Heroism and Hubris: The Second Antigone Competition

Talent wins prizes

The competition is now closed: you can view the victorious and highly-commended entries here.

Yes, yes: Antigone loves a good contest. So long as it’s not just seven blokes fighting against her home city, she is always more than happy to throw a proper prize or two at the problem.

When we last ran a competition, we asked you to help recreate the poetry of Ovid, in Latin or English, and we were bowled over by your cleverness and wit.

This time round we’re interested in pictorial art. Our readers the world over are manifest lovers of beautiful things. And although we are all lucky enough to have different ideas about what true beauty looks like, we are all equally drawn to it willy-nilly. So, with that in mind, we invite you to produce a piece of art – a drawing, a painting, an engraving, a mind-blowing MS Paint creation, in fact anything two-dimensionally static – on the theme(s) of

Heroism and Hubris

As with all our competitions, the judges will work through your submissions anonymously (so please don’t sign the work!) and will award the prizes on merit – which, for a contest like this, means beauty, poignancy, profundity, and, if the fancy takes you, humour.

So long as your entry makes clear to the casual observer its relationship with the Classical world, we’ll take a very interested look at it. We have no interest in cordoning off where the Muses lead you. You could, for instance, channel (or parody) an Attic red-figure vase, a Pompeiian fresco, a scene from Hadrian’s Column, a medieval manuscript, an Old Master, an Art Deco bookplate, a Basquiat or Banksy, or impose your own style upon any Classical story that resonates. And if you’re inspired by the 500 or so images of objects and paintings dotted around our site, all the better for it.

There will be two categories: up to 18 years old; and over 18.[1]

The winning prize for both categories will be £250. It’s not nothing.

As well as singing your praises far and wide, we will use the winning pieces as the headers to our ‘Articles’  and ‘About’ pages. Of those entries who do not end up wining, we will be proud to host the best in a permanent gallery on the site, with your work credited to you for eternity.

You will have until midnight (wherever you are in the world) of Saturday 31 July 2021 to work up your pieces. Please email your effort (an original piece, please, and only one!), signalling your name and the age category into which you fall, to competition@antigonejournal.com.

Antigone thanks you for your effort and enthusiasm in advance.

Good luck and, whatever the result, be sure to enjoy yourself!

Notes

Notes
1 OK, we don’t have the energy to investigate your real age, but you have to admit that it would be a little weird to fabricate this.