Neoclassical beauty, particularly as depicted through sculptures of embracing lovers, is a recurring theme in George Woodman’s photographs—especially the myth of Psyche and Cupid’s divine love. Inspired by museum visits throughout his life, Woodman quoted imagery from works like François Gérard's “Cupid and Psyche” as well as Antonio Canova’s marble sculptures and plasters in the Louvre Museum, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Museum Gypsotheca Antonio Canova. Evidence of the artist’s affinity for classicism is brought to life in his sensuous black and white photographs, a “rich evidence of [his] talent for noticing, for witnessing, for making new wholeness.”

In Hymn to Classicism, strips of images of aforementioned works were arranged in a collage. Antiquity is blended seamlessly with the contemporary—alongside Canova’s Psyche offering Cupid a butterfly, symbolizing her soul, is a photo of one; Gérard’s Cupid kissing Psyche merges with a photo of a winged sculpture. Woodman’s images within images are full of playful wit and intense meaning, evidence of his brilliance as a “master of elision.”

“Classical sculpture affirms the aesthetic with an unwavering faith in its power. The moral and intellectual importance of beauty is never despaired of,” Woodman wrote, “I like to bring classical imagery into my own work for its gift of cool self-sufficiency. As a theme for variation it is like Handel for Brahms. There is a flicker of self-recognition as we meet our ancestors. The present is intelligently enjoyed seen through the arches of long perspectives in time.”