TLDR: 1. I have officially started my masters (!!) 2. a herm is a very visually unsettling sculpture with a head, on top of a sort of rectangular prism with *ahem* male sexual organs 🍆 “carved at the appropriate height” (scroll for pics) 3. YOU SHOULD WATCH THIS SIZZLE REEL FROM MY LATEST PROJECT:
hello HELLO,
I know it’s been six hundred years since my last newsletter but let’s just hop right IN 🦘
I’ve just moved up to Cambridge to start my masters in classics (it absolutely has not sunk in, even writing that made me tear up a little) ~ I’ve been here for about 72 hours and my brain is already exploding. There are so many wonderful people, I’ve already had so many fascinating conversations (I bumbled through a half hour chat about Mexican foreign policy where I mostly just blinked a lot and said crikey a handful of times), but goddamn it’s just so PRETTY.
I’m sure there will be many more Cambridge-themed newsletters as I get into the whole shebang but for now let’s move on to maybe the most unsettling type of sculpture I have come across in quite some time.
Now what the HECK is a HERM (pl. hermai or hermae) ???
I’m sure I’ve come across these cursed creations before but I must not have been paying attention / repressed the memory immediately. I saw one a few months ago when I was in Nafplio on a Greek Tragedy Themed Retreat with Professor Edith Hall and Natalie Haynes, run by Travel Gems (which was fabulous, I will gush about it properly in another newsletter).
Here is the fellow that inspired / haunts me. I can’t quite put my finger on it but something about the combination of a portrait bust whacked on top of a cuboid shape with some sculpted genitals thrown in the mix is just deeply unsettling.
Now hermai were very legit, they were sacred stone objects that were a part of the cult of Hermes, the messenger god. Not only did they have a religious purpose, they were also used to mark milestones and boundaries which makes sense as Hermes was the guy with the winged sandals fluttering and flitting all over the place. The sculptures also served an apotropaic purpose, i.e. they were thought to keep you safe as you fluttered and flitted all over the place. The Greeks came up with them but, like so much else, the Romans were quite big fans so adopted the “art form” and kept it going ~ hermai even had a little moment during the Renaissance.
I’m just going to fling a bunch of photos at you because I need you to tell me if I’m the weird one for being slightly disturbed by these/if they’re actually a moment OR if you TOO find them to be odd/disquieting:
Please PLEASE let me know what you think, I either need to be vindicated or talked down.
Onto point number THREE, I can’t give too much away just yet but I will say a project I/a whole team of people have been working on since DECEMBER (and one I’ve been dreaming about since I was 12) is actually coming together and I am genuinely beside myself with excitement ❤️🔥❤️🔥❤️🔥❤️🔥
Watch the little reel I whacked in at the beginning / follow Propylaea Productions on Instagram here:
https://www.instagram.com/propylaeaproductions/
I hope you’re having a glorious Sunday xxxx