Winged Nike of Samothrace
Now in the Louvre, this astonishing sculpture once graced a larger monument to
a great naval battle won by the Athenian navy, around the year 200 B.C. This battered,
wonderful figure, embodies the Greek passion for beauty, martial strength and
imaginative transformation in the addition of wings as though they are the most
natural things in the world for a woman to have. Few cultures appreciate the innate
sensuality of the human form as did the pre-Roman Greeks. This is one of the great
surviving works from antiquity. I have sketched the real thing while in Paris
and the sweep and sexual dynamism of this striding form, with its powerful flapping
wings is essentially unmatched in the history of art. If you know of a more compelling
Greek or Roman scultpure, please contact me at:
(See references to Greek art in Harry Roche's interview. 1,
2)