The Cleveland Museum of Art
Collection Online as of April 19, 2024
Hero and Leander
1893–94
Location: not on view
Description
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 bearing his body to the European shore. When Hero learned of his death, she cast herself into the sea and perished.- Against the Grain: Woodcuts from the Collection. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (August 17-November 9, 2003).
- {{cite web|title=Hero and Leander|url=false|author=Aristide Maillol|year=1893–94|access-date=19 April 2024|publisher=Cleveland Museum of Art}}
Source URL:
https://www.clevelandart.org/art/1992.343