When we see an ancient Greek statue of a god in a museum, it is easy to think of it simply as an image. We might look at a sculpture... Continue Reading →

What happens when you look at an ancient Greek sculpture in a museum? You walk around it, study its face, read the label, and perhaps take a photograph, but what... Continue Reading →

Before books and movies, stories traveled through voices. In ancient Greece, myths were shared through poetry, performance, music, and conversation. Stories about gods and heroes were not confined to written... Continue Reading →

We often an artwork with a set of particular questions. Who made it? When was it made? What does it mean? Beyond these, there is another question that can be... Continue Reading →

The rose is one of the most recognizable flowers in art. We associate it with love, romance, and beauty, but in the ancient world, the rose carried a far more... Continue Reading →

Few flowers traveled through the ancient Mediterranean quite like the lotus. The form appears in Egyptian art, Greek architecture and pottery, and Roman decorative traditions, but its journey is more... Continue Reading →

Walk through any major collection of Roman sculptures, and you may notice something strange. There are a lot of similarities with the Greeks. Roman artists repeatedly recreated famous Greek statues.... Continue Reading →

 Museums are quiet places. Ancient Greek vases were not. Today, we usually encounter a vase behind glass, isolated from the sounds of the world it once inhabited. Many of these... Continue Reading →

Ancient Greek vases are often treated as pictures. We admire their scenes of gods, heroes, weddings, battles, and drinking parties. But if we look more closely, some of these figures... Continue Reading →

When we picture ancient Greek art, we often picture the nude body. Marble statues of athletes, painted heroes, and muscular gods have become so familiar that Greek art can seem... Continue Reading →