Where Have All the Muses Gone?
Author: Lee Siegel Source: Wall Street Journal Title: WHERE HAVE ALL THE MUSES GONE? Whatever happened to the Muse? She was once the female figure — deity, Platonic ideal, mistress, lover, wife — whom poets and painters called upon for inspiration. Thus Homer in the Odyssey, the West’s first great work of literary art: “Sing to me of the man, Muse, of twists and turns driven time and again off course.” For hundreds of years, in one form or another, the Muse’s blessing and support were often essential to the creation of art. Poets stopped invoking the muse centuries ago — eventually turning instead to caffeine, alcohol and amphetamines — but painters, musicians, and even choreographers have celebrated their actual female inspirers in their work up until recent times. And now, we learn, having a muse isn’t a benefit restricted to artists. According to a recently opened exhibition at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art, “The Model as Muse: Embodying Fashion,” the muse lives on as th
