Gradiva
The Gradiva, The woman who walks, is a modern 20th century mythological figure from the novella Gradiva by Wilhelm Jensen.[1] The figure was inspired by a real Roman relief.
Gradiva was given her name by Wilhelm Jensen's novella of the same name. In the novella, the protagonist is fascinated by a female figure in an antcient relief and names her "Gradiva" after Mars Gradivus, the Roman god of war walking into battle.
The actual relief was described by Hauser as a neo-Attic Roman relief probably after a Greek original from the fourth century BCE.[2] It shows in its complete state the three Agraulides sisters, Herse, Pandrosus and Aglaulos, deities of the dew. Hauser reconstructed the Agraulid-relief from fragments scattered over various museum collections.
The Gradiva fragment is held in the collection of the Vatican Museum Chiaramonti, Rome,[3] and its complement is held in the Uffizi in Florence.
Salvador Dalí used the name "Gradiva" as a nickname for his wife, Gala Dalí. He used the figure of Gradiva in a number of his paintings, including Gradiva encuentra las ruinas de Antropomorphos (Gradiva finds the ruins of Antropomorphos).
The figure Gradiva was also used in other Surrealist paintings. Gradiva (Metamorphosis of Gradiva), 1939, by André Masson, explores the sexual iconography of the character. Gradiva, 'the woman who walks through walls' is the muse of Surrealism.[4]
