The Art of the Parthenon continues to inspire

The Parthenon and its sculptures have inspired artists over the centuries. In a just opened exhibition at the Museum of Natural History in Sigri on the island of Lesvos the acclaimed UK painter and engraver Tomas Watson has unveiled his own artistic depictions of the Parthenon Sculptures.

The exhibition, Kosmos (Torso): Form and Transformation, captures the juxtaposition of natural and sculptured forms. A 20-million-year old tree now a stone trunk. A classical sculpture of the human form eroded back to a block of marble. The exhibition seeks to create a dialogue between these fragments, despite the disintegration and change and the passing of time.

Tomas Watson has studied and painted the human body over the years but this show takes it to another level. Alongside his paintings of human torsos are paintings and studies of the Parthenon Sculptures which were originally located on the east and west pediments of the Parthenon before they were controversially removed by Lord Elgin’s agents at the beginning of the nineteenth century and ended up in the British Museum where they remain on display.

Tomas Watson has isolated the sculptures and placed them in a new context of colorful backgrounds, echoing their forced physical displacement by Elgin and their continued estrangement from their natural context in Athens.