The Asia Minor Ma, 1966

A sculptor from Pergamos in Asia Minor, Vassos Kapantaes made the land of Ionia the center of his work. Using elements from the art of the archaic period, folk art, as well as modern tendencies, he creates works such as “Asia Minor Ma”, inspired especially by the history of Asia Minor.

Ma was an ancient goddess with a multiplicity of meanings, while in “Supplicants” by Aeschylus lent her name to Earth, the mother of everything. Here she is rendered as a fragmentary female figure, bearing a dramatic expression as if it were a mask from the ancient theater and an archaic hair-style that increases her dramaticness. Being depicted as static, without arms and with her legs cut-off, constitutes the personification of the artist’s own amputated paternal land.