Roussetos Panagiotakis’ “Nurturing Goddess”

Roussetos Panagiotakis, Κουροτρόφος Θεa/ Nurturing Goddess (2022)

A key element in the Many Lives of a Snake Goddess (MLSG) project is the exploration of the reuses and reimaginings of these iconic images; this can be contextualized as part of the wider reception of Minoan culture, which is neatly captured by the modern term of ‘Cretomania’.

In this post, we share a new painting, ‘Κουροτρόφος Θεa/Nurturing Goddess’ (2022) by the Cretan artist Roussetos Panagiotakis, partly inspired by the Snake Goddess figurines and commissioned by our MLSG project. The artist has alluded to the material culture of Minoan Crete in many of his works, sometimes placing well-known Greek myths (e.g., Zeus and Europa, 1997 and The Upbringing of Zeus, 1997) within a largely Minoan-styled world.

For the artist, this painting represents, above all, the nurturing aspects of femininity and the chthonic elements of Minoan religion, the latter symbolised by the snake. Interestingly, though, it is the child rather than the Goddess who holds the snake in this new painting. This somehow recalls the idea of Mary who defeats Satan/sin (the serpent) with the help of Jesus, as encapsulated in many works of art, such as Caravaggio’s famous Madonna della Serpe, also known as Madonna dei Palafrenieri.

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More about the artist and his paintings:

http://www.eikastikon.gr/zografiki/panagiotakis_cv.html

https://www.haniotika-nea.gr/royssetos-panagiotakis-o-zografikos-toy-kosmos-en-archi-in-o-mythos/

Further reading:

Nicoletta Momigliano 2020, In Search of the Labyrinth: The Cultural Legacy of Minoan Crete. London: Bloomsbury
(see chapter 6 with illustrations of some of the artist’s Minoan themed paintings, figs. 6.5-6.8).