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 …
Isabella Brant
Pieter Paul Rubens, 1577- 1640 Portrait of Isabella Brant, 1626, Oil on canvas, 86x62 cm, Uffizi Gallery, Florence, ItalyPhoto Credit: Amalia Spiliakou, April 2025 Isabella Brant (1591–1626) was the first wife of the celebrated Flemish painter Peter Paul Rubens and a woman of notable grace and social standing in ...
Kylix with a School Boy
Terracotta kylix (drinking cup), Attributed to the Painter of Munich 2660, ca. 460 BC, Terracotta, Red Figure, 7x20 cm, the MET, NY, USA https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/250548 On September 11, as Greek students step into classrooms to begin the 2025–26 academic year, it feels fitting to look back, f ...
Michelangelo’s Bacchus with Satyr
Michelangelo Buonarroti, 1475-1564Bacchus and Satyr, 1496 – 1497, Marble, Height: 207 cm, National Museum of Bargello, Florence, Italy – Photo Credit: Amalia Spiliakou, April, 2025 In the hushed halls of the Bargello Museum, Michelangelo’s Bacchus with Satyr stands as a marble echo of divine intoxication and poetic ...
Marigolds
Dante Gabriel Rossetti, English, 1828 - 1882Marigolds or Bower Maiden, 1873, Oil on Canvas, 114.3 x 73.66 cm, Nottingham Castle Museum and Art Gallery, UK https://useum.org/artist/Dante-Gabriel-Rossetti When Dante Gabriel Rossetti introduced Marigolds (also known as The Bower Maiden) to his patron Frederick Leyland ...
Paul Cézanne’s lithograph Les Baigneurs
Paul Cézanne, French Artist, 1839-1906Les Baigneurs (Large Plate), 1896-1897, lithograph in colors, 419 x 521 mm, Private Collection https://www.christies.com/en/lot/lot-6528944 Paul Cézanne’s lithograph Les Baigneurs is a masterful meditation on the relationship between figure, form, and landscape. Unlike the more ...
Gabriel Argy- Rousseau’s Poissons Dans Les Vagues
Gabriel Argy-Rousseau, French artist, 1885-1953Poissons Dans Les Vagues, 1925, Pâte de Verre Glass Vase, Height: 152.4 millimeters, Macklowe Gallery, NY, USAhttps://www.macklowegallery.com/products/gabriel-argy-rousseau-poissons-dans-les-vagues-pate-de-verre-glass-vase?srsltid=AfmBOoovAA26CWovwdBaAjyXP-8bW_rwkBfZTu_V4 ...
Cimabue’s Maestà di Assisi
Cimabue, 1240-1302Maestà di Assisi, 1285-1288, fresco, 320x340 cm, Basilica of San Francesco in Assisi, Italy – Photo Credit: Amalia Spiliakou, April 2025 When I visited the Lower Church of San Francesco in Assisi in April 2025, I was struck by the quiet majesty of Cimabue’s Maestà di Assisi. Tucked into the dimly ...
The Elderly Couple from Voltera
Etruscan Urn of an Elderly Couple, 1st century BC, Terracotta, Museo Etrusco Guarnacci, Volterra, Italy – Photo Credit: Amalia Spiliakou, April 2025 Among the most evocative remnants of Etruscan funerary culture are the terracotta urns that once housed the ashes of the deceased, vessels not only of the body but of ...
Rhyl Sands
David Cox, UK artist, 1783–1859Rhyl Sands, c.1854, Oil on Canvas, 454 x 630 mm, the TATE, London, UK https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/cox-rhyl-sands-t04130 Standing on the broad, breezy shore of Rhyl Sands, it’s easy to understand why David Cox was drawn to this stretch of the North Wales coast. In his painting ...
Lorenzo di Credi
Lorenzo di Credi, 1456/59-1537Venus, c. 1490, Oil on Canvas, 151x69 cm, Uffizi Gallery, Florence, ItalyPhoto Credit: Amalia Spiliakou, April 2025 In the rich tapestry of Renaissance Florence, few artists garnered the kind of admiration that Lorenzo di Credi did, both in his time and in the eyes of later historians. ...
In Poppyland
John Ottis Adams, American Artist, 1851-1927In Poppyland, 1901, Oil on Canvas, 55.9 x 81.3 cm, David Owsley Museum of Art, Ball State University Art Museum, IN, USAhttps://www.bsu.edu/web/museumofart/exhibitions/past#accordion_impressionsoflove John Ottis Adams’s In Poppyland, housed in the David Owsley Museum of A ...
Grand Canal Venice
Thomas Moran, American Artist, 1837 - 1926Grand Canal, Venice, 1903, Oil on Canvas, 35.6x51.4 cm, Private Collection https://www.sothebys.com/en/buy/auction/2025/art-of-the-americas-featuring-the-american-west/grand-canal-venice Since my arrival I have done nothing but wander about the streets & I have done no ...
Patriarch Joseph II of Constantinople
Tomb of Joseph II Patriarch of Constantinople, Florentine sculptor, 1440, Santa Maria Novella, FlorencePainted Portrait of Patriarch Joseph II of Constantinople, 1590-92, Santa Maria Novella, Florence, ItalyPhoto credit: Amalia Spiliakou, April 2025 Patriarch Joseph II of Constantinople was a pivotal figure in the ...
The Spinario
Spinario Estense, Roman Republican Art (attributed), 509 BC 509 BC / 27 BC, Marble, Height: 92 cm, Galleria Estense, Modena, Italy Photo Credit: Amalia Spiliakou, April 1, 2025 The Spinario, also known as Boy with Thorn, is a celebrated bronze statue that likely dates to the Hellenistic period (323–31 BC), though t ...
Bastille Day
Alfred-Philippe Roll, French Artist, 1846-1919 Bastille Day, 1880-1882, Oil on Canvas, 175 x 269 cm, Petit Palais, Paris, France https://www.petitpalais.paris.fr/en/oeuvre/bastille-day-1880-inauguration-monument-republic On Quatorze Juillet, Fête Nationale Française, the streets of France come alive with celebrat ...
Bust of a Lady
Bust of a Lady, circa 410 AD, from an Asia Minor workshop, possibly inAphrodisias, circa 410, white Phrygian (Dokimion) Marble, Height: 56 cm, Archaeological Museum of Chania, Greece In the Archaeological Museum of Chania on the island of Crete, the Bust of a Lady offers a rare window into the shifting artistic and ...