Hermaphrodite - George èmile Viardot (1888 - 1965)

George Èmile VIARDOT
Paris, 1888 - Crésantignes, 1965

Hermaphrodite

Oil on canvas, 65 x 81 cm.

Viardot, a French painter who has been participating in the Salon des Indépendants in Paris since the 1920s, gives us a modern version of the mythological figure of the Hermaphrodite.
It is the son of Hermes and Aphrodite and, according to the Latin poet Publius Ovid Naso, was a boy of beautiful appearance who was transformed into an androgynous being after a supernatural physical union occurred with the nymph Salmace.
The painter chooses to depict him in a peculiar version; he is in fact winged and lifeless resting on rocks inside probably a cave. The lifeless body completely abandons itself to the rocky surface and is almost phosphorescent thanks to the artist's skillful use of colors.