Historically we needed the Gods to look like us to feel that we were being taken care of, and our human concerns can only be believably supported if our caregivers resembled us. The fear of people who are different is similar to the fear of other predatory animals. If an entity is not cooperating with us, they must be competing with us. Even in politics, there is a temptation to vote on lines of human identity instead of policies and the reasons behind them. There is also a narcissistic pressure to force religious figures to appear in the same ethnicity of worshipers. Familiarity is comfortable and difference uncomfortable. Like a sports team where the members wear the same jersey, we naturally cooperate with those who look like us. “Ethiopians say that their gods are snub-nosed and black, Thracians that theirs are blue eyed and red haired…But if oxen or horses or lions had hands or were able to draw with their hands and accomplish the same works as men, horses would draw the figures of gods as resembling horses and oxen as resembling oxen, and each would make the gods’ bodies have the same bodily form as they themselves had.” Richard Bukowski. "The Presocratics: Xenophanes." Psych Reviews, 25 January 2020. http://psychreviews.org/the-presocratics-xenophanes/ The section in italics is quoted from Xenophanes. The portion in bold was bolded by Bukowski.
Seems to me this is what's behind those demands one sees so often these days for artists to depict the gods as "realistic" in appearance."
Nationalists and white supremacists want to see art of the gods mirroring what they think of as modern Greeks and Romans to confirm their political understanding of the past - and because difference makes them uncomfortable
Meanwhile, mythology frequently describes deities taking on any form they choose - natural phenomenon, animals, gigantic anthropomorphic beings, or in the guise of regular humans.
Perhaps that's why ancient artists usually depicted their anthropomorphized deities in unrealistic colors: to express their understanding that no, the gods aren't human, they sometimes borrow the human shape when they allow mortals to see them, a form intended to comfort rather than terrify.
Left: Hephaestus hands in the new Achilles' armor to Thetis (Iliad, XVIII, 617). Attic red-figure Kylix, 490–480 BC.Altes Museum, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Hephaistos_Thetis_at_Kylix_by_the_Foundry_Painter_Antikensammlung_Berlin_F2294.jpg
Right: Seated Dionysos holding out a kantharos. Interior from an Attic black-figured plate, ca. 520-500 BC. From Vulci. British Museum, Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Dionysos_kantharos_BM_B589.jpg
EDIT: I can't believe someone replied to this post with, "This is why all the WOKE stuff is bullshit." I never in my wildest dreams thought anyone would regard this post as endorsing racism.
I blocked that person.
And I edited this post slightly, hoping to make my point more clear, which is: Although he Theoi sometimes assume a comforting/familiar human form, they're divine beings, NOT human, so insisting the Theoi be depicted ONLY as "white" or "ethnic Mediterranean" people today is disrespectful to them as well as racist af.
Bukowski says in the quote above, "There is also a narcissistic pressure to force religious figures to appear in the same ethnicity of worshipers." That means "to force religious figures to appear in the same ethnicity of worshipers" is a selfish thing to do. It's racism.
For any other idiot who hasn't figured it out, I am utterly opposed to racism, identitarianism, nationalism, misogyny, misandry, transphobia, homophobia, ableism, ageism, antisemitism, and xenophobia. There’s probably a few more; you get the idea. THAT"S WHY I MADE THIS POST.
By the all gods, racists are fucking stupid.
