ἕν οἶδα, ὅτι οὐδέν οἶδα
All I know is that I know nothing
Allegedly said by Socrates
So true, 30 years in Education, and I still feel like a kindergarten student, curious and inquisitive, questioning, interested, prying …
The Interceding Theotokos at Dumbarton Oaks
Interceding Theotokos - Virgin Hagiosoritissa Relief, Middle Byzantine, mid-eleventh century, Marble, 104 cm x 40 cm x 7 cm, Dumbarton Oaks Museum, Washington, DC, USA https://www.doaks.org/resources/bliss-tyler-correspondence/art/bz/BZ.1938.62.jpg/view “…denuded of all help, and deprived of human alliance, we were ...
Villa Poppaea Viridarium Frescoes
Second Pompeian Style painting on the walls surrounding the Viridarium (small garden) of the Villa Poppaea at Oplontis (Italy), 1st century ADPhoto credit: Carole Raddato published on 06 May 2020https://www.ancient.eu/article/1552/a-visitors-guide-to-oplontis-stabiae--boscoreale/ I wish I were standing in the middl ...
Angelic Musicians
Domenicos Theotokopoulos, 1541-1614The Concert of the Angels, c. 1608-1614, oil on canvas, 115-217 cm, National Gallery - Alexandros Soutsos Museum - Evripidis Koutlidis Foundation, Athens https://www.nationalgallery.gr/en/painting-permanent-exhibition/painting/domenicos-theotokopoulos-el-greco/the-concert-of-the-ange ...
Odilon Redon and Pandora’s Box
Odilon Redon, 1840-1916Pandora, 1910/1912, oil on canvas, 143.5 x 62.9 cm, NGA, Washington DC, USA https://www.nga.gov/collection/art-object-page.46531.html#bibliography It is nature also who orders us to obey the gifts she has given us. Mine have led me to dreams; I submitted to the torments of imagination and the ...
Lips Monastery in Constantinople
Lips Monastery in Constantinople, East Side of both South and North Churches, 10h and 13h cent., Constantinople. Today the Byzantine Church is a Mosque known as Fenari Isa Cami. https://grandeflanerie.com/portfolio/byzantineistanbul/7/ “The frequent fires that have caused such terrible destructions in Constantinop ...
The Labours of the Months: April
By an unknown Venetian artist…The Labours of the Months: April, about 1580, oil on canvas, 13.6 x 10.6 cm, National Gallery, Londonhttps://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/paintings/italian-venetian-the-labours-of-the-months-january#painting-group-info Whan that Aprill with his shoures soote: When April with ...
Kanaris Burning the Turkish Flagship
Nikiforos Lytras, 1832-1927Kanaris Burning the Turkish Flagship, 1873, oil on canvas, 143x109 cm, Averoff Gallery, Metsovo, Greece https://www.averoffmuseum.gr/kanaris-burning-the-turkish-flagship/?lang=en “Mais le bon Canaris, donc un ardent sillon / Suit la barque hardie, ...
Celebrating the Greek Revolution of 1821
Johann Georg Christian Perlberg, 1806-1884Drums for the War of Independence - Young Drummer in Missolunghi, oil on canvas, 48.5 x 34.5 cm, Private Collectionhttps://www.dorotheum.com/en/l/2897144/ and http://ellas2021.eu/gallery.html It was for these children th ...
Unidentified Byzantine Building in Constantinople known today as Kefeli Mosque
Nicholas V. Artamonoff, 1908-1989Kefeli Mosque in Istanbul, Nave and Apse from the south, March 1936, Nicholas V. Artamonoff Collection, Image Collections and Fieldwork Archives, Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection http://images.doaks.org/artamonoff/items/show/245 The moment was g ...
Clean Monday Feast
Spero Vassiliou, 1903-1985Clean Monday Feast, 1950, oil on wood, 125x78, Municipality of Rhodes Museum of Modern Greek Arthttps://paletaart.wordpress.com/2012/08/06/%CE%B2%CE%B1%CF%83%CE%B9%CE%BB%CE%B5%CE%AF%CE%BF%CF%85-%CF%83%CF%80%CF%8D%CF%81%CE%BF%CF%82-spyros-vassiliou-1903-1985/#jp-carousel-4424 Could Isaiah ( ...
Teaching with Andrea Mantegna
Andrea Mantegna, 1431-1506Camera degli Sposi, The West Wall: The Meeting, (detail of the left panel), 1465-74, Walnut oil on plaster, Camera degli Sposi, Palazzo Ducale, Mantuahttps://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Andrea_Mantegna_075.jpg?uselang=it “How great is the effect of reward on talent is known to him who ...
Boat of Greeks
Dionysis Tsokos, 1820-1862Boat of Greeks, 1844 to 1847, oil on canvas, 29x23 cm, Averoff Museum, Metsovo, Greecehttps://www.averoffmuseum.gr/boat-of-greeks/?lang=en “…Fill high the bowl with Samian wine! / On Suli’s rock, and Parga’s shore, / Exists the remnant of a line / ...
Villa Poppaea
Villa Poppaea (garden view), 1st century AD, ancient Roman town of Oplontis (Torre Annunziata between Naples and Sorrento, in Southern Italy) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Villa_Poppaea A traveller cruising by boat in the Bay of Naples during the 1st century AD would have marvelled at the continuous chain of pr ...
The Labours of the Months: March
By an unknown Venetian artist…The Labours of the Months: March, about 1580, oil on canvas, 13.6 x 10.6 cm, National Gallery, Londonhttps://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/paintings/italian-venetian-the-labours-of-the-months-march Dear March – Come in – / How glad I am – / I hoped for you before – / Put down your Hat – / ...
Cleobis and Biton
Polymides of Argos, a Greek sculptor of the Archaic Period (6th century BC)The two Kouroi of Argos, known as Cleobis and Biton, dedicated to Delphi by the city of Argos, 580 BC, marble, H. 1.97 m, Archaeological Museum of Delphihttps://alchetron.com/Kleobis-and-Biton “Cleobis and Biton,” according to Herodotus “wer ...
Areskon is my Name and I am an Actor
Funerary Altar-Shaped Stele of Actor Marcus Varinius Areskon, 170-200 AD, Marble with traces of the original paint, 1670x70-72x52-66 cm, Archaeological Museum of Thessaloniki Photo Credit: Kostas Papantoniou https://www.amth.gr/en/exhibitions/highlights O man, with your wonderful dower, / O woman, with genius a ...