Now I know why Eros, of all the progeny of Earth and Heaven, has been most dearly loved
- Sappho
From the monthly archives:
January 2012
Invocation is one of artist Frederic Leighton’s beautifully compelling images in which the focus is on a single female figure. In this painting, the spectator’s eyes are drawn to the depiction of the woman who dominates the scene. She is clad in white draperies that are obviously inspired by the clothing worn by women in [...]
Anyone who has paid attention to the art posts here at Mythography may have noticed that I primarily focus on two specific eras in art history - Classical (in other words ancient Greek and Roman) and 19th century art. There are of course many reasons for this. Today, I am going to give a little [...]
Aquarius is associated with water. Not surprisingly, the two main Greek myths behind this constellation also feature water prominently. And the characters who play starring (sorry, couldn’t resist) roles are Ganymede and Deucalion. Let’s take a closer look at each of these fascinating figures individually.
Ganymede was the cup bearer for the ruler of the Olympian [...]
The ancient Greeks didn’t really invent the idea of the zodiac - let’s just say they borrowed it from another culture and added their own touches. And one of these tweaks was integrating some of their stories into the realm of the celestial. Or at the least, the Greek mythological explanations for the constellations are [...]
Yesterday, I went on about Ariadne in Inception for a bit. Okay, at length. I mentioned the word labyrinth a couple of times in the course of that discussion, so today, I thought it would make sense to talk about this legendary maze from Greek myth.
Let’s start with some background about the labyrinth. First things [...]
Inception is a movie from 2010 that could probably be best characterized as science fiction. I am not planning on reviewing or even really summarizing the film here. Instead, I want to focus today on a character from Inception. A character with the evocative name Ariadne. Ah, that name sounds familiar, doesn’t it? We’ve been [...]
Naturally, Hera - the queen of the Olympian gods - appears both in the Iliad and the Odyssey of Homer. In these two epics her personality is revealed in a series of events. In my opinion, the most compelling of these episodes is the scene in the Iliad where Hera manipulates her husband Zeus. Here, [...]
I recall first hearing the word pannychis in college. It’s a funny, odd word, and to me almost sounds like something a child would make up. However, what makes pannychis most memorable is its meaning. At the time, it was described by my professor as an “all night party”. On hearing this phrase, my ears [...]
Today, let’s look at a painting by Nineteenth century artist Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema. As the title of the work indicates, Sappho and Alcaeus depicts two famous poets from ancient Greece.
One the left side of the painting, Sappho rests casually at a lectern. She listens enrapt to the performance of her fellow poet. The girl who [...]