A DOR ETERNA I

Author: Artur Leão

Year: 2020
Medium: Video
Size: 1516×2304
Typologies:
NARRATION OF THE MYTH OF NIOBE(INSPIRATION) BY ARTUR LEÃO The project is based on the myth of classical antiquity that narrates the killing of the fourteen children of Niobe (climax). This killing was motivated by the disrespect she showed to the divine power, by instigating the people of Thebes not to worship the goddess Leto. However, when Zeus realised the suffering caused to her by the death of her loved ones, he decided to end her sadness by petrifying her, although her tears continued to fall, creating a spring. It is understood that her suffering lasted even after she was turned into stone. Let’s take a closer look at Ovid’s description: “By misfortune she stands firm. The breeze does not move a single hair, her face becomes pale, without a drop of blood, her eyes stop, immobile, on her desolate face: nothing is alive in her figure. Even the tongue itself freezes inside the hardened palate, and the veins are no longer able to palpitate. And no longer even the neck reflects, nor the arms move, nor the feet manage to walk: even the inside of the viscera is stone. But she cries”.

METAMORPHOSIS I (SECOND SEGMENT)


The object that originated and gave birth to the metamorphosis was a stone. It was this stone that allowed me to prospectively imagine the face of a woman. My study thus started from a representation
in drawing resulting from the observation of that stone. I created through drawing nine different images that invert the myth’s narration, that is, starting with the stone and ending with a
representation of a woman who cries. The final result is a metamorphosis even more complex than the one contained in the original drawing as
a result of the multiplication of the form and the application of some effects that cause movement in the image, alluding to the currents and waves of a river’s water and the density of the tears to the
spilled blood of children.
In the video entitled “A DOR ETERNA I” there is a meaning or a kind of moral taken from the transformation: The multiplication of the form indicates an increase in suffering as time passes,
with an increase in intensity, until the point where the body of the character symbolically petrifies, inhibiting him from exerting any type of movement, remaining static like a stone. The fact that the video ends with the human form indicates that any suffering person should try to overcome this
suffering, after the peak of its manifestation, in order to recover the vivacity and will to live out of bitterness (rebirth).