Caryatids Front
A caryatid ( or or ; grc, Καρυᾶτις, pl. ) is a sculpted female figure serving as an architectural support taking the place of a column or a pillar supporting an entablature on her head. The Greek term ''karyatides'' literally means "maidens of Karyai", an ancient town on the Peloponnese. Karyai had a temple dedicated to the goddess Artemis in her aspect of Artemis Karyatis: "As Karyatis she rejoiced in the dances of the nut-tree village of Karyai, those Karyatides, who in their ecstatic round-dance carried on their heads baskets of live reeds, as if they were dancing plants". An atlas or telamon is a male version of a caryatid, i.e. a sculpted male statue serving as an architectural support. Etymology The term is first recorded in the Latin form ''caryatides'' by the Roman architect Vitruvius. He stated in his 1st century BC work ''De architectura'' (I.1.5) that the female figures of the Erechtheion represented the punishment of the women of Caryae, a town near Spart ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Athènes Acropole Caryatides
Athens ( ; el, Αθήνα, Athína ; grc, Ἀθῆναι, Athênai (pl.) ) is both the capital and largest city of Greece. With a population close to four million, it is also the seventh largest city in the European Union. Athens dominates and is the capital of the Attica region and is one of the world's oldest cities, with its recorded history spanning over 3,400 years and its earliest human presence beginning somewhere between the 11th and 7th millennia BC. Classical Athens was a powerful city-state. It was a centre for the arts, learning and philosophy, and the home of Plato's Academy and Aristotle's Lyceum. It is widely referred to as the cradle of Western civilization and the birthplace of democracy, largely because of its cultural and political influence on the European continent—particularly Ancient Rome. In modern times, Athens is a large cosmopolitan metropolis and central to economic, financial, industrial, maritime, political and cultural life in Greece. I ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Laconia
Laconia or Lakonia ( el, Λακωνία, , ) is a historical and administrative region of Greece located on the southeastern part of the Peloponnese peninsula. Its administrative capital is Sparta. The word ''laconic''—to speak in a blunt, concise way—is derived from the name of this region, a reference to the ancient Spartans who were renowned for their verbal austerity and blunt, often pithy remarks. Geography Laconia is bordered by Messenia to the west and Arcadia to the north and is surrounded by the Myrtoan Sea to the east and by the Laconian Gulf and the Mediterranean Sea to the south. It encompasses Cape Malea and Cape Tainaron and a large part of the Mani Peninsula. The Mani Peninsula is in the west region of Laconia. The islands of Kythira and Antikythera lie to the south, but they administratively belong to the Attica regional unit of islands. The island, Elafonisos, situated between the Laconian mainland and Kythira, is part of Laconia. The Eurotas is the lon ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Athena
Athena or Athene, often given the epithet Pallas, is an ancient Greek goddess associated with wisdom, warfare, and handicraft who was later syncretized with the Roman goddess Minerva. Athena was regarded as the patron and protectress of various cities across Greece, particularly the city of Athens, from which she most likely received her name. The Parthenon on the Acropolis of Athens is dedicated to her. Her major symbols include owls, olive trees, snakes, and the Gorgoneion. In art, she is generally depicted wearing a helmet and holding a spear. From her origin as an Aegean palace goddess, Athena was closely associated with the city. She was known as ''Polias'' and ''Poliouchos'' (both derived from ''polis'', meaning "city-state"), and her temples were usually located atop the fortified acropolis in the central part of the city. The Parthenon on the Athenian Acropolis is dedicated to her, along with numerous other temples and monuments. As the patron of craft and weav ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Kanephoros
The Kanephoros (, , pl. Kanephoroi (Greek: ); latinate plural form Canephorae; lit. "Basket Bearers") was an honorific office given to unmarried young women in ancient Greece, which involved the privilege of leading the procession to sacrifice at festivals; the highest honour was to lead the () at the Panathenaic Festival. The role was given to a virgin selected from amongst the aristocratic or Eupatrid families of Athens whose purity and youth was thought essential to ensure a successful sacrifice. Her task was to carry a basket or ''kanoun'' (), which contained the offering of barley or first fruits, the sacrificial knife and fillets to decorate the bull, in procession through the city up to the altar on the acropolis. From Aristophanes’s ''Lysistrata'' we have evidence that the office of kanephoros was the last in a sequence of religious duties that an unmarried Athenian girl might undertake; first as an '' arrhephoros'', later an ''aletris'', then as an ''arktos'' (). The p ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Helen Of Troy
Helen of Troy, Helen, Helena, (Ancient Greek: Ἑλένη ''Helénē'', ) also known as beautiful Helen, Helen of Argos, or Helen of Sparta, was a figure in Greek mythology said to have been the most beautiful woman in the world. She was believed to have been the daughter of Zeus and Leda, and was the sister of Clytemnestra, Castor and Pollux, Philonoe, Phoebe and Timandra. She was married to King Menelaus of Sparta "who became by her the father of Hermione, and, according to others, of Nicostratus also." The usual tradition is that after the goddess Aphrodite promised her to Paris in the Judgement of Paris, she was seduced by him and carried off to Troy. This resulted in the Trojan War when the Achaeans set out to reclaim her. Another ancient tradition, told by Stesichorus, tells of how "not she, but her wraith only, had passed to Troy, while she was borne by the Gods to the land of Egypt, and there remained until the day when her lord Menelaus, turning aside on the homewar ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Menelaos
In Greek mythology, Menelaus (; grc-gre, Μενέλαος , 'wrath of the people', ) was a king of Mycenaean Greece, Mycenaean (pre-Dorians, Dorian) Sparta. According to the ''Iliad'', Menelaus was a central figure in the Trojan War, leading the Spartan contingent of the Greek army, under his elder brother Agamemnon, king of Mycenae. Prominent in both the ''Iliad'' and ''Odyssey'', Menelaus was also popular in Greek vase painting and Greek tragedy, the latter more as a hero of the Trojan War than as a member of the doomed House of Atreus. Description In the account of Dares Phrygius, Dares the Phrygian, Menelaus was described as ". . .of moderate stature, auburn-haired, and handsome. He had a pleasing personality." Family Menelaus was a descendant of Pelops son of Tantalus. He was the younger brother of Agamemnon, and the husband of Helen of Troy. According to the usual version of the story, followed by the ''Iliad'' and ''Odyssey'' of Homer, Agamemnon and Menelaus were the ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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The Slave In European Art
African portrayed in European art date back to ancient times. They show slaves of varied ethnicity, white as well as black. In Europe, slavery became increasingly associated with blackness from the 17th century onwards. However, slaves before this period were predominantly white. The ''black'' in European art is not the same topic as the ''slave'' in European art: slaves were not always black and blacks not always slaves. The article also concentrates on European art rather than Western art in general. Slaves in art From the Renaissance onwards, a substantial number of bound figures, often naked and crouching, illustrate enslavement. This imagery had for one of its roots the ancient tradition of Roman Triumph, but its contemporaneous relevance was greatly magnified by the prevalence of slavery within European countries. In particular, galley slaves were often used by artists as models for muscular nude bodies. Sometimes the name of an individual who was a slave is known. O ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Renaissance Art
Renaissance art (1350 – 1620 AD) is the painting, sculpture, and decorative arts of the period of European history known as the Renaissance, which emerged as a distinct style in Italy in about AD 1400, in parallel with developments which occurred in philosophy, literature, music, science, and technology. Renaissance art took as its foundation the art of Classical antiquity, perceived as the noblest of ancient traditions, but transformed that tradition by absorbing recent developments in the art of Northern Europe and by applying contemporary scientific knowledge. Along with Renaissance humanist philosophy, it spread throughout Europe, affecting both artists and their patrons with the development of new techniques and new artistic sensibilities. For art historians, Renaissance art marks the transition of Europe from the medieval period to the Early Modern age. The body of art, painting, sculpture, architecture, music and literature identified as "Renaissance art" was primar ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Black Athena Revisited
Mary R. Lefkowitz (born April 30, 1935) is an American scholar of Classics. She is the Professor Emerita of Classical Studies at Wellesley College in Wellesley, Massachusetts, where she previously worked from 1959 to 2005. She has published ten books over the course of her career. Lefkowitz studied at Wellesley College before obtaining a Ph.D. in Classical Philology from Radcliffe College in 1961. During the 1980s much of her research focused on the place of women in the Classical world. She attracted broader attention for her 1996 book ''Not Out of Africa'', a criticism of Afrocentric claims that ancient Greek civilization derived largely from that of ancient Egypt. She argued that such claims owed more to an American black nationalist political agenda than historical evidence. That decade, she also entered into a publicised argument with Africana studies scholar Tony Martin. She served on the advisory board of the conservative advocacy group the National Association of Scho ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Mary Lefkowitz
Mary R. Lefkowitz (born April 30, 1935) is an American scholar of Classics. She is the Professor Emerita of Classical Studies at Wellesley College in Wellesley, Massachusetts, where she previously worked from 1959 to 2005. She has published ten books over the course of her career. Lefkowitz studied at Wellesley College before obtaining a Ph.D. in Classical Philology from Radcliffe College in 1961. During the 1980s much of her research focused on the place of women in the Classical world. She attracted broader attention for her 1996 book ''Not Out of Africa'', a criticism of Afrocentric claims that ancient Greek civilization derived largely from that of ancient Egypt. She argued that such claims owed more to an American black nationalist political agenda than historical evidence. That decade, she also entered into a publicised argument with Africana studies scholar Tony Martin. She served on the advisory board of the conservative advocacy group the National Association of Scho ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Glittering Images
''Glittering Images: A Journey Through Art from Egypt to Star Wars'' is a 2012 book by American cultural critic Camille Paglia, in which the author discusses notable works of applied and visual art from ancient to modern times. Paglia wrote that she intended it to be a personalized "journey" through art history, focusing on Western works. Paglia writes that she felt inspired to write given that she worries 21st century Americans are overexposed to visual stimulation by the "all-pervasive mass media" and must fight to keep their capacity for contemplation. The book features twenty-nine sections, with glossy full-color illustrations, each focused on a specific piece. Artists detailed include Titian, Manet, Picasso, and Jackson Pollock among others. After its October 16, 2012 release, the book received positive reviews from publications such as ''The Philadelphia Inquirer'' and ''The Wall Street Journal'', while it also picked up more critical, negative reviews from publications su ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Camille Paglia
Camille Anna Paglia (; born April 2, 1947) is an American feminist academic and social critic. Paglia has been a professor at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, since 1984. She is critical of many aspects of modern culture and is the author of '' Sexual Personae: Art and Decadence from Nefertiti to Emily Dickinson'' (1990) and other books. She is also a critic of contemporary American feminism and of post-structuralism, as well as a commentator on multiple aspects of American culture such as its visual art, music, and film history. Personal life Paglia was born in Endicott, New York, the eldest child of Pasquale and Lydia Anne (née Colapietro) Paglia. All four of her grandparents were born in Italy. Her mother emigrated to the United States at five years old from Ceccano, in the province of Frosinone, Lazio, Italy. Paglia has stated that her father's side of the family was from the Campanian towns of Avellino, Benevento, and Caserta. Paglia was raise ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |