It is an evident manifestation of arrogance, of attestation of one's own physical strength, also linked to the belief that the hair of the beard and head were the seat of vitality - a belief still alive in certain nomadic peoples -, but also supernatural and magical power , to the point of saying that Samson's strength is in his hair.
In Greek and Roman art, we often find figures grabbing each other by the hair, best in stone or marble high reliefs, this meant the fight between two enemies. Although the most frequent depiction, it describes the warrior who raises his rival's face by grabbing his hair, and then cutting off his head. While the devil takes the damned by the hair or beard. However, the connotation of this iconography is not always negative or dramatic; in some medieval iconography we find an angel grabbing St. Joseph's beard, a gesture and symbol of dissuasion towards Mary. While grabbing Christ's beard announces the affront by the fool, the one who denies the truth of the son of God. In the Middle Ages, however, long hair is a symbol of lust and lust, which we find in the representations of sirens, sinners and the great harlot of the Apocalypse, who are dragged by the hair. While pulling each other's beard means stupidity and foolishness, where the symbolic meaning derives from the consideration that adulthood, represented by the beard, is that of wisdom, in which reason should triumph over instinct and men should overcome the contrasts with word.
In later periods this iconography changed and took on new meanings, for example in the work of Giambattista Tiepolo "Minerva keeps Achilles from killing Agamemnon"(1757) we find an almost theatrical scene, framed by columns with Ionic capitals, placed above a stage, while in the background an army of Greeks looks on, surprised and motionless. All in the eighteenth-century colors of the typical work of Tiepolo, with the colors of a fresco for a heroic scene. Minerva is depicted wearing the helmet she was born with, along with her spear and shield. She is the goddess of war, but who fights for a just cause, so she grabs Achilles by her hair, of whom she is her protector, preventing him from lashing out against Agamemnon. Here the meaning reappears as an explicit sign of strength, power and domination. In short, she is always thereWrath of Achilles which best paints and colors the human temperament!
The work in the image belongs to the cycle of works by Tiepolo present in the Villa Valmarana in Vicenza.
