Looking Through the Past
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Myths and legends told of people who crossed that barrier, or at least straddled it. The Greeks believed in demigods — literally, half-gods — like Heracles, the offspring of Zeus and a mortal woman, and Orpheus, whose father was Apollo and whose mother was the muse Calliope. They also believed that mere humans could ascend to divine status both before and after death. Alexander the Great, for example, was worshipped posthumously as a god in Egypt. Roman emperors were later considered to be living gods.
Once Christianity became the dominant religion in Europe, people stopped believing that ordinary people could become gods. There was only one God (or three, or one in three — it was complicated), and ordinary people couldn’t cross the line between the mortal and the divine. But the Christians hung onto the concept in their art. Beginning during the Baroque period, artists glorified impressive people by portraying them in the process of becoming a classical god or resting in the heavens among the divine. These paintings were full of symbolism that communicated the essence of the great person they depicted.
