here for £6 or £12 depend­ing on size. Ideal fest­ive gift for all, look how red it is.

Bacchae prints for sale

I still have a couple of these 22×25 cm /​ 8.5×9.5″ riso­graph prints based on the Bacchae by Euri­pedes left.

The text says “ἔμαρψα τόνδ᾽ ἄνευ βρόχων λέοντος ἀγροτέρου νέον ἶνιν ὡς ὁρᾶν πάρα.” which means “I caught this young lion by myself, without a trap”. Pentheus’ moth­er, having run off into the woods with Dionysus to be a maen­ad, kills her son in a frenzy because she thinks he’s a lion, and then parades his head around the stage boast­ing about the lion she’s killed. That old plot cliché.

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