Unchanged by any teller — how the centuries since have seen Atlas.
The gallery
The Farnese Atlas
Roman copy after a Hellenistic original, 2nd century AD
A Roman marble statue of the Titan kneeling under the weight of the heavens, copied from a Hellenistic original. The globe on his shoulders is carved with figures of the classical constellations, making it the oldest surviving representation of the ancient celestial sphere. It is held in the National Archaeological Museum, Naples.
Atlas
Lee Lawrie, 1937
An Art Deco bronze statue of Atlas straining beneath an open armillary sphere of the heavens, installed in 1937 at Rockefeller Center in New York, facing Fifth Avenue. It has become one of the most recognizable modern images of the Titan's eternal burden.
Atlas Holding Up the Celestial Globe
Guercino, 1646
Guercino's Baroque Atlas strains beneath a starry globe — the Titan's eternal punishment painted as heroic musculature and night sky.
Atlas and the Hesperides
John Singer Sargent, 1922–1925
Sargent's museum mural sets Atlas under the heavens while the Hesperides rest below — the Titan's burden as a modern classical ceiling vision.
In play
Atlas Shrugged
Ayn Rand
Rand's title asks who holds the world up when the Atlases of industry refuse — the Titan's burden turned into a political metaphor.
Percy Jackson & the Olympians
Rick Riordan
Riordan's demigod series puts Atlas back under the sky on Mount Othrys — the Titan as a boss whose burden Percy must briefly take.
God of War: Chains of Olympus
Santa Monica Studio
Kratos chains the four-armed Titan to the Pillar of the World — Atlas forced again to bear the sky after Persephone's plot fails.
Atlas (book of maps)
Gerardus Mercator
Mercator named the first modern map-book Atlas after the Titan-king of Mauretania — so every book of maps still carries the heaven-bearer's name.
Atlas Mountains
Northwest Africa's great range took the Titan's name — Perseus' petrified Atlas rewritten as the mountains that hold up the western sky.