Jacob E. Nyenhuis is professor emeritus of Classics and Provost emeritus at Hope College. A former professor and chair at Wayne State University, he is co-author of the best-selling Latin via Ovid (Wayne State University Press, 1982).
[NyenhuisJ has concentrated on a single aspect of Ayrton's work,
but that aspect is so central, and was so consuming for the last
two decades of the artist's brief life, that it becomes, almost
overnight, the cornerstone of all present and future studies of
Ayrton's work. ... [Nyenhuis hasJ produced an exhaustive study of
the two vital decades of Ayrton's devotion to these perennially
fascinating classical myths. At a time when the facile
simplemindedness of a Carl Andre or Richard Serra can be hailed as
greatness, it is salutary to have so intricate, scrupulously
researched, copiously illustrated, well printed and superbly bound
a tribute to the artist as craftsman, as maker and inventor, both
in the mythical guise of Daedalus and the thoroughly real and
earthy form of Michael Ayrton.-- "The Times Literary
Supplement"
Nyenhuis has compiled Ayrton's sketches, sculptures, and writings
on Daedalus in this splendid book, as well as literary and mythical
background on the myth, and an informative biography of the artist
. . . This collection will be of wide interest, to classicist and
non-classicist alike, and especially to Vergilians and all those
who have been fascinated by Cumae and its legacy."--Patricia A.
Johnston "Brandeis University, Vergilius"
Nyenhuis' work benefits greatly from his personal acquaintance with
the artist Michael Ayrton, a relationship that makes Nyenhuis'
analysis of the development of Ayrton's artistic sensibility very
credible. Nyenhuis writes most eloquently about Ayrton's own
intensely personal creative process. The numerous color and black
and white plates show Ayrton's attempts to encounter the myth of
the labyrinth from many perspectives and in many formulations,
including depictions of Pasiphae, the Sibyl, Talos, the maze-maker
Daedalus, and Icarus, through whom Ayrton tries 'to evoke a deeper
awareness of heroic achievement or of foolhardy striving.'
Nyenhuis' own scholarly creation follows a middle ground similar to
that of Ayrton's, striking a balance between the classical Daedalus
and the romantic Icarus."-- "The Classical Outlook"
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