Hero and Leander
Medium
wood engraving
Classification
Department
Prints
Museum
Cleveland Museum of Art
Credit
John L. Severance Fund
Accession Number
1992.343
Rights
Public Domain
Tags
maleNabis
About this artwork
Maillol executed Hero and Leander just as he was becoming acquainted with Paul Gauguin, whose contemporaneous woodcuts must have influenced this work. However, unlike Gauguin, Maillol filled the entire surface with intricate detail and pattern. Leander lived on the Asian side of the Hellespont, the strait which separates Asia and Europe. His lover, Hero, lived on the opposite shore. Each night Leander swam across the strait to visit Hero, but one evening during a storm he drowned, the waves bear...