Too Beautiful to Picture: Zeuxis, Myth, And MimesisU of Minnesota Press - 232 pages Few tales of artistic triumph can rival the story of Zeuxis. As first reported by Cicero and Pliny, the painter Zeuxis set out to portray Helen of Troy, but when he realized that a single model could not match Helen’s beauty, he combined the best features of five different models. A primer on mimesis in art making, the Zeuxis myth also illustrates ambivalence about the ability to rely on nature as a model for ideal form. In Too Beautiful to Picture, Elizabeth C. Mansfield engages the visual arts, literature, and performance to examine the desire to make the ideal visible. She finds in the Zeuxis myth evidence of a cultural primal scene that manifests itself in gendered terms. Mansfield considers the many depictions of the legend during the Renaissance and questions its absence during the eighteenth century. Offering interpretations of Angelica Kauffman’s paintings, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, and Picasso’s Les Demoiselles d’Avignon, Mansfield also considers Orlan’s carnal art as a profound retelling of the myth. Throughout, Mansfield asserts that the Zeuxis legend encodes an unconscious record of the West’s reliance on mimetic representation as a vehicle for metaphysical solace. Elizabeth C. Mansfield is associate professor of art history at the University of the South. |
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aesthetic Agrigentum ancient Angelica Kauffman antique anxiety Apelles Apelles Painting appears art history Art Resource beauty body Cambridge Campaspe Carnal Art castration castration anxiety century chapter Cicero classical mimesis creative critique Croton cultural Demoiselles d'Avignon depiction discourse doppelgänger eighteenth eighteenth-century engraving erotic explains Faust female feminine fetish Figure François-André Vincent Frankenstein fresco Freud Giorgio Vasari Greek Helen of Troy Hera Ibid ideal imitation invention Joseph-Marie Vien Juno legend of Zeuxis Les Demoiselles d'Avignon London male Mary Shelley masculine metaphor mimetic modern Musée Museum Net Magazine nude oil on canvas Orlan painter painting's Paris Parrhasius Photograph courtesy Picasso's Plato Pliny Pliny's pose primal scene Pygmalion Renaissance Reynolds role Roman Rosenthal Sandrart sculpture self-portrait sexual Shelley's story of Zeuxis temple theme theory tion trans University Press Vasari Venus Vien's viewer Vincent visual Western art Winckelmann woman women York Zeuxian mimesis Zeuxis myth Zeuxis Selecting Models