Garden of the Greek Gods | |
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 The Garden of the Greek Gods, 2023 | |
| Location | Toronto, Ontario, Canada |
  Garden of the Greek Gods | |
| Coordinates: 43°37′51″N79°25′16″W / 43.63083°N 79.42111°W | |
The Garden of the Greek Gods is a collection of twenty limestone sculptures by E.B. Cox, installed at Toronto's Exhibition Place, in Ontario, Canada.
The sculptures were created during the 1960s; among depicted figures from Greek mythology are Aphrodite, Hercules, Medusa, Orpheus, and The Phoenix. [1] [2] [3] [4]
The sculptures were originally located just south of the Horticultural Building. When that building was leased as an event space, the sculptures were fenced off from the rest of Exhibition Place by the lessee. After a public campaign by Cox's daughter and the resolution of a legal dispute between the Exhibition Place Governors and the nightclub, the sculptures were moved in 2022 to the present location just east of the Rose Garden, south of the CNE Bandshell and are publicly accessible. [5]
Aphrodite is an ancient Greek goddess associated with love, lust, beauty, pleasure, passion, procreation, and as her syncretized Roman goddess counterpart Venus, desire, sex, fertility, prosperity, and victory. Aphrodite's major symbols include seashells, myrtles, roses, doves, sparrows, and swans. The cult of Aphrodite was largely derived from that of the Phoenician goddess Astarte, a cognate of the East Semitic goddess Ishtar, whose cult was based on the Sumerian cult of Inanna. Aphrodite's main cult centers were Cythera, Cyprus, Corinth, and Athens. Her main festival was the Aphrodisia, which was celebrated annually in midsummer. In Laconia, Aphrodite was worshipped as a warrior goddess. She was also the patron goddess of prostitutes, an association which led early scholars to propose the concept of "sacred prostitution" in Greco-Roman culture, an idea which is now generally seen as erroneous.
Athena or Athene, often given the epithet Pallas, is an ancient Greek goddess associated with wisdom, warfare, and handicraft who was later syncretized with the Roman goddess Minerva. Athena was regarded as the patron and protectress of various cities across Greece, particularly the city of Athens, from which she most likely received her name. The Parthenon on the Acropolis of Athens is dedicated to her. Her major symbols include owls, olive trees, snakes, and the Gorgoneion. In art, she is generally depicted wearing a helmet and holding a spear.
Praxiteles of Athens, the son of Cephisodotus the Elder, was the most renowned of the Attic sculptors of the 4th century BC. He was the first to sculpt the nude female form in a life-size statue. While no indubitably attributable sculpture by Praxiteles is extant, numerous copies of his works have survived; several authors, including Pliny the Elder, wrote of his works; and coins engraved with silhouettes of his various famous statuary types from the period still exist.
Aphrodisias was a small ancient Greek Hellenistic city in the historic Caria cultural region of western Asia Minor, today's Anatolia in Turkey. It is located near the modern village of Geyre, about 100 km (62 mi) east/inland from the coast of the Aegean Sea, and 230 km (140 mi) southeast of İzmir.
Hebe, in ancient Greek religion and mythology, often given the epithet Ganymeda, is the goddess of youth or of the prime of life. She functioned as the cupbearer for the gods and goddesses of Mount Olympus, serving their nectar and ambrosia. People of Sicyon also worshipped her as the goddess of forgiveness or of mercy.
In Greek mythology, Medusa, also called Gorgo or the Gorgon, was one of the three Gorgons. Medusa is generally described as a woman with living snakes in place of hair; her appearance was so hideous that anyone who looked upon her was turned to stone. Medusa and her Gorgon sisters Euryale and Stheno were usually described as daughters of Phorcys and Ceto; of the three, only Medusa was mortal.
The Greek Heroic Age, in mythology, is the period between the coming of the Greeks to Thessaly and the Greek warriors' return from Troy. The poet Hesiod identified this mythological era as one of his five Ages of Man. The period spans roughly six generations; the heroes denoted by the term are superhuman, though not divine, and are celebrated in the literature of Homer and of others, such as Sophocles, Aeschylus and Euripides.
The ancient Greeks had numerous water deities. The philosopher Plato once remarked that the Greek people were like frogs sitting around a pond—their many cities hugging close to the Mediterranean coastline from the Hellenic homeland to Asia Minor, Libya, Sicily, and southern Italy. Thus, they venerated a rich variety of water divinities. The range of Greek water deities of the classical era range from primordial powers and an Olympian on the one hand, to heroized mortals, chthonic nymphs, trickster-figures, and monsters on the other.
The sculpture of ancient Greece is the main surviving type of fine ancient Greek art as, with the exception of painted ancient Greek pottery, almost no ancient Greek painting survives. Modern scholarship identifies three major stages in monumental sculpture in bronze and stone: the Archaic, Classical and Hellenistic. At all periods there were great numbers of Greek terracotta figurines and small sculptures in metal and other materials.
Classical sculpture refers generally to sculpture from Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome, as well as the Hellenized and Romanized civilizations under their rule or influence, from about 500 BC to around 200 AD. It may also refer more precisely a period within Ancient Greek sculpture from around 500 BC to the onset of the Hellenistic style around 323 BC, in this case usually given a capital "C". The term "classical" is also widely used for a stylistic tendency in later sculpture, not restricted to works in a Neoclassical or classical style.
The Venus de' Medici or Medici Venus is a 1.53 m tall Hellenistic marble sculpture depicting the Greek goddess of love Aphrodite. It is a 1st-century BC marble copy, perhaps made in Athens, of a bronze original Greek sculpture, following the type of the Aphrodite of Knidos, which would have been made by a sculptor in the immediate Praxitelean tradition, perhaps at the end of the century. It has become one of the navigation points by which the progress of the Western classical tradition is traced, the references to it outline the changes of taste and the process of classical scholarship. It is housed in the Uffizi Gallery, Florence, Italy.
Emanuel Otto Hahn was a German-born Canadian sculptor and coin designer. He taught and later married Elizabeth Wyn Wood. He co-founded and was the first president of the Sculptors' Society of Canada.
The Esquiline Venus, depicting the goddess Venus, is a smaller-than-life-size Roman nude marble sculpture of a female in sandals and a diadem headdress. It is widely viewed as a 1st-century AD Roman copy of a Greek original from the 1st century BC. It is also a possible depiction of the Ptolemaic ruler Cleopatra VII.
Apollo Sauroktonos is the title of several 1st – 2nd century AD Roman marble copies of an original by the ancient Greek sculptor Praxiteles. The statues depict a nude adolescent Apollo about to catch a lizard climbing up a tree. Copies are included in the collections of the Louvre Museum, the Vatican Museums, and the National Museums Liverpool.
Mythic Warriors is a 1998-2000 anthology animated television series, which featured retellings of popular Greek myths that were altered so as to be appropriate for younger audiences, produced by Nelvana and Marathon Media. Two seasons of episodes were produced in February 8, 1998 and March 14, 1999; then aired as reruns until May 21, 2000, when CBS' abolition of its Nelvana-produced children's programming in favor of Nick Jr. and later, Nickelodeon content resulted in its cancellation. The series was based on the book series Myth Men Guardians of the Legend written in 1996 and 1997 by Laura Geringer and illustrated by Peter Bollinger.
Kathy Cox, CM, now known as Kathy Sutton, is a Canadian skydiver. Cox placed first overall at the Canadian National Parachuting Championships in 1973, 1978, and 1980 (tie). In 1975, while practicing with her team, Cox seriously fractured her fibula and tibia. She returned to jumping in Florida in March 1976. She is also noted for having won the Gold Medal in Women's Individual Accuracy at the XV World Parachuting Championships in Bulgaria in 1980. She was voted Canadian Athlete of the Month in August 1980 by the Sports Federation of Canada, and was CBC Athlete of the Year, also in 1980. She was also the Women's Overall Champion at a 3-country invitational competition in Canton, China in 1981. Cox was named to the Order of Canada in 1984 in recognition of her achievements in sport parachuting. She is married to Steve Sutton, himself a Silver Medalist in Men's Individual Accuracy at the XI World Parachuting Championships in the United States in 1972. After leaving sport parachuting, Cox went on to work as a researcher for DRDC Toronto for many years before retiring.
In Ancient Greek religion and mythology, the Erotes are a collective of winged gods associated with love and sexual intercourse. They are part of Aphrodite's retinue. Erotes is the plural of Eros, who as a singular deity has a more complex mythology.
E.B. Cox (1914–2003) was an internationally known sculptor from Toronto, Canada. He was part of a generation of sculptors such as Charles Daudelin who preferred to carve rather than model their work. Cox carved in wood, stone and even on metal, ceramics, glass and gemstones.
The Shrine Peace Memorial is a memorial sculpture on the grounds of Exhibition Place in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The monument was presented to the people of Canada on June 12, 1930 by the Ancient Arabic Order Nobles of the Mystic Shrine as a symbol of peace and friendship between the United States and Canada. It is also meant as "an ongoing reminder that Freemasonry actively promotes the ideals of peace, harmony, and prosperity for all humankind". The location is thought to be the location that American troops landed during the War of 1812 for the Battle of York.
Maryon Kantaroff was a Canadian sculptor known for her large-scale outdoor sculptures in bronze and other materials.
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