Landscape with monument. [Link] [Link] One of the most photographed trees in the UK, standing alongside Hadrian’s Wall in Northumberland, east of Steel Rigg by Milecastle 39, in the northern borders of the Roman Empire. October 2020. In the early hours of September 28, 2023, the tree was cut down by Daniel Graham and Adam…
contemporary past
Don Lavigne — archaeological epigram
Epigram — a concept Don Lavigne was on campus last Friday (Nov 21) to give what was a fascinating talk about ancient Greek epigram — short texts inscribed on something, typically a stone, base, offering, tomb, votive dedication, statue. Don didn’t offer a philological account of epigrams simply as texts. Instead he explored a media…
Tony Harrison — poet, playwright, radical Classicist
Poet and playwright, inspiration and colleague, Tony Harrison died yesterday. Widely acknowledged for his extraordinary poetic and dramatic verse, for his daring translation, he might also be remembered as an archaeological poet of classical antiquity — someone who habitually dug into the strata of Graeco-Roman (and medieval) remains and reworked them not as past history, as…
Figuration
Three ancient figurines from Freud’s desk. Charcoal drawing by Robert Longo [Link] after a photograph taken as Freud left Vienna in 1938.
Robert Longo’s archaeological sensibility
An exhibition of works by Robert Longo at Louisiana Museum of Modern Art [Link]. Raft at Sea 2016-17 Longo traces photographs in charcoal. Large scale charcoal drawings. Of photographs. Blow-ups — upscaled photographs — traced projections. Iceberg for C.D.F (Caspar David Friedrich), 2015-16; The Western Wall, 2011 (Jerusalem) Stand back and you see the BIG…
Speculative author
Hans Christian Andersen at Tivoli Amusement Park, Copenhagen [Link]. August 10 – here’s his desk at the H.C. Andersen Hus in Odense [Link]. The museum/center/garden/experience is remarkable tribute to the extraordinary range of his work. I had not appreciated his sophistication – fabulation, science fiction, psychology, collage, papercuts, letter writing …