Sappho - A Passionate Muse

Sappho by Dannecker 1800

Sappho 1877, Charles-August Mengin (1853-1933), Oil on canvas
Sappho, World Noted Women. New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1883.
Sappho , (Le coucher de Sappho), Charles Gleyre, 1867
Sappho was a Greek poet who lived around 600 BC. She wrote about love, yearning and reflection. "Most of her poems (Aeolic dialect), which were always set to music, describe erotic passion and its consequences. She was a lyric poet who developed her own particular meter, known as sapphic meter, and she was credited for leading an aesthetic movement away from classical themes of gods, to the themes of individual human experience. Sappho speaks in the first person and describes her own experiences."
-Read more HERE by Michael Lahanas
Also, there is a nice collection of female images, including Mengin's "Sappho" (which I think is an amazing painting), at Sensual Arts

The Art of Amy Crehore