Greek beauty

Greek actress Helena Nathanail posing in a dress made by renowned Greek designer Giannis Tseklenis. She lies gracefully on ancient marble architectural members - perhaps inside the Roman or Classical Agora, or some other site in Athens. 

This photograph was taken by photographer G. Valasiadis for the Greek fashion magazine Γυναίκα (Woman) in 1968. 

Special warm thanks to archaeologist Kostas Paschalidis for bringing this to my attention! 

The Minoan Restaurant

After several presentations of modern Minoanising houses and palaces, I am extremely happy to be able to present to you today a Minoan Restaurant, named Το Καπνισμένο Τσικάλι, the Sooty Crock. The restaurant is located on 43 Lavriou avenue in Pallini, outside Athens.

Credits to the discovery are due to Nikos Sepetzoglou who was kind enough to photograph it and send me the photograph above via our mutual friend archaeologist Mimika Kriga. 

This photograph was the teaser that led me to investigate further and locate the very informative restaurant's site. The following photographs are reproduced here from this site [HERE] and others on the internet. 

For one thing, the restaurant presents both architectural and iconographical interest and affinities to Minoan prototypes. 

The aerial photograph from the restaurant's site is very enlightening to fully realise several details, i.e. how the entrance works with the main building, appreciate the verandas and how the Prince of Lilies stands embematic on the upper front wall. 

The building was obviously not built originally with Minoanising features, i.e. it doesn't have Minoan columns which taper downwards, so there was intentional effort to immitate this feature by coloring the columns (and other features) accordingly. On the whole, I think that I may not be too to claim that there is a certain likeness of the main building to a Minoan villa: three-storied, with closed and open verandas, why not then? 

The entrance of course is another story.

It is definitely an added feature along with the pseudo-semi-destructed fence wall. It is a beautiful Minoan propylon imitating the well known reconstructed Knossos North Entrance, very appropriate to build your appetite for what follows next, especially what's to be served inside the restaurant. 
Please note the attempt to show that the architrave with the row of discs intentionally gives the impression that it has been reconstructed and incorporates original elements!!! 
I find this absolutely amazing and if I may add even rather touching. 
Note also how the night shot gives us a glimpse of the hidden lighting of the propylon :)

To come back to the main building, here are more photographs taken from different angles. 

Do take a note of the Rhyton-bearer fresco on the last photograph, seeming as if descending the staircase.

I find the use of the frescoes on outer walls pretty interesting - and their well-preserved condition would be worth a question to the owners don't you think? 

Let us now proceed to enter this Minoan Restaurant. 

The dining room is decorated with a nice replica of the Griffin fresco of the throne room at Knossos. 

In this case of the modern restaurant the artist was faced with a problem: there could not be a Minoan throne as in the Knossos palace, so the two sides of the composition could not emerge on a focal point but simply on three papyrus stems. 

Still, a photograph of the restaurant's site reveals that there is a focal point when the singers and music players are seated on their modest wooden chairs in front of the fresco. 

(To colleagues everywhere: doesn't that make you think a bit when we're interpreting frescoes in rooms without taking into account movable objects?) 

Cretomycenaean rural frescoes

It is by now evident that consuming Greek antiquity especially in Greece takes many forms and may have quite astonishing results. One should always be prepared for the unexpected, but there are lots of cases where evidently reality overcomes imagination. 

Today I present you one of these cases: two large-scale frescoes decorating the outer walls of the veranda of a decrepit Greek house in a mountainous village in Crete (Kouloukonas). 

***To be noted: both photographs of this house were taken and are hereby reproduced courtesy of Dr Anastasia Tzigounaki, an eminent Greek archaeologist working in Crete. 

I warmly thank her for her kindness to let me publish them here and offer information on the whereabouts of the house.***

Since Aegean iconography is my area of expertise I may add a few more words to this astonishing decoration. 

The veranda is decorated with two large figures well-known in Aegean fresco art, the Minoan Priest-King (an expected choice in Crete) and a woman holding a pyxis from a large procession scene copying an original from Tiryns. The two figures are evidently not interconnecting as they are depicted back to back against different backgrounds and also differing in size. 

The Priest King, slightly smaller than the woman, seems to be floating against the red background as his legs don't rest on the ground line. In this respect it differs from its prototype, E. Gillieron's reproduction as it was published in The Palace of Minos and presented on the site and Herakleion museum. 

I find the choice of the female procession figure more unexpected, at it adds a Mycenaean element to the picture. It follows another Gillieron reproduction of a fresco from Tiryns but again it is not a faithful reproduction of the reproduction. 

Evidently the artist of the Cretan village house felt the liberty to adapt his figures to available space, respect the architectural limitations, i.e. the openings of doors, and add refreshing decorative motifs to fill the space, i.e. the reeds in the Tiryns woman background or the narrow meander zones. 
Come to think of it he acted much like a Minoan or Mycenaean painter would have done in a similar situation some thousand years ago. 

The LA 1932 Olympics Discobolus

Another use of the well-known image of the Discobolus on a color poster advertising the Los Angeles Olympics in 1932 via the Chicago and North Western Railway Union Pacific. 


This poster lies in the collection of more than 350 travel posters of the Boston Public Library, Print Department. 
You may browse through the whole collection here. 




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Check out more images of the Discobolus presented in this blog


Hitler and the Discobolus


Iconic Embrace 


Tattooed Discobolus


Olympic Games posters


Modern Greek Architectural Eyesore (the first photo) 

Artemision Zeus, Guardian of the Garage

Picking up from the last post -though it's been a while since- I today present another exquisite discovery made by the blogger Valia Calda dog. With his kind permission I hereby present you: the Zeus (or Poseidon) of Artemision, as a guardian of an entrance to the garage of a villa in Ano Platanos, Achaia (Peloponnese). As the Valia Calda dog observed there where two expensive cars in the underground garage which may explain the choice of a formidable god to discourage prospective thieves. 

An interesting choice by the modern copier is that he puts a spear in the god's hand (instead of a Zeus bolt or a Poseidon trident), thus giving him a more warlike appearance. 

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The original post by the Valia Calda dog is HERE. 


Many thanks again!

Modern Greek Architectural Eyesore

I've been collecting many cases where elements of ancient Greek architecture have been incorporated in modern buildings in Greece. I've been meaning to honor and present each one with a separate post, but time is extra-valuable these days, so a collective post it is. Do scroll down till the end - the last one is my favourite ;)

These are all finds and photographs made by other people, so attribution to the original source follows each find. 


As you are about to see, it is extremelly difficult to create a modern building with ancient Greek elements and not end up with a kitch result. 


Still, one may appreciate the effort. 


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A block of flats with a large statue in a porch between two blue columns. 
It looks like a copy of the Discobolus and oh-my-God there is a disco ball lying next to it and over it... 


Not sure of its whereabouts, presumably in Corinth.

[original source] [source]




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A block of flats in Aigaleo, Athens. 
The shop in the ground floor is also decorated with many copies and a free-standing Athena statue on a column.


Note the Artemision Zeus on top of it all (as it should be) and the numerous Caryatids supporting each floor. 

[source] 




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Another block of flats, also in Aigaleo, Athens - a trend is formed? 


This time the building is crowned with a pediment standing on top of two Ionian columns, painted in blue to match the Greek flag I presume. Not able to discern the subject on the pediment. Many-many statues and columns as well built-in relief metopes - so many one feels his brain complaining. 

[source]




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The blogger Valia Calda dog spotted this in Thessaloniki and named it appropriately "Bucephalus' manger". It is a garage decorated with a relief of the well-known scene with Alexander the Great attacking Darius III. 

[source]




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Another find by the same blogger, this time from Kastoria. 

This is actually my favourite, since I consider it very characteristic of modern Greek architecture and aesthetics. A battle of incongruous elements in the unending desire of the owner to dissociate himself from the environment and state his uniqueness. 

In this case, the Vergina Sun and many columns define Greekness - or better yet "Macedonianess". 

[source]


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I am extremelly grateful to the blogger Valia Calda dog for granting me permission to republish his photographs here. 


Many thanks are also due to this blog's faithful reader, Ein Steppenwolf, who never fails to let me know of such finds as he sees them. 


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AN IMPORTANT UPDATE


The Greek blogger Athensville visited Aigaleo and made an excellent photographic documentation of the wonderful blocks of flats there. 
Visit his blog clicking HERE to see all the details! 

A new Minoan palace

Archaeologist Amanda Kelly was ever so kind to send me the following picture of a really neat modern Minoan "palace". Her friend Conor Trainor is actually the person to deserve the credit of discovering this lost treasure - I know I have both to warmly thank for giving me permission to publish the photograph and supplying relative information. 

According to Conor, this new Minoan palace lies in Vyronas, Athens, on Formionos str. 


This is actually one of those cases when words actually fail me in the attempt to describe this masterpiece. I wouldn't really know where to begin: the bright red of the Minoan columns dazzles me. 


I'll limit myself to pointing out two elements that should not go unnoticed: 


1. the two columns on the right are evidently free-standing - perhaps a hint at some religious use of the place?


2. the indented facade - an unmistakable feature of any true Minoan palace. 


Try to ignore the trash cans in the foreground. They are but an inept element of modern Greece...

As Amanda put it, this is an aesthetic treat!