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 Fall of Icarus
Pieter Brueghel the Elder, attributed, 1526/1530–1569Landscape with the Fall of Icarus, circa 1558, oil on canvas mounted on wood, 73.5x112 cm, Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Pieter_Bruegel_de_Oude_-_De_val_van_Icarus.jpg The ancient Greek Myth of Icarus has endu ...
Boating by Édouard Manet
Édouard Manet, French Painter, 1832-1883Boating, 1874, oil on canvas, 97.2 x 130.2 cm, the MET, NY, USAhttps://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/436947 Boating by Édouard Manet was exhibited in the Salon of 1879, and the art critic J. K. Huysmans wrote… The bright blue water continues to exasperate a number o ...
Simon Bening’s August
Simon Bening (d. 1561) and his workshopBook of Hours, known as the Golf Book, August (f. 25v),c. 1540, 30 Parchment leaves on paper mounts, bound into a codex, 110 x 80 mm (text space: 85 x 60 mm), British Library, London, UK https://blogs.bl.uk/digitisedmanuscripts/calendars/page/10/ Like liquid gold the wheat fie ...
Poppies on the Isles of Shoals
Childe Hassam, American Artist,1859–1935Poppies on the Isles of Shoals, 1891, 50.2x61 cm, National Gallery of Art, Washington DC, USAhttps://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Childe_Hassam,_Poppies,_Isles_of_Shoals,_1891.jpg At the Isles of Shoals, among the ledges of the largest island, Appledore lies the small gard ...
Christ Pantocrator in the Byzantine Monastery of Daphni
Daphni Monastery Pantocrator Mosaic, 11th century, Attica, Greecehttps://www.efada.gr/%CE%91%CF%81%CF%87%CE%B1%CE%B9%CE%BF%CE%BB%CE%BF%CE%B3%CE%B9%CE%BA%CE%BF%CE%AF-%CE%A7%CF%8E%CF%81%CE%BF%CE%B9-%CE%9C%CE%BD%CE%B7%CE%BC%CE%B5%CE%AF%CE%B1/%CE%9C%CE%BF%CE%BD%CE%AE-%CE%94%CE%B1%CF%86%CE%BD%CE%AF%CE%BF%CF%85 Christ Pa ...
SS Normandie Poster by Cassandre
Adolphe Jean-Marie Mouron, known as A.M. Cassandre, Ukrainian-French Artist, 1901-1968SS Normandie, 1935,lithograph in colours, printed by Alliance Graphique, Paris, 98 x 61cm, Private Collectionhttps://d2mpxrrcad19ou.cloudfront.net/item_images/1207624/11871155_fullsize.jpg SS Normandie was the ultimate transatlant ...
The Bastille in the first days of its Demolition
Hubert Robert, French Artist, 1733-808The Bastille in the first days of its Demolition, 1789, oil on canvas, 96x135 cm, Musée Carnavalet, Paris, France https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hubert_Robert#/media/File:The_Bastille_in_the_first_days_of_its_demolition,_by_Hubert_Robert_(cropped).jpg More than any other event ...
Peplos Kore
The "Rampin Master" (?)Peplos Kore, c. 530 BC, Parian Marble, H. 1.2 m, Acropolis Museum, Athens, Greecehttps://www.theacropolismuseum.gr/en/statue-kore-peplos-kore The Peplos Kore was discovered, back in 1886, in the Acropolis of Athens, during excavation work (1885-1889) led by P. Kavvadias. The lower part of her ...
John Singleton Copley’s Portrait of Paul Revere
John Singleton Copley, 1738 – 1815Portrait of Paul Revere, 1768, oil on canvas, 89.22 x 72.39 cm, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston MA, USA https://collections.mfa.org/objects/32401 Listen, my children, and you shall hear / Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere, / On the eighteenth of April in Seventy-Five; / Hardly a m ...
Simon Bening’s July
Simon Bening (d. 1561) and his workshopBook of Hours, known as the Golf Book, July (f. 24v),c. 1540, 30 Parchment leaves on paper mounts, bound into a codex, 110 x 80 mm (text space: 85 x 60 mm), British Library, London, UKhttps://blogs.bl.uk/digitisedmanuscripts/calendars/page/10/ Simon Bening’s July page presents ...
Villa Pisanella in Boscoreale
Villa Pisanella, 40-20 BC, Fragment of a Fresco wall decoration from the upper floor of the Villa, featuring a Woman on a black background presenting fruits, Boscoreale Antiquarium, Italy https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Women_villa_della_Pisanella_Pompeii_Museum_Boscoreale.jpg Boscoreale, write the Metropol ...
Summer by Giuseppe Arcimboldo
Giuseppe Arcimboldo, 1527-1593The Four Seasons – Summer, 1563, oil on panel, 670x508 mm, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna, Austriahttps://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Giuseppe_Arcimboldo_-_Summer_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg Beneath the blazing sun's relentless heat / men and flocks are sweltering, / pines are scorc ...
Portrait of Alexander Cassatt and Robert Cassatt
Mary Stevenson Cassatt, American Artist, 1844 – 1926Portrait of Alexander J. Cassatt and His Son, Robert Kelso Cassatt, 1884, Oil on Canvas, 100.3 × 81.3 cm, Philadelphia Museum of Art, USA https://philamuseum.org/collection/object/104479 The Portrait of Alexander Cassatt and Robert Cassatt by Alexander’s sister Ma ...
Donatello’s Pazzi Madonna
Donato di Niccolò di Betto Bardi (Donatello), ca. 1386-1466Madonna and Child (the Pazzi Madonna), 1420-25, Marble, 74,5 x 73 x 6,5 cm, Staatlichen Museen zu Berlinhttps://www.theartnewspaper.com/2021/11/30/first-major-donatello-exhibition-in-nearly-40-years-to-open-in-florence …Donatello was so admirable in knowled ...
The magnificent Bronze Quadriga in San Marco
Charles Caryl Coleman, American Artist,1840-1928The Bronze Horses of San Marco, 1876, Oil on Canvas, 102.2 × 82.6 cm, Minneapolis Institute of Art, USAhttps://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Charles_Caryl_Coleman_-_The_Bronze_Horses_of_San_Marco,_Venice_-_79.13_-_Minneapolis_Institute_of_Arts.jpg I read Brenda Rile ...
Silver Flabellum in the Collection of the Dumbarton Oaks
Flabellum, 565 – 578, silver and gilding, 30.9 x 24.77 x 1.91 cm, Dumbarton Oaks, Washington, DC, USA http://museum.doaks.org/objects-1/info/27007 A flabellum (plural flabella), in Christian liturgical use, is a fan, made of metal, leather, silk, parchment, or feathers, intended to keep away insects from the consec ...