Philosophy

Unspeakable sadness

This Athenian grave stele from about 450 B.C. was the Met's artifact of the day today. I had never taken account of Greek grave sculptures until I saw a room of them at the Metropolitan Museum. They are so sad, so full of the sense of missing the person, of the size and shape of the hole left in people's lives. I think it is easy to imagine the Greeks wrong without these things to look at.