Love of learning is the guide of life

I just thought that I should take a needed break from writing my paper for my Early Greek Art class to talk about another Greek related topic, ΦBK. I was inducted into this academic honor society on Sunday (which I almost missed on account of my trip to The Princeton Museum in order to work on my Early Greek Art paper!) and feel fortunate and honored to be a part of this organization. Their motto, "Love of learning is the guide of life", is one which reflects my own love of learning and one which I will happily adopt as my own personal motto.

Back to Greek Art! For my paper, I have chosen an Attic red-figure psykter dating from about 500 B.C. from The Princeton Museum. "What," you might ask, "in the world is a psykter?" And I shall answer you by telling you that a psykter is a wine cooler used at drinking parties, also known as symposiums, attended by men during the ancient Greek period. Wine and water were mixed in a larger krater and the resulting mixture was poured into a psykter. The psykter was then placed into a krater filled with cool water or snow to keep the diluted wine cool. There you have it, ancient refrigeration!

Now there's a Greek who likes his wine!

Class Field Trip: Cloisters

Our Gothic Art professor arranged a field trip to the Cloisters yesterday. Part of the purpose of the trip was to see some of the art works we have been discussing in class (Unicorn Tapestries, Tapestries of the Nine Worthies, the Book of Hours of Jeanne d'Evreux, and the Merode Altarpiece [which we will discuss later in class]); the other reason for the trip was so that each student could choose an object on which to write a paper. I chose the "Psalter and Hours of Bonne of Luxembourg" who was the Duchess of Normandy. The manuscript is small, measuring about 3" x 5" (76 mm x 127 mm) and the painting is exquisite; I love the delicately painted birds scattered among the colorful and leafy vines of the marginalia (I counted about fourteen of them, each one different than the other); the bunny in the lower right of the frame is also très adorable!). It is really incredible how the details in the minuscule faces were painted; the precision and control of the artist(s) is beyond belief--the book must have been painted with a magnifying glass and an eyelash!

I wish I could have gotten a better image, but it is really difficult to take a picture of a book behind glass. The scene on the top seems to be King David (who is typically depicted with a lyre; a very appropriate subject since this is a psalter and many of the psalms are attributed to him) with two other figures who are also holding instruments. The bottom depicts the same David, but captures a scene from his youth just at the moment when the stone has left his hand and is about to hit the Philistine giant Goliath (note the sway and elongation of Goliath's body which are characteristics of the International Gothic Style)

Update: Women and Law

Woo HOO! It seems that our teacher didn't show up for class tonight and so all the students left early. I'm going to use this time to catch up on my readings and perhaps get started on my second paper for Italian Renaissance and Baroque Architecture.

Should I Even Be Here?

I'm sitting in Alexander Library right now waiting for my Women and Law class to begin. I was sorely tempted to skip school today since I'm not feeling better and my congested nose really makes it difficult to concentrate during the lectures. I'm glad that I took the Early Greek Art quiz (although I arrived about 5 minutes late) and hopefully I will get a good grade on the quiz to make up for the C+ on the first quiz (for which I studied the material in the assigned books as well as read an additional relevant book on the side; I guess it doesn't always pay off) more than I did the images. For the second (B+) and third quiz (the one I took today), I made sure to familiarize myself with the images as well as read the texts given to us which are centered on Greek history and politics, more so than on Greek art. I'm expecting that he will give me a +/-B for this quiz, so it probably wouldn't matter if I took this one or not as my average would still work out to a B (the average of the 2 best quizzes out of 3). Just to vent, the professor is known to be a difficult grader and does not label any of his slides for reference. He also tends to jump around from topic to topic sometimes which doesn't help when you are trying to identify the object.

I also went to Renaissance and Baroque Architecture since I am here anyway. I definitely had a hard time breathing in class, but didn't want to miss anything important that the professor might tell us.

Tomorrow is Gothic Art class. One of my classmates has responded and has agreed to type up her notes for me from Monday. Yay! Friday we will be going to the Cloisters for our field trip, so I am hoping to catch up on all the articles she had posted for us to read so that I will be comfortable and familiar looking at the objects while I'm there.

Gotta go now... Women and Law will begin in 8 minutes!

You Know That You Are Really Sick When...

you feel terribly guilty about having to miss class. This past weekend and today has been spent nursing myself from the flu. I seem to have caught it from Christopher who caught it from Uncle Larry who returned with it from visiting Egypt and Jordan. Unfortunately I will be missing Gothic Art class today (it's probably a good idea not to run around school with the flu and the cold rain doesn't exactly help either). On a more positive note, earlier I had shared my notes with two other students (who will hopefully return the favor). And hopefully, I will have recovered enough to go back tomorrow since I have a quiz in Early Greek Art as well as two other classes to go to: Renaissance and Baroque Architecture, and Women and Law. For today, I will just concentrate on studying for tomorrow's quiz, writing a letter, and catching up with some scholarly readings.