Cameos are:
miniature sculptural art
intended as statements
storyboards
metaphors for human emotions and experiences (ding ding)
short sentences carved into stone (shell, what have you..)
largely anonymous women’s profiles as subject matter
easy to reproduce
stone literature
Perhaps my favorite quotables:
In reference to the genre of anonymous female profiles:
“If the original model ever had a known identity, it was lost in the repetition and reinterpretations from workman to workman.”
Sarah Bernhardt and Eleonora Duse were favorite modles for cameos and were also role models for liberated women.
The Fates:
“Clotho is a young woman, spinning man’s thread of life. Lachesis is a woman in the prime of life, measuring the length of man’s life. Atropos is an aged woman, ready with shears in hand to cut the thread of life.” (what a video that would be!)
“A carnelian showing a man seated and a woman standing before him with her hair hanging down to the thighs, casting her eyes upward, makes all who touch it obedient to the will of the wearer in all things.”
Zeus and goddess Themis with their three daughters, known in Greek mythology as the Fates: Clotho, Lachesis, and Atropos.