Minos in Art
On Cretan coins, Minos is represented as bearded, wearing a diadem, curly-haired, haughty and dignified, like the traditional portraits of his reputed father, Zeus. On painted vases and sarcophagus bas-reliefs he frequently occurs with Aeacus and Rhadamanthus as judges of the underworld and in connection with the Minotaur and Theseus.
In Michelangelo's famous fresco, The Last Judgment (located in the Sistine Chapel), Minos appears as judge of the underworld, surrounded by a crowd of devils. With his tail coiled around him, Minos judges the damned as they are brought down to hell (see Divine Comedy, First Circle).
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Famous quotes containing the word art:
“I can’t tell you what art does and how it does it, but I know that often art has judged the judges, pleaded revenge to the innocent and shown to the future what the past suffered, so that it has never been forgotten.... Art, when it functions like this, becomes a meeting-place of the invisible, the irreducible, the enduring, guts, and honour.”
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