22/08/2026
Artemis - Part 3
“Pride before the fall”
Niobe was the mortal daughter of King Tantalus and the wife of King Amphion of Thebes. She had fourteen children (known as the Niobids) — seven sons and seven daughters. Excessively proud of this she fell into the hubristic trap of comparing herself to Leto, the goddess mother of and , mocking her for having only two children compared to Niobe’s fourteen. Not a good idea! Anger the gods at your peril… and Artemis and Apollo were now angry. Very angry!
In an act of cold hearted vengeance Apollo killed the seven sons and Artemis killed the seven daughters of Niobe who, in tearful mourning was turned to stone by Zeus, becoming mount Sipylus, her tears an eternal flow of spring water from a rock formation on the mount.
We have spoken before of the cruel and vengeful attitude of the Greek gods and despite her divine role as guardian of young girls, Artemis seems to think nothing of her part in the destruction of 7 daughters of Niobe. The gods demand respect and mortals need to understand their place is the lesson here.
Technical note: I’m actually trying to avoid using structured traditional andamento styles which is, strangely, quite difficult as my hand naturally wants to accentuate the curves of the cheeks using flows of tessarae. This is all to create a more abstract look helped with the injection of blue tones into the face, the blue being a nod to Artemis’ link to the moon.
Thanks again to Luiza Luiza Soluch for kindly letting me use and adapt her image.
