Why my niece and nephew are getting this

The Book of Kells is considered Ireland's most precious treasure.



Looking at it really does make the eyeballs bleed, in the best way possible. When they talk about works of art making people cry, instead of thinking of about Michaelangelo, I think of the nameless scribes who made the Book of Kells.


Last year an animated movie was released called The Secret of Kells. It relates a fictional story about the making of the book, full of little details aimed to please Medievalists and book lovers every where. For example, in the 8th century an Irish scribe wrote a poem about himself and his little cat Pangur Bán. The little cat in the movie is named, of course, Pangur Bán.

Anyhoo, the animation is jaw-dropping. Absolutely gorgeous. Most interesting of all, the animation is inspired by the art in the Book of Kells. It is at times ornate, rich, with jewel-like detail.


My favorite bits, though, are the bits that use Medieval approaches to depth; the landscapes are flattened, linear, objects and buildings are shown from multiple perspectives at the same time (e.g., from the side and from above).

Like Medieval art, the movie avoids 'true' single-point perspective. Seeing it was a great reminder of the many ways that images can tell stories; the Western ideas of perspective and naturalism are not our only option!

Plus, the movie was a love story written for a book, a book that loved images as much as it loved words. And that's why my niece and nephew are getting it. The movie, that is.

Blue Devil of Denver

I was just reading about Denver Airport's controversial piece of public art, the Blue Mustang. A bunch of people want it removed because it's scary, and people don't like 'scary' when they're about to get on airplanes.

They say it looks like a demon.

Which is why it's so awesome! DUH!

How totally badass is it that Denver has a piece of public art that looks like it should be on the cover of a metal album?! I feel like Ronnie James Dio should be sitting on it's back with a big glowing sword.

Coolest work of public art, EVER.

Success with Isadora Duncan

In response to Kostis Kourelis’ call to 'reclaim the city' over at Objects-Building-Situations, my weekend included a quest for the long-ago home of dancer, feminist, hippy-before-there-were-hippies, Isadora Duncan.

In one respect, finding Duncan’s old house had less to do with the house itself and more to do with the act of finding it (insert references to the Odyssey and the ‘journey being more important than the destination’ here). Physically wandering the terrain in search of a place known only from books is practically the earliest calling of Classics as a discipline. After all, from the first we, as students, hear tales of our predecessors traipsing the countryside with a battered copy of Pausanias or the likes of Colonel William Leake scouring Greece in the 19th century.

Topography, the study of place, has been central to our endeavor. But for most people, topography is a foreign idea. After all, why would you walk somewhere when you could drive? For most of us, myself included, my knowledge of the land in which I live is shaped by a framework of sidewalks, roads, streets and parking lots. If there are ravines and dips and rivulets and, most indecipherable of all, mountain passes, I would have no idea. In cities we’re encouraged to stay OFF the grass and in the wilds we’re advised to stay ON the path. And it’s a lot harder to meander through fields and hollows when you’ll get arrested for trespassing. But over the last few years I’ve started to really get an idea of this ‘topography’ thing, thanks to Denver Graninger, John Lee, Tim Gregory and most especially Pierre MacKay.

But my search for Isadora Duncan’s house did not start out in a romantic expedition-y sort of way. Instead, it started with about 5 hours of arguing with the internet, ripping my hair out, and lamenting the useless information highway. But success was at hand, since, after all that, my Google skills had become honed to a fine and deadly point. When I finally set out, it was not in my motley jogging outfit with an ipod strapped to my arm and a playlist at full volume, but with a backpack filled with a packed lunch (trailmix!), water, camera, a map and an address. Unfortunately, it was an address I could not match to the map; there was a period of wandering around, asking directions and feeling lost. But in the end, we did indeed find Isadora Duncan’s house: 34 Chrysofis and Dikearchou, Byron.



So, that should cover the journey part of the story, now here’s a little bit about the destination.



Isadora Duncan was a famous American dancer at the end of the Victorian era. With her brother Raymond, she developed a philosophy of movement that not only inspired the entire phenomenon of ‘Modern Dance’ but also an untold number of artists for whom she was a ‘Muse.’ She was revolutionary in a number of really remarkable ways, whether in her rejection of fussy structured ballet, tightly-bound Victorian clothing, or traditional gender roles. In 1903, Isadora and her brother were obsessed with ancient Greece and travelled there to frolic in ancient garb at the theatre of Dionysius. They decided to be pagans and to create their own utopia. Upon finding a hill that provided a fantastic view of the Parthenon, they planned to build a Temple for their ‘clan,’ modeled on the Palace of ‘Agamemnon.’

Isadora calls the spot Kopanos Hill, claiming that such was its name since ‘ancient times (Duncan, My Life, 93).’ Of course, despite all my attempts at figuring out what her source for this bit of info is, the most I could find, with the help of philologist Dan Leon, was that ‘kopanos’ might be related to the word ‘mallet/pestle’ but has no obvious links to a hill in Athens. It also means ‘jerk,’ ‘asshole’ or ‘prick’ in Modern Greek…it’s a good thing I didn’t go around asking people where Kopanos Hill was - that could’ve been awkward.

After a few years of trying to build a structure on a hill which had no natural source of water, the expense became so astronomical that Isadora (who had been funding the project) had to shut the dream down. She opined, “Kopanos has always remained a beautiful ruin on the hill, since used by each faction of Greek revolutionaries as a fortress. It is still standing there, perhaps as a hope for the future (129).”

Regardless of her nostalgic and wistful view, she came back at the end of WWI with a gaggle of students and the dream of opening a dance school. “We found Kopanos a ruin, inhabited only by shepherds and their flocks of mountain goats…We laid a dancing carpet in the high living room and had a grand piano brought up…with the gorgeous view of the sun setting over the sea…in the cool evenings we wreathed our brows with circlets of the lovely white jasmine flowers that the Athenian boys sell in the streets… (250-1).” For Isadora, dancing was fine, but dancing in the Greek landscape, with its blue sky and ancient marbles, was entirely different. Place was essential. The landscape as a backdrop shaped the dance.



Her relationship with the Greek landscape would end in 1920 when Venezelos left the country in exile, and her with him, as she had been his guest there. What exactly the history of Isadora’s house was thereafter I have not been able to determine, at least not until the story picks up again in the early 1980s. Now the structure’s located in the modern Municipality of Byron (named after, yes, that Lord Byron). When Clan Duncan moved in, it was a barren hill, but presently it’s a packed section of downtown Athens. The Municipality, recognizing that the house had historic value, restored it and turned it into a modern dance studio.



It’s now called the Isadora and Raymond Duncan Dance Research Centre and their website stresses the fact that it’s not just the studio that’s important, but its location - its value is ‘site specific’ both physically and in the cultural memory associated with Isadora and her family cavorting on the rocky hillock.



The mount really does boast a spectacular view of the Mediterranean Sea, but the substantial presence of the Acropolis that was so palpable to Raymond and Isadora has gone the way of tall apartment buildings.



The studio sits upon an open terrace. Although it’s well-cared for, the building is covered in graffiti tags. In an empty lot abutting it and separated by a metal fence, a strange bomb-shelter-like structure hunkers down.





Polished wooden floors gleam behind curtained windows and the website indicates that the studio is active both locally and internationally. In 2003, the Center produced Her Topia: A Dance Architecture Event, a performance meant to engage the modern dancers’ connection to Isadora, to the space on the hill, to the rooms within and to the neighborhood itself. Carrying rocks meant to mirror the blocks that Raymond Duncan carted in to build his house, the dancers moved within the different parts of Isadora’s ‘Temple to Dance,’ then on to the terrace, to the bunker and even to the roofs of the surrounding apartment buildings.



In her own way, dancing across from the Acropolis while the sun went down, Isadora Duncan tried to forge a connection between movement and her surroundings. During her time in Athens she was struck by ancient tragedy, by mythology and by the illustrated visions of maenads dancing on ancient pottery. She and her clan traipsed about, barefoot, looking for boys to fill their chorus and theatres to haunt. It was in the Greek countryside and in the ruins of its ancient cities that she experienced an almost religious connection to an ancient ideal. She found that ideal in a movement and dance that incorporated the surrounding Greek environment, her house upon the hill, and her own human, free, unconstrained manner of motion.

And this is where I bring it back to topography. Isadora, my feminist ancestor, employed topography for dance. My academic ancestors employed topography for history. If you’re in Athens and want to experience a topographical mish-mash of your own, all you have to do is jog from the Stadium down Dikearchou St, up and over a few rises, and you’ll find yourself where Isadora Duncan and her brother Raymond once placed their temple of dance. The much lauded view of the Acropolis is gone, but at least there still exists a mutation of Duncan’s Clan there, moving about on the concrete hillock as the sun goes down, thinking about landscape, buildings and situations.

ASCSA Art 2: Edward Lear's Watercolors and Landscapes

We spend a lot of time in the dining room, where the watercolors of Piet de Jong hang in frames from invisible thread. The Saloni, however, is pretty much where everything important happens in Loring Hall: tea, ouzo, after dinner coffee, hang out sessions, Loeb reading, tea talks, etc. So what art decorates the walls? More watercolors, actually. These are not by an archaeologist, however, but are by Edward Lear.

Who was Edward Lear, you ask? Lear (1812-1888) was a famous British comic poet, limerick writer and illustrator. He was, in fact, a lauded writer of ‘nonsense,’ his most recognizable titles being A Book of Nonsense and The Owl and the Pussycat. Literary nonsense, Wikipedia propounds, is a “style or motif in literature that plays with the conventions of language and the rules of logic and reason via sensical and non-sensical elements.” It’s what we expect from Lewis Carroll and Dr. Seuss. It’s emphasis on the fantastical, unusual and absurd has had quite an impact on the genre of fantasy literature and its champions like JRR Tolkien. It has also been argued that nonsense literature like that of Edward Lear contains a hidden but overwhelming potential for philosophical theory and inquiry.

Lear, when he wasn’t tutoring Queen Victoria, spent his time in Italy and in Greece, producing large quantities of watercolors. In the 1920s, the Gennadion library was fortunate enough to purchase some 200 of his watercolors (for 25 English pounds!). In 1971-2, Lear’s paintings were on exhibit in the US, and when they came back, several of them went on the wall in the Saloni. That is, the prints went up, not just in Loring Hall, but sprinkled throughout the American School’s buildings.

His quick and spontaneous paintings employ a sparse use of color (usually only a few tones) and the squiggly outlines so well-loved in his ‘nonsense’ work.

They depict desolate locations or include strategically placed locals. Antiquities and ruins are rare, and when they do appear, they seem to be regulated to evocative spots in the background (at least in those that I have seen). So what art historical analysis can I come up with about the content and context of these replicas?

1) They are copies of works owned by the American School and therefore reinforce, celebrate and advertise the School’s collection.

2) They depict a topic much beloved by the School’s decorator, the landscapes of historical Greece. After all, both Piet de Jong and Edward Lear did extremely quirky, colorful and amusing work, but it is the muted landscapes that we have framed and hanging up. This subject matter is one of the more popular in the School buildings, for probably many reasons. First, it is a reminder of a simpler, pastoral, more romantic time or place. No pictures of bustling Athens here. Second, a lot of them evoke the experiences of the early Western travelers in Greece, whom many archaeologists see as our discipline’s grandparents. Third, they emphasize the School’s connection to Greece, its appreciation of the country’s recent history, and thus in a round-about way, it’s street cred. I mean street cred in the way 1) a rock n’ roll hipster wears a Johnny Cash shirt to show that she knows her stuff and 2) to emphasize that the School really does LIKE Greece, not just its antiquities (note that I have not yet come across any pictures of the Blue Ridge Mountains or Amber Fields of Grain anywhere in the School artwork).

3) Somehow, the two artists who most decorate Loring’s walls, Edward Lear and Piet de Jong, are British. Curses. Edit: An art historical approach would talk about how the choice of two British artists stresses American ties to the Mother Country while also reiterating the international nature of the archaeological community in Greece, the fluid boundaries between foreign archaeological schools, etc etc. I tend to think, however, that this was purely coincidence.

No Pose! Photographic Dialogues with Artifacts, People, and Places

Today we went to the National Museum, where Olga Palagia talked to us about 4th- 3rd century BCE sculpture. I got in trouble with a guard because I hadn’t checked my backpack; as we haven’t been visiting many museums these days, I had forgotten about the Dreaded Museum Guard.

Museum Gaurd in Crete, hard at work. He may look relaxed and comfy in that chair, but he's waiting to pounce on unsuspecting tourists.

There is a rule here in Greece: you are not allowed to pose with objects in museums, unlike in the States, where I guess in some cases it's encouraged. This rule is fairly new and, if I recall correctly, was not in place the first time I came to Greece in 2000; I have asked around and Jack Davis told me that the rule is only a few years old.

My bad, Mr. Museum Guard! Some person who I won’t name standing (not posing!) with a statue of Caesar that looks just like him.

Museums naturally need lots of rules, to keep morons from rubbing their hands all over David and breathing all over Mona Lisa. I’m okay with this, of course. Here in Greece, museum guards must always be present with you when antiquities are around, and if you're the only person in the museum, they will follow you from room to room in a very disconcerting manner. They have learned to say their most important phrases in multiple languages; they admonish ‘No Touch!’ and ‘No Flash!,’ glowering with angry faces that say quite plainly that you've wronged them as seriously as if you'd just run over their grandmothers.

You know what, Museum Guard? Sometimes my flash goes off on accident. I know that flashes harm antiquities, especially painted ones, but sometimes a button gets pushed unintentionally as I race from object to object, and whoops, there went the flash. But before I can even get out a sheepish apology, you’re up in my face. Gawd. Okay, I know most tourists are hellacious and annoying, and obviously museum guards are at their wits end, but I still don’t like being yelled at.

I tried to take a picture of Eric with the Nike of Paionias at Olympia. Not only did the Guard yell at me, but he rushed me as well. That's his hand blocking the photo.

But nothing baffles me more than the 'no posing' rule. Although I don't know if this is true, the going explanation is that this rule was instigated in order to ensure proper decorum in museums and, most importantly, proper respect for the antiquities. Theoretically, this should give people a greater sense of reverence for these objects, so much so that they might reach the symbolic heights of the Acropolis, which is called, in modern Greece, ‘the Sacred Rock.’

Of course, you’re allowed to pose with the Parthenon. I wonder: if they could, would they stop allowing people to pose with buildings? (For more on modern Greece and its relationship with antiquity, see this.)

Whoops. Kiersten 'accidentally' got in the way of my photo, I promise.

What I find interesting about this rule lies not in the act of posing with the object, whether its done proudly, derisively, or goofily, but rather the photograph that is left behind. People travel to places to see things, and once they’ve made it there, they want their picture taken. It's thought, perhaps, that there’s something more powerful and permanent about photographs. They are solid proof that, yes, you were there. Telling stories about visiting a place just doesn’t seem to cut it anymore; you’ve got to have that slide show when you get back, or pass around the photo album, or post them on Flickr.

In fact, given the ease of the internet and digital photography, many tourists engage in a photographic dialogue with other picture takers. We’ve become so used to seeing people in front of certain landmarks and monuments that when it’s our turn, we want to do it, too. Perhaps there’s even something (dare I say it) ritualistic about the whole process. For some, if they don’t get that photo op, the trip hasn't gone right, they’re disappointed, everything gets jostled and upset. I have seen people walk right up to a monument, get their picture taken, and leave. Immediately. Without having actually looked at the thing!

But for some, the tourist picture is much more self-conscious and is a way to link oneself to a photographic tradition, to share in a long-standing experiential continuum. It’s part pilgrimage, part play and part nostalgia.

My Uncle Jim got his picture taken at the Eiffel Tower in 1964. The picture hung on the wall in the hallway for years, so when my cousin Joel went in 1995, he made sure to get his own picture to put on the wall, too. (All other Eiffel Tower shots from Google search.)

But in Greece the museum policies have made this impossible. It may be that they’ve destroyed that sense of satisfaction a person gets from showing their friends and family pictures with the Mask of Agamemnon, or the Artemisian Zeus, or Athens 804. There will never be a photographic tradition built up around the objects in Greek museums, with pictures collecting and pooling on thousands of Flickr and Facebook accounts. Visually, the objects will never develop a relationship with people. The authorities have completely removed Greek antiquities from the dialogue. Sure, you can still post pics of famous statues and vases, as long as there are no people in them. In other words, this policy has ensured that the antiquities will remain works of ‘art,’ existing on their own, divorced from humanity and the pilgrims that come to see them.

My Morning Walk: Street Art and Graffiti in Athens

On Tuesdays and Thursdays, we have excursions within the city of Athens, in contrast to our Friday trips to various parts of Attica.

Regular Members climb the hillside at ancient Koroni on last week's Friday Trip.

Most of our Tuesday/Thursday events start out in the ancient center of the city, either on the Acropolis, at the Agora, or at the Kerameikos. We tend to meet at these locations at 9am, and there are two options for getting there: 1) walk 2) take the Metro. I have been avoiding the Metro, in an effort to maintain at least a minimal amount of exercise.

When I go to the Acropolis, I tend to wander around the south side through the Plaka. I do this in order to avoid the horrible hill on the north side, which must be climbed on your way past the Agora. Now, granted, there is a big hill to climb on the south side as well, but I don’t think it is quite as big. Maybe it is – I’m thinking it’s purely psychological, but I don’t care.

Approaching the south slope of the Acropolis, in the vicinity of the Theatre of Dionysos, where all those famous Greek playwrights put on their ancient tragedies and comedies.

Getting to the Agora requires following the north side of the Acropolis, along Ermou St.

Regular Members, this past Tuesday. Any group of more than three people attracts escorts of dogs.

And then there is the street art, always interesting for how it shapes urban space.

‘Love me madly’ by Alexandros Vasmoulakis, October 2005. For a long time, I thought this was a three-story high picture of a man looking up a girl’s skirt.

But then I checked online and realized that originally it was a guy giving a flower to his sweetheart. Funny how the elements have completely changed the artist's original vision, into something that can be interpreted as creepy rather than romantic. Check out the artist’s work here; his site is zap51.com.

The Athenian Agora. Visible in the foreground are the blocks of the Royal Stoa, where the King Archon of Athens went about his business, indicting Socrates and other such fun things.

Behind the stoa, you can see the work of Pete, one of the most prolific street artists in the city. Dimitris Plantzos calls him "Athens’ dark prince." His work is here modeled by John Camp, Director of the Athenian Agora Excavations.

Since I received so much positive feed back on my original Athens graffiti art post, I thought I would post some links for those interested in following up on it. My post can be considered part of a growing upsurge in grafitti art interest among Classicists working in Athens. In fact, there is a dialogue going on in the Classics Blogosphere about what Kostis Kourelis has called 'Punk Archaeology.' The back and forth between Bill Caraher and Kourelis has turned into a blog called, you guessed it, Punk Archaeology.

The Flickr collection of Athens street art, here.

Artastica's blog 'Street Culture - Athens.'

Flickr page of Pete's work, here.
Gregos and Goldstein's book, Athens Street Art.

SpirosK's Flickr collection, 'Street Art in Greece.'
Zofka's photoblog about Athens, 'Street art.'

The Modern Art Museum in Athens

I had the morning off, so I finally made my way down to the Modern Art Museum of Athens. It's just down the street, next to the Hilton.

I'd never been to this particular museum, but was looking forward to a special exhibit on Greek painters. Luckily there was hardly anyone there, except for the ever present museum guards following me from room to room.

I am, though, a sucker for paintings with texture, and was fortunate to see several pieces that caught my eye.

Panayotis Gravvaios, Mani, 1988.

Thanasis Tsingos, Flowers, 1960.

Costas Tsoklis, Untitled, after 1978.

There was also a lot I quite hated.

Takis Katsoulidis, Zeus Xenios, 1972.

Nikolaos Othanaias, Harbor - History - Harvest, 1940.

Achilleas Droungas, Athena - Athens, 2003. 

There was also a decent amount of creepiness, which is always fun.

Dimosthenis Kokkinidis, Refugee Housing, Pireaus, 2003.

Costis (Traindafyllou), To the first oracle, Earth, 2003. This thing scared the crap out of me. It looks all innocuous at first, but then...

It actually crackles with electricity. It zaps when you're totally not expecting it, with little lightening bolts playing across the surface.

Theodoros Rallis, The Booty, 1906. And then there's this, which I am not even going to comment on.

Nikolaos Vokos, Still life with fish. Slimey fish. Yum.