Editing Amazons (section)

== Amazons in art ==
[[File:Gladiatrix relief.jpg|thumb|left|Two [[female gladiator]]s with their names ''Amazonia and Achillea'']]
Beginning around 550 BCE. depictions of Amazons as daring fighters and equestrian warriors appeared on vases. After the [[Battle of Marathon]] in 490 BCE the ''Amazon battle - [[Amazonomachy]]'' became popular motifs on pottery. By the sixth century BCE, public and privately displayed artwork used the Amazon imagery for pediment reliefs, sarcophagi, mosaics, pottery, jewelry and even monumental sculptures, that adorned important buildings like the [[Parthenon]] in Athens. Amazon motifs remained popular until the Roman [[Roman Empire|imperial period]] and into [[Late antiquity]].<ref>{{cite web |url= https://www.amazonation.com/AmazonsArt.htm  |title= Amazons in Art |date=  | publisher= Amazonation | author=    | access-date= February 3, 2021}}</ref>

Apart from the artistic desire to express the passionate womanhood of the Amazons in contrast with the manhood of their enemies, some modern historians interpret the popularity of Amazon in art as indicators of societal trends, both positive and negative. Greek and Roman societies, however, utilized the Amazon mythology as a literary and artistic vehicle to unite against a commonly-held enemy. The metaphysical characteristics of Amazons were seen as personifications of both nature and religion. Roman authors like Virgil, Strabo, Pliny the Elder, Curtius, Plutarch, Arrian, and Pausanias advocated the greatness of the state, as Amazon myths served to discuss the creation of origin and identity for the Roman people. However, that changed over time. Amazons in Roman literature and art have many faces, such as the ''Trojan ally, the warrior goddess, the native Latin, the warmongering Celt, the proud Sarmatian, the hedonistic and passionate Thracian warrior queen, the subdued Asian city, and the worthy Roman foe''.<ref>{{cite web |url= https://www.wissenschaft.de/magazin/weitere-themen/auf-den-spuren-penthesileias/    |title= Die Amazonen zwischen Mythos und Realität - Auf den Spuren Penthesileias  |date= August 19, 2010 | publisher= Wissenschaft DE | author= Jochen Fornasier  | access-date= January 17, 2021}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url= https://pdxscholar.library.pdx.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1027&context=honorstheses  |title= The Amazon in Greek Art |date= March 22, 2012  | publisher= Portland State University | author=Annaliese Elaine Patten     | access-date= February 3, 2021}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url= https://www.ancient.eu/article/353/roman-interpretations-of-the-amazons-through-liter/  |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20190520062034/https://www.ancient.eu/article/353/roman-interpretations-of-the-amazons-through-liter/  |url-status= dead  |archive-date= May 20, 2019  |title= Roman Interpretations of the Amazons through Literature and Art |date= March 22, 2012  | publisher= Ancient EU | author=Erin W. Leal    | access-date= February 3, 2021}}</ref>[[File:Juliusz Kossak - Amazonka.jpg|thumb|upright|[[Juliusz Kossak]], ''An Amazon'', 1878]]
[[File:Fra Mauro map, sector XL.jpg|left|thumb|Fra Mauro map (XL) with location {{Langx|grc|Ἀμαζόnia|translit=Amazonia}} placed on the [[Volga region|Middle Volga]]]]
In [[The Renaissance|Renaissance]] Europe, artists started to reevaluate and depict Amazons based on Christian ethics. [[Elizabeth I|Queen Elizabeth]] of England was associated with Amazon warrior qualities (''the foremost ancient examples of feminism'') during her reign and was indeed depicted as such. Though, as explained in ''Divina Virago'' by Winfried Schleiner, Celeste T. Wright has given a detailed account of the bad reputation Amazons had in the Renaissance. She notes that she has not found any Elizabethans comparing the Queen to an Amazon and suggests that they might have hesitated to do so because of the association of Amazons with enfranchisement of women, which was considered contemptible.<ref>{{cite journal |url= https://www.jstor.org/stable/4173965  |title= "Divina Virago": Queen Elizabeth as an Amazon |date= March 22, 2012  | publisher= Jstor | author=Winfried Schleiner    |journal= Studies in Philology |volume= 75 |issue= 2 |pages= 163–180 |jstor= 4173965 | access-date= February 3, 2021}}</ref> Elizabeth was present at a tournament celebrating the marriage of the [[Ambrose Dudley, 3rd Earl of Warwick|Earl of Warwick]] and [[Anne Russell, Countess of Warwick|Anne Russell]] at [[Westminster Palace]] on 11 November 1565 involving male riders dressed as Amazons. They accompanied the challengers carrying their heraldry. These riders wore crimson gowns, masks with long hair attached, and swords.<ref>[[Thomas Hearne (antiquarian)|Thomas Hearne]], [https://archive.org/details/b30528100_0002/page/666/mode/2up ''De rebus Britannicis collectanea'', vol. 2 (London, 1774), pp. 666-9]</ref>

[[Peter Paul Rubens]] and [[Jan Brueghel the Elder|Jan Brueghel]] depicted the [[The Battle of the Amazons (Rubens)|Battle of the Amazons]] around 1598, a ''most dramatic baroque painting'', followed by a painting of the [[Rococo]] period by [[Johann Georg Platzer]], also titled ''Battle of the Amazons''. In 19th-century European [[Romanticism]] German artist [[Anselm Feuerbach]] occupied himself with the Amazons as well. Of Faeurbach's painting, Gert Schiff wrote that: <blockquote>It engendered all the aspirations of the Romantics: their desire to transcend the boundaries of the ego and of the known world; their interest in the occult in nature and in the soul; their search for a national identity, and the ensuing search for the mythic origins of the Germanic nation; finally, their wish to escape the harsh realities of the present through immersion in an idealized past.<ref name="Schiff 1981 p. 102">{{cite book |last=Schiff |first=Gert |url=https://libmma.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/p15324coll10/id/71300 |title=German Masters of the Nineteenth Century: Paintings and Drawings from the Federal Republic of Germany |publisher=The Metropolitan Museum of Art |year=1981 |isbn=978-0-87099-264-3 |editor-last=O'Neill |editor-first=John P. |page=[https://libmma.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/p15324coll10/id/71028 10] |chapter=An Epoch of Longing: An Introduction to German Painting of the Nineteenth Century |oclc=644250595 |editor2-last=Walter |editor2-first=Emily |chapter-url=https://libmma.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/p15324coll10/id/71027}}</ref></blockquote>