In origami, there are some models that I consider "kid's craft" and others I put into the category of "art". Similarly, there are some Lego models that are just for play; and others that belong in a museum or on a work desk and admired as "art". This is one of those art pieces, made of Lego bricks.
Designed by Jason Allemann, I saved up my pennies to purchase the parts to build this beautiful, kinetic automaton.
It runs on batteries; but also has a crank shaft that is stored inside the model (the side reliefs open out) and can be extracted and connected outside.
All four sides of the model have a relief depicting scenes from Sisyphus' life.
From Greek mythology, Sisyphus was the founder and king of Ephyra (later named "Corinth"). He grew infamous for his greed and deceitfulness, known as "the most cunning knave on earth".
Having betrayed one of Zeus' secrets, Zeus ordered Hades to chain Sisyphus in Tartarus. Hades personally went to fetch for Sisyphus, bringing the chains he was to bind Sisyphus with in the underworld. Sisyphus expressed so much interest in the chains and handcuffs, that he persuaded Hades to demonstrate their use - on himself.
Tricked, Hades became trapped in his own chains, locked in a closet at Sisyphus' house. As a consequence, no one was able to die on earth. The sick and infirmed went on suffering, unable to leave this life. A soldier might be eviscerated in battle and still return to his camp for dinner.
Ares, the god of war, became enraged that no one would die upon the field of battle, ruining his "fun"; and so he freed Hades.
Sisyphus was ordered to report to the Underworld; but Sisyphus had another trick up his sleeve.
He simply told his wife not to bury him and then complained to Persephone, goddess of the Underworld, that he had not been accorded the proper funeral honors. What's more, as an unburied corpse he had no business on the far side of the river Styx at all - his wife hadn't placed a coin under his tongue to secure passage with Charon the ferryman. Surely her highness could see that Sisyphus must be given leave to journey back to the world of the living and put things right.
Persephone granted the request and Sisyphus made his way back to his kingdom, where he promptly forgot all about funerals and such drab affairs and lived on in dissipation for another good stretch of time. But even Sisyphus could only go so far in postponing the inevitable. Eventually he was hauled down to Hades by Hermes, messenger of the gods, where his indiscretions and trespasses finally caught up with him. For a crime against the gods - especially his hubris against Zeus, thinking himself more clever than the king of the gods - he was condemned to an eternity of hard labor. And frustrating labor at that. For his assignment was to roll a great boulder to the top of a hill. Only every time Sisyphus, by the greatest of exertion and toil, attained the summit, the huge boulder would roll down the hill, back to the bottom. His punishing afterlife was to spend eternity in useless effort and unending frustration.
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