Night and Her Children Aither and Hemera (Hesiod, Theogony)
Henry Fuseli Swiss
Not on view
For this etching, Fuseli turned to a passage from Hesiod’s Theogony, a poem written in about 700 b.c. on the origins of the cosmos and the genealogies of the gods. Here, Night bears two children, Aither (Brightness or Sky) and Hemera (Day), by her brother Erebus (Darkness). The nebulous character of the unfinished figures adds to the mystery of the origin story itself. It is not clear why the artist never completed the print, and this may be the only impression.
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