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 Monastery of Pantokrator in Constantinople and the Pala d’Oro in Venice
The Pala d’Oro (the altar retable of San Marco in Venice) is an altarpiece with about 250 Cloisonné enamels of different sizes and epochs (10th – 12th century) on sheet gold. It was commissioned in Byzantium by the Venetians. The Archangel Michael is believed to have come from the Monastery of Pantokrator in Constanti ...
1st Day Back to School
School Lesson, Attic red-figure Kylix from Cerveteri by the painter Duris, around 480 BC, 11.5x28.5 cm, . Altes Museum, Pergamonmuseum “Let us remember: One book, one pen, one child and one teacher can change the world.” Said young Malala Yousafzai and I couldn’t agree more! Today, September 14, 2020, is the 1st Da ...
Rosa Bonheur
Rosa Bonheur, 1822 – 1899The Horse Fair, 1835–-55, oil on canvas, 244.5 cm × 506.7 cm, the MET, NY “Ah! If nations could only agree to employ their resources to perfect agriculture and improve transportation, and to bring all their girl children a good education, what an explosion of happiness there would be on ear ...
The Monastery of Pantokrator in Constantinople
The Monastery of Pantokrator of Constantinople, 12th centuryImperial Church of the Komnenian DynastyŞeyh Süleyman Mescidi of Istanbul “The most important imperial foundation from the Komnene age is the Monastery of Pantokrator, which continues to this day to impress both the scholar and the casual visitor. It is as ...
The Month of September
The Month of September, latest 1407, possibly by Maestro Venceslao, Fresco, Torre Aquila, Castello del Buonconsiglio in Trento, Italy And in September, O what keen delight! / Falcons and astors astors, merlins, sparrow-hawks; / Decoy-birds that shall lure your game in flocks; / A ...
Aristide Maillol and La Méditerranée
Aristide Maillol, 861–1944 La Méditerranée, between 1923 and 1927, marble , 110.5 x 117.5 x 68.5 cm, Musée d’ Orsay, Paris I like what Aristide Maillol said or wrote about Art! To his biographer, for example, Judith Cladel (1939 - 1944) he remarked “I seek beauty, not character. For me portraiture and s ...
Émile Zola by Édouard Manet
Édouard Manet, 1832-1883Portrait of Émile Zola, 1868, oil on canvas, 146,0 x 114,0 cm., Musée d'Orsay “My dear Zola, - I am making up my mind to hold a private show. I have at least two score pictures to exhibit. I've already been offered a site in a very good location near the Champ de Mars. I am going to stake th ...
Albenga Baptistery
Albenga Baptistery, interior view, early 6th century, Albenga, Italy “Early Christian Baptisteries were more than simply convenient shelters for liturgical rites. They functioned as symbols in themselves; their shape and decoration reflected and reinforced the theological significance or meaning of the ritual. Wher ...
Blue Glass Amphoriskos from Pompeii
Blue Glass Amphoriskos with cupids gathering grapes from the Villa of the Mosaic Columns in Pompeii, between circa 1 and circa 79 AD, Cameo Glass, Naples Archaeological Museum “Ah, happy, happy boughs! that cannot shed / Your leaves, nor ever bid the Spring adieu; / And, happy melodist, unwearied, / For ever ...
Villa of the Mosaic Columns
Mosaic Columns from The Villa of the Mosaic Columns in Pompeii, 1st century AD, Naples National Archaeological Museum “If you have a garden in your library, we will want for nothing” wrote Marcus Tullius Cicero to his illustrious new friend Marcus Terentius Varro... and he is so right! Gardening can be so gratifyin ...
The Month of August
The Month of August, latest 1407, possibly by Maestro Venceslao, Fresco, Torre Aquila, Castello del Buonconsiglio in Trento, Italy “I am a reaper whose muscles set at sun-down. All my oats are cradled. / But I am too chilled, and too fatigued to bind them. And I hunger. / I crack a grain bet ...
The Archangel Gabriel of Hagia Sophia
Archangel Gabriel, 9th century, south side of the Bema of the Holy Apse, entire figure seen through scaffolds, photographed in 1938, MS.BZ.004-03-01-02-016-029, The Byzantine Institute, Dumbarton Oaks Fieldwork Records and Papers, ca. the late 1920s-2000s, Image Collections and Fieldwork Archives at Dumbarton Oaks, Tr ...
Grant Wood and the Revolutionary Spirit
Grant Wood, 1891-1942Midnight Ride of Paul Revere, 1931, Oil on Masonite, 76.2 × 101.6 cm, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Arthur Hoppock Hearn Fund, Photograph: © 1988 The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Art © Estate of Grant Wood / Licensed by VAGA, New York. Listen, my children, and you shall hear / Of the midnigh ...
Pollaiuolo’s Apollo and Daphne
Piero del Pollaiuolo, about 1441 - before 1496Apollo and Daphne, 1470-1480, oil on wood, 29.5 x 20 cm, The National Gallery, London Daphne, daughter of Peneus, was Apollo's first love, which not blind chance, but Cupid’s savage anger, gave… One suddenly loves, the other flees the name of lover, rejoicing in the hid ...
When Fashion becomes Art
Mariano Fortuny y Madrazo, 1871-1949Delphos Champagne pleated silk Dress with separate gold stencilled empire waistband, armholes and side seams decorated at the hem with white, blue and yellow Murano glass beads, 1920, private collectionDelphos Dress, ca. 1920, Collezioni di Museo Fortuny, inv. MFN01711 ©Fondazione M ...
Parallel Stories of Byzantine Imperial Portraits
Roundel with Emperor John II Komnenos, ca. 1110 – 1118, marble, 90 x 90 x 7.5 cm, Byzantine Collection, Dumbarton Oaks MuseumAngaran Roundel, marble, d. 100 cm,Campiello de Ca'Angaran, Dorsoduro in Venice Parallel Stories of Byzantine Imperial Portraits is about our fascination with the ‘image’ of the Byzantine Emp ...