Hermes - Richard Holst

Hermes - Richard HolstA print of Richard Roland Holst's Hermes the Dutch Symbolist's rendering of the Greek messenger god, drawn in the flat, decorative idiom that defined Holst's generation of Amsterdam printmakers at the turn of the 20th century. Hermes was the messenger of the Olympian gods, patron of travellers, merchants, heralds and thieves, and the Psychopompos who led the souls of the newly dead to the underworld. His attributes winged sandals, winged petasos, the

from Canova through Rodin

already married to Menelaus

By the 19th century every print publisher with pretensions carried her in some version

the Aphrodite of Arles

built this" — and the line has misled casual viewers about the building's age for nineteen centuries

the artist's purpose-built museum and tomb

The statue was unearthed in the 16th century in the Baths of Caracalla in Rome and entered the Farnese collection — hence the modern name

A watercolour portrait of Jason

Uniquely among the Olympians

became the defining reference works for Grand Tour decorators and Neoclassical architects

This line art distils the hero down to a single graphic gesture — mythology as emblem

Naples and the other centres where the 18th and 19th centuries assembled their archaeological collections