Muses in Ivory

 THE MUSES IN IVORY 

This piece is NOT the finest depiction of the Muses but it has a certain liveliness and definite energy.

Does it seem to you that they are dancing?

Two Friends or Sisters or What?

 A STELE of TWO WOMEN 

handing each other flowers

This is a stele found in Pharsalos in Thessaly in Greece and now in the Louvre

We do not know these women's names or relationship. Were they sisters lovers friends or is this a religious ritual? I found it while researching for examples of greek costume. Enjoy for the carving the clothing details or the possible story it may inspire ?

Athena Disrobing

 

Classical art of various eras Greek and later is often described as humanistic

Here is one example that shows why pottery is as important an expression of Greek Classical culture as literature or drama or history.

This is Athena disrobing from her armored glory!

One tendril of hair has come loose from the headband binding it up to fit under her helmet.

Her robes have slid off her shoulders until we can see her transparent under gown.

One might doubt this is the goddess and perhaps rather a mortal woman dressed as the goddess for she seems so human here but the tiny owl or owlet is perhaps a touch of humor or a reminder this is indeed the patron goddess of Athens depicted.

THe beauty and excelleence of gods and humans alike is praised and depicted in Greek Classical art.

Maenads and Ecstasy

#maenads

Ever notice how so many art critics and historians talk about "graceful curves" when discussing images of Maenads in Classical Greek art and avoid discussing in depth that these are possibly the oldest known images in Western / European art of women in a state of religious ecstasy (okay possibly with a little or a lot of help from wine and mushrooms and whatever else they consumed during rituals) ? Think a bout that question and maybe go (re)read Euripides' Bacchae ?

The Dionysus Cup

#dionysus #cup #ClassicalGreekArt

NEW THEME #Dionysus

The Dionysus Cup is one of the most famous #Greekceramics

It shows part of the story of Dionysus and the pirates with the transformed pirates swimming around the ship and grape vines growing up and over the mast as Dionysus asserts his divine powers.

Note that this is Dionysus before it became fashionable to show him as a beardless effeminate youth.

This Dionysus us a partying Aristocrat with an embroidered robe and styled hair reclining at leisure!

Join me for more works featuring Dionysus next week!

Apollo and Mithras

Apollo and Mithras
A strange relationship

A couple of weeks back some one described my Judeo-Christian deity  as being just another near eastern solar god. I politely pointed that that was incorrect for several reasons. anyway I started thinking about the rayed halo iconography and its origins and did some googling to find the latest views on that.

A lot of people believe the rayed halo was borrowed from either the Mithras cult or or some other sun god like Apollo.

Now the odd thing is that Apollo with a rayed halo or any halo is only depicted with one from the late Hellenistic era onwards.

Some scholars used to believe the Kouros images of archaic Greek art were Apollo like this one.

Greek Classical art depicted Apollo like this :

Either dressed as a musician or shown as an archer or nude always with long hair and young. Frequently you can see where a hand holding a bow was broken off.

Now these Hellenistic Imperial era images.

First sign of the rayed halo motif!

Though this may be Helios driving the sun chariot!

The later Greeks seem to have confused the two in popular art.

Images of Mithras a maybe Persian god. 

Maybe a persian god? The first shows Mithras with a Hellenistic Greek King Antiochus and the second is Persian. 

Now the Mithras cult is odd. Said to have come from Persia there are very few artifacts within the Persian and Parthian cultural sphere showing Mithras. 

Given the Mithras cult peaks during the Roman era is it possible there was a separate Anatolian Mithras cult incorporating solar imagery from both Greek and Near Eastern art . Mithras changed from a minor deity to a separate syncretistic cult.

A lot of Roman art copies and adapts earlier Greek art.

Here's a mosaic from Roman Africa.

Who used the rayed halo first? Apollo or Mithras. Given Hellenistic cultural contact with the Parthians its not impossible the rayed halo idea moved from west to east? 

By the way that sun god thing in relation to images of Christ? The earliest images of Christ tend to to stress the Good Shepherd image without HALOS.

But thats a topic for a separate post.

Apollo and Mithras. What was the ultimate source for the rayed halo?

I've given you images to think about. Enjoy.

Holy Wisdom and Winged Gods

The orthodox church has an interesting iconography for Holy Wisdom showing her as a winged woman. However before I show you a couple of icons I want you to consider this: where do the images of angles as winged humanoids derive from?

Yes near eastern art was one source but I wonder if another was early Christian artists seeing images in Greek and Roman art of winged deities like Iris or Eros?

Here's Eros in flight

and here's Thanatos Death with wings

Finally Iris messenger of the gods

Now Holy Wisdom 

Remember the first missionaries to pagan KIEV were GREEK Orthodox from Byzantium.

Two Paintings of the Graces

Two Paintings of the Graces

Pausanias tells us (Book 9. 35. 1-7) that while it was normal in his time the 2nd century AD to depict the Graces as nude he has seen older works of art in which they are clothed but alas none of those works survived even as Roman mosaic copies.

However here's one Roman era fresco from Pompeii that did.

and here to demonstrate Classical Influences on later art Raphael's depiction of the Graces.

Hera Queen of the Gods

Here's a few images of Hera!

I've picked ancient works so these should all be public domain to my knowledge?