Gods and stories
The Gods of Olympus
Who the gods are, and how artists made each one recognizable
The Greeks pictured their gods as a family of twelve living on Mount Olympus, and the Romans took them over under Latin names. Because the gods look human, artists marked each one with a fixed set of objects, animals and poses, so a viewer could name the god at a glance.
- Ancient statues set the standard types that later painters copied.
- Renaissance and Baroque artists revived the gods for princely palaces and collections.
- Learn the attributes here and the rest of the guide becomes easier to read.
- Attribute
- An object, animal or feature that identifies a figure, such as Zeus’s thunderbolt or Athena’s owl and aegis.
Works in this part
- Jupiter of Smyrna
- Juno and Argus
- Bronze God from Cape Artemision
- Varvakeion Athena
- Minerva Expelling the Vices from the Garden of Virtue
- Apollo Belvedere
- Diana and Her Nymphs
- Mars
- The Birth of Venus
- Vulcan’s Forge
- Hermes and the Infant Dionysus
Image: Wikimedia Commons · Public domain