The Acropolis. Athens, Greece.

Today I'm introducing you to the Acropolis. Now a lot of people get confused and think that the Acropolis is a Greek temple of some sort. But that is all lies. An acropolis the high point of a city - like in acrophobia, the Greek "akros" means high; and like in metropolis, the Greek "polis" means city. An acropolis is usually on a hill, and contains some of the most important buildings in a Greek city. The Acropolis refers specifically to the most famous acropolis, that in Athens.

The Acropolis, like the Campo dei Miracoli, is home to a number of significant buildings. Now I went through the entire Campo dei Miracoli in one post, but that ended up being very long, and I didn't have room to go into great detail about each of the buildings, which was no good. So today I'm introducing you very generally to the Acropolis itself, and I'll go further into detail about its separate parts over the next few days. I suppose this is also kind of a cop-out, since I don't have to write much today. Yay for me.

The major buildings that exist on the Acropolis today were built under the leadership of the famous Pericles. Pericles ruled during the Golden Age of Athens, a period that runs from roughly the end of the Persian Wars to the end of the Peloponnesian War, around 450 BC to 400 BC. At the time, Athens was the head of the Delian League, a group of Greek city-states which had united to fight back the Persian army. Being in the Delian League meant paying taxes to Athens to be used to build up their army - but for a time, the Persians weren't attacking, so Athens decided the tax money would be far better spent on building pretty temples and things on the Acropolis.

Thus the Acropolis is now home to four great structures: the Propylaia, the Temple of Athena Nike, the Parthenon, and the Erechtheion. I'll go into each of these over the next four days, and until then, you can hold your breath in anticipation.

By the way, you might have noticed the cranes in the background of this picture. For the last few years the Acropolis has been undergoing a major restoration. For more information, visit The Acropolis Restoration Project.

Venus of Willendorf. Limestone, circa 22,000 BC.

Having recently discussed topless females, I thought today I'd talk about one of art's oldest topless females, the Venus of Willendorf. Venus was discovered in 1908, and named after a nearby Austrian town, Willendorf. She stands a little less than 4.5 inches high - or rather, she would if she could stand on her own. She acquired the title "Venus" as sort of a joke among early (male) scholars. Nowadays people will sometimes just refer to her as the "Woman of Willendorf."

Being around 22,000 years old, there isn't much that can be said about her with certainty. Really, the only thing archaeologists are sure if is that she's a woman. Oh, and she's made of limestone. They're pretty certain of that, too. It can also reasonably be assumed that she was carved by a human and not, say, natural forces, an animal or an extraterrestrial.

A few things to point out before I start throwing out theories. First off, I assume you've noticed the prominent genitalia. Venus appears to be obese, and not pregnant. Her little arms are resting on top of her breasts. Strangely she doesn't have a face, and the sort of bumpy texture that covers her head is thought to be either a fancy hairdo or a cool hat. (The hat theory only came up recently, when archaeologists found a hat that looks very similar to whatever is on Venus' head.)

Now, on to the theories. Most hold the belief that the Venus is some kind of fertility figurine, which is why the genitals are so prominent. The fact that she has no face and very roughly done hands and feet suggests that the artist, in making her, believed that her feminine features were most important and required the greatest detail. Two problems with this theory: it doesn't explain why Venus is apparently overweight, rather than pregnant; and second, it doesn't explain why so much detail was put into the hair/hat, which is obviously the most detailed part of her.

Common theory number two is that she is some kind of Gaia figure, a representation of a sort of mother earth goddess. The feminine features would be important to represent the fertility of the earth, all that gives life, yadda yadda yadda. As for her obesity, maybe the mother earth goddess gets really pampered, and gets to lie around all day eating potato chips. And if she's an earth goddess, I'm sure she has nymphs or fairies or something that can do her hair up really nice and make her some really nice hats.

Finally there is the theory that Venus of Willendorf is meant to portray a specific woman. She could have been someone of great importance in a matriarchal society. But that theory runs into trouble as one would expect the artist to have carved her most defining feature, her face.

What have we learned today? That when we delve into the realm of speculation, I tend to get sarcastic. Oh, and the Venus of Willendorf is a limestone woman. That about covers things.

The Agnew Clinic, by Thomas Eakins. Oil on canvas, 1889.

In honor of my friend's recent acceptance to medical school, today I thought I'd do a little something by Thomas Cowperthwaite Eakins, famous American artist and winner of the "Coolest Middle Name I've Ever Heard" award. Eakins' most famous painting is undoubtedly The Gross Clinic, from 1875, so today I'm showcasing its little-known counterpart, The Agnew Clinic. It's probably not a shock to learn that Eakins himself attended medical school, where he acquired a great understanding of human anatomy, an eye for detail, and a desire to paint subjects that tend to gross people out. (I should mention that The Agnew Clinic is much more tame than the aptly named Gross Clinic, which includes a scalpel digging into a leg, lots of blood, and a poor mother in the background shielding her eyes in horror.) Critic Montague Marks pretty much sums up the generally held view of both the Gross and Agnew Clinics at the time: "Delicate or sensitive women or children suddenly confronted by the portrayal of these clinical horrors might receive a shock from which they would never recover."

The man who gives The Agnew Clinic its title is Dr. Hayes Agnew, Anatomy Professor and Chair of Surgery at the University of Pennsylvania. Dr. Agnew had a very long and prominent medical career - he had served as an army surgeon during the civil war, and was one of the doctors who tended to President James Garfield after he was shot. A few months before Agnew was about to retire, a group of medical students came to Thomas Eakins and gave him $750 to paint a portrait of their professor. While the students had only requested a painting of Agnew himself, Eakins had so much respect for Dr. Agnew that he offered to paint the entire clinic, assistants and students as well. Agnew Clinic is the largest of all of Thomas Eakins' paintings, at 11 feet long and 6.5 feet tall.

A comparison of The Gross Clinic and The Agnew Clinic reveals some of the surgical advances that were made between 1875 and 1889. One difference is in the lighting - the patient in Gross Clinic is illuminated by an overhead skylight, a common surgical practice. Agnew Clinic, however, has the patient bathed in artificial light, which surgeons had decided not only offered better illumination but also allowed surgery to take place during any time of the day. Advanced ideas in sterilization also play a role in the two paintings - while The Gross Clinic doctors operate in their suits, those in The Agnew Clinic all wear white surgical gowns. (Unfortunately, they hadn't yet caught on to gloves, face masks or caps.)

A final notable difference is in the treatment of women. Eakins was somewhat of a revolutionary when it came to gender differences - he was once fired from a teaching job when he had one of his co-ed classes draw an entirely nude male model. The only woman in Gross Clinic is the mother of the patient, a little old lady who can't bear to watch any of the proceedings, and really serves as a background character. However, Agnew Clinic contains two women, both prominently placed. The first is the nurse, who stands and watches the surgery very stoically, not at all grossed out by what is going on. The second woman is the patient receiving the surgery, who is being treated for breast cancer. It seems lewd to think that Eakins has painted a topless woman if you forget that topless women have been an artistic mainstay for ages. I, for one, think Eakins may have felt the same way about the human body as my med school friend - that once you really understand how sex works, it isn't nearly as erotic as it seems.

The Dance of Life, by Edvard Munch. Oil on canvas, 1899-1900.

Well I feel guilty about giving my man Munch the shaft yesterday, since there's so much more than The Scream that he should be known for. So today I'm doing something I swore I'd never do, and writing about the same artist two days in a row. Sorry to all you kids out there who aren't Munch fans, but the last thing I want is the mad ghost of Edvard Munch stalking me.

Munch is really the epitome of the tortured artist. His mother died when he was 5, and his beloved oldest sister died when he was 15 - both from TB. Another of his sisters spent most of her life in a mental hospital. Munch's fragile state of mind was worsened by his father's religious fanaticism and hellfire-and-brimstone attitude. Munch famously wrote, "I inherited two of mankind's most frightful enemies - the heritage of consumption and insanity - illness and madness and death were the black angels that stood at my cradle." Throughout his life Munch struggled with alcoholism and, possibly, bipolar disorder.

You might say he was doomed from the start to have horrible relationships with women. His first real relationship was with Millie Thaulow, the wife of a distant cousin - the affair lasted two years, and when she ended it, Munch was crushed. His only other serious romantic involvement was with Tulla Larsen, the daughter of a wealthy wine merchant who sort of forced Munch into a relationship. For a year he traveled all across Europe trying to get away from her, but this woman was born to stalk - once she'd found Edvard again, she would beg and beg to see him until he finally relented. She bullied Munch into proposing to her, but at the last minute before the wedding he fled the country. She found him a year later, and she and Munch had a violent argument during which Edvard somehow shot off one of his fingers. Well Tulla somehow got the crazy notion that maybe Munch didn't like her, so she married a different artist a short while later. I'm not sure whether or not she had to stalk him first.

The Dance of Life is really all about Munch's ideas of romance. The dancers in the background seem to be swooping in on one another, almost attacking their partners. (In another of Munch's paintings, Vampire, a woman with long red hair bends over the neck of a man and looks like she could be sucking the life-blood out of him.) Some believe that the couple dancing in the foreground is Munch and his first real love, Millie, who both look stiff and dispassionate. The two women at the sides are thought to both be Tulla Larsen, who can be at once bright and lovely and at other times the female Grim Reaper.

Munch never did marry or find love. In retrospect, I really should have saved this painting for next Valentine's Day.

The Scream, by Edvard Munch. Lithograph, 1895.

Today, from our "artists who need a hug" series, comes Edvard Munch, creator of The Scream. I was hesitant to do The Scream, being as everyone has already seen it, and it kind of degrades Munch's work because all of the other great art he's made ends up being ignored. However, I thought I could show you something you probably haven't seen, one of Munch's lithographs, which you might actually find more haunting. (Just look at those beady little eyes.) The actual title, Geschrei, could really be translated in a few ways, and is sometimes called The Cry or The Shriek. The inscription at the bottom, "Ich fuhlte das grosse Geschrei durch die Natur," roughly translates to "I feel the large cry through nature." (Hey, there are two ways I can use my German: by translating the names of German artworks, and working out what the Nazis are saying in Indiana Jones movies.)

There are actually four painted versions of The Scream, each one done on cardboard, the poor man's canvas. Two of those four versions have been stolen. In 1994, just before the Winter Olympic games, one Scream was stolen from the National Gallery in Oslo, Norway. It was held for a ransom of one million dollars, which the Norwegian government refused to pay, and The Scream was safely recovered a few months later. Another version of the painting, this one in Oslo's Munch Museum, was stolen in 2004, along with Munch's Madonna. Suspects are currently on trial, but no one has given up the goods.

Should you want to see one of the four originals of The Scream, you'll have to travel to Norway to do it. (Unless you find an art thief selling the missing Scream on the black market.) Of the two copies that haven't been stolen, one is privately owned by a Norwegian billionaire, and the other is in the Munch Museum. I suppose it's fair that one of the Screams from the Munch Museum was stolen, seeing as they're so greedy that they felt they needed two. Bastards.

A quick bonus: check out a work very similar to The Scream, Munch's piece Despair. Or check out another one, Anxiety. Actually, just head on over to Olga's Gallery - she's got an awesome Munch collection.

Homage to Matisse, by Mark Rothko. Oil on canvas, 1953.

Having mostly covered the old, I thought today I'd turn to the new - or at least to the reasonably new. I was once in an Intro to Art History class when we started talking about Mark Rothko. My professor put up a few slides and was saying a few things about Rothko's work when a girl in class raised her hand and asked, "Just how much money do people pay for this stuff?" Those are the words she used, but from her voice it was obvious that she was saying, "Why are people dumb enough to spend millions of dollars on crap like this?" I wanted to find her after class and jump her. (The picture to the left, Homage to Matisse, was sold last year by Christie's for $22.5 million, the most ever paid for a post-war painting. Yeah, that's how much they pay for "this stuff", you ninny.)

Mark Rothko, or Marcus Rothkowitz, moved from his native home of Latvia to Portland, Oregon when he was about ten years old. He remained in the U.S. for the rest of his life, and made a living as an art teacher. Once you've seen a Rothko or two, it's pretty easy to pick out his work, which I can best summarize as floating rectangles of color. Posters of Mark Rothko's works are pretty popular because they seem so simple and decorative - go by a Pier 1 or Cost Plus and I'm pretty sure you'll find a Rothko print sitting and waiting to be bought.

People who only see Mark Rothko's work this way make me sad. Rothko once said, "I am not an abstract painter. I am not interested in the relationship between form and colour. The only thing I care about is the expression of man's basic emotions: tragedy, ecstacy, destiny." One critic famously said that Rothko's paintings are like TV sets for Zen Buddhists. It's best to see a Rothko in person to understand this view, as his paintings are actually quite large - White Center, which is at LACMA, is seven feet high and six feet wide. It's difficult to explain, but you could easily sit and look at a single Rothko piece for hours on end - as simple as they seem, there is something extremely meditative about them.

Having spent years living with depression, Mark Rothko committed suicide in 1970. He slit his wrists, and was found splayed out on the floor of his studio in a pool of blood. My art history teacher said that, by killing himself this way, he made himself into one final work of art. To see a retrospective of Rothko's work, visit the National Gallery of Art website.

Campo dei Miracoli. Pisa, Tuscany, Italy.

Today we're moving 200 miles northwest and 1000 years into the future to come to Pisa's Campo dei Miracoli, or "Field of Miracles." While most probably recognize the field for its Leaning Tower, I'm going to educate you on all four major structures that make it famous: the Duomo, Baptistery, Tower and Camposanto. Then you can go off and impress your friends at parties.

The Duomo (above, center) is the heart of the Campo dei Miracoli, a Romanesque cathedral begun in 1064. How can you tell it's Romanesque? Look at all those arches, baby. Romanesque is all about arches. (Except for pointed arches, which are Gothic; horseshoe arches, which are Moorish; and golden arches, which are evil.) The interior of the Duomo was largely destroyed in a fire in 1595, but a lovely apse mosaic by Cimabue (1302) and pulpit by Giovanni Pisano (1302-1310) survived and can still be seen today. The Duomo is also the home of the tombs of Holy Roman Emperor Henry VII, and Saint Ranieri, patron saint of Pisa.

The Baptistery (above, left) was the second structure added to the Campo, begun in 1153. It was begun in a Romanesque style, with all those pretty arches, but wasn't finished until the 14th century, so the top is covered in some of those Gothic arches I was telling you about. The Baptistery would often serve as a civic meeting place, because it wasn't as sacred as the church - anyone, Christian or not, could enter the baptistery, but you were really only supposed to enter the Duomo once you had been baptized.

Now to the Leaning Tower (above, right), which I think isn't nearly as pretty as the Baptistery or the Duomo, but it's still pretty interesting. The Tower is actually a campanile, or bell tower. It began to lean as soon as the third floor was completed, in 1178. (The tower leans because of its weak foundation - the wise man builds his house upon the rock, the foolish man builds his house upon the sand... or, in this case, the uncompacted dirt.) Had Pisans continued to build the tower as scheduled, it most certainly would have collapsed, but construction was delayed over the next hundred years due to warfare in the region, giving the tower time to settle into the soil. When construction resumed in 1272, four more floors were added, but at a slight angle to compensate for the tilt. Construction had to halt again in 1284 thanks to a battle with the Genoans. The last floor, the bell chamber, was finally added in 1372, and the last of the seven bells was installed in 1655. (By the way, the story of Galileo dropping two cannon balls over the side of the leaning tower is probably a myth.)

World War II almost saw the destruction of the campanile, twice. The first came when Mussolini ordered that concrete be poured into its foundation in order to return it to a vertical position, which ironically only made it sink more. The second came when the U.S. (and I am not proud of this) destroyed nearly every tower in Pisa to reduce any threat from snipers. (The U.S. retreated at the last minute, and the tower was spared, hallelujah.) In the 1960s Italy called together a crack team of engineers and mathematicians to save the tower, and together they formulated a plan that involved, among other things, adding counterweights to the raised end of the base. The tower was closed to the public for eleven years while this work went on, from January 1990 to December 2001, and should now be safe for the next 300 years. (If you have any plans to visit Pisa in 2306, you may want to consider rescheduling.)

Finally we come to the Camposanto (not pictured), which was begun in 1278. The Camposanto is actually a walled cemetery - camposanto means "sacred field." The dirt itself is said to have been brought back from Golgatha after the 4th Crusade. The cloister that surrounds it was added about a century later. Unfortunately, the Camposanto didn't escape damage during WWII - bombs dropped by Allied aircraft destroyed the roof, along with frescoes that covered the interior walls. It has since been restored, and is said to be one of the most beautiful cemeteries on earth. If you're looking for a romantic place to propose to that special someone, you've found the place. Especially if you think you'll have a black wedding.

If you want to see more pictures of the Campo dei Miracoli, visit the Opera Primaziale Pisana website.

Bust of Julius Caesar. Marble, ca 50 BC.

All Hail Caesar!

Today marks the 2050th anniversary of Julius Caesar's death. (I hope you've all got parties planned!) Yes, it's the Ides of March! If your significant other has had any dreams of your death lately, it might be a good idea to call in sick. Especially if your name is Julius Caesar. This noble bust of him, by some great unknown artist, belongs to the Vatican.

Caesar has had quite an amazing effect on the world - and I really mean the whole world. He is indirectly responsible for the creation of the Roman Empire - after his murder by Brutus (et tu, Brute?), the then Roman Republic erupted in a civil war that was won by Caesar's three followers: Marc Antony, Lepidus and Caesar's great nephew and adpoted son Octavian. A fight between Marc Antony and Octavian prompted a second civil war, and when Octavian won, he became Rome's first emperor and changed his name to Caesar Augustus, in honor of his adopted father. Two years after Julius' death, Rome declared him to be a god.

The next few Roman emperors also took on the name Caesar because they were his relations, part of the Julio-Claudian family line. When Nero, the last Julio-Claudian emperor died, Roman emperors began to use the name Caesar as a title rather than as a family designation. The word "Caesar," then, began to mean a great leader - Russian Tsars, German Kaisers, Islamic Qaysars and US Intelligence czars all derive their names from Caesar. And the name "Julius" is where we get the word July, the month Caesar was born.

Wish you could feel closer to Caesar? According to a number of scholars, every breath we take contains at least one air particle that came from Caesar's last breath. Naturally you could say the same thing about just about everyone - we're probably breathing part of Abe Lincoln's last breath, Genghis Khan's last breath, King Henry VIII's last breath... but for some reason high school and college chem teachers like to talk about Caesar's. If you're nutty and really want to try to understand the math, visit http://www.npr.org/.

Still Life, by Jan Davidsz de Heem. Oil on canvas, 1653.

I'm veering off the beaten path today to showcase a work by Jan Davidsz de Heem, a man who I believe is one of the greatest still-life masters. (Naturally, he's Dutch, because I think only Dutch and Flemish painters had the patience to paint stuff like this. I suppose you could also credit it to the whole Northern Renaissance tradition, stained glass and manuscript illumination and all that, but I'm sticking with the patience theory.) De Heem's most famous paintings are of flowers, but I just can't get over his fruit. I mean, look at it. Look at it! Harder! The man is fantastic! It's a shame so little contemporary art displays this kind of technical skill.

Unfortunately, de Heem didn't date many of his works - he only dated the very best, which cracks me up since they're all fantastic. They also all suffer from obvious name syndrome: Still Life with Fruit and Flowers, Still Life with Flowers, Still Life with Fruit, Still Life with Bird's Nest, etc.

According to the Web Gallery of Art (see links in the column on the right), this still life "depicts white and blue grapes, peaches, cherries, a fig, an ear of wheat, oak leaf and acorns, a sweet chestnut, filbert nuts, hawk-weed, a medlar, a garden tiger moth, together with borage, and other flowers, all against a decorative sculpted background with a scorpion." 50 points to whomever can find and identify all of those. Frankly, I have a hard time taking my eyes off the fruit.

Another thing I like about de Heem is that, unlike other still-life artists, he doesn't paint dead animals. Well, besides lobster and the occasional clam, but I don't really see seafood as being alive in the first place.

Mona Lisa, by Leonardo da Vinci. Oil on poplar wood, 1503-1507.

That's right, the Mona Lisa. I know, this painting has been battered into our brains ever since we were kids. And thanks to its fame, it's been used in so many horrible ways. It's in a really bad Crest commercial, it was the focus of that horrible movie Mona Lisa Smile... oh Leonardo, how I weep for you.

The name Mona Lisa actually comes from Georgio Vasari, who thought the subject of the portrait was a woman named Lisa. ("Mona" means "my lady," or "madam.") Nowadays there's a big debate over just who the woman in the painting is, but frankly, who gives a crap? It'll look the same no matter who is sitting in it. Why aren't people discussing more important things, like why the woman doesn't have eyebrows? Does this bug anyone else? I've had the urge to take her into Photoshop and add some.

What's really interesting about the Mona Lisa is her history. Apart from the Louvre, Lisa has hung in the Palace of Versailles and in Emperor Napoleon's bedroom. She was really made famous by two things: the love symbolists and Dada artists had for her, and her theft from the Louvre in 1911. She was stolen by Louvre employee Vincenzo Peruggia, who commissioned a French art forger to make copies of her that could then be sold as originals on the black market. (Now that's a genius idea - I'll give credit where credit is due.) Peruggia kept her in his apartment for two years, then was caught when he tried to sell her to an art dealer in Florence.

Lisa's gone through some hard times while hanging in the Louvre as well. In 1956, the lower portion of the painting was doused with acid, and only a few months later someone came in and threw a rock at it. The Mona Lisa now sits in her own room in the museum, protected by unbreakable, bullet proof, non-reflective glass - just in case someone makes it into the Louvre with a gun.

For you Da Vinci Code fans, don't expect to see the real Mona Lisa in the movie - all of those bright movie lights would have done a number on her. Ron Howard had to make do with a fake, although he did get to shoot the scene in the actual Louvre.

On a final note, back in 1997 the radio show "This American Life" sent someone into the Louvre with a cell phone to report on what people were talking about as they saw the painting. The topics of choice? Why the Mona Lisa is so expensive, and how people were tired and wanted to go home. One woman said, "I saw a film once that if you go really close to the painting, she doesn't look that good at all." To hear the whole exchange, which is about five minutes long, visit www.thislife.org and listen to episode 73, "Blame it on Art."

Death Mask of Tutankhamun. Gold inlaid with lapis, turquoise, and carnelian, ca 1323 BC.

King Tutankhamun, or Tut for those of you who are lazy, is probably today's most well-known pharaoh, thanks to Egyptologist Howard Carter. In 1922, Carter discovered Tut's tomb and fascinated the world with the treasures found inside.

Ironically, Tutankhamen really didn't do much to deserve to be famous - he began ruling when he was 9 years old, and died at 19 from gangrene. (Recent studies of Tut's corpse have shown that he did not have his head bashed in, as some had formerly believed. Too bad.) As a pharaoh, he was pretty small potatoes, and didn't get as elaborate a burial as other pharaohs did. Rulers like Ramses II were probably buried with the really nice stuff, but honestly, who's going to watch a bunch of treasure get buried in the sand and not want to dig it up? Grave robbers did find Tut's tomb, and looted it, but they overlooked a door that opened into the area where the real bling, and the coffin, were kept.

And so, the tomb remained hidden for another 3000 years until modern-day grave robber Howard Carter found it. The story goes that Carter was so excited when he saw Tut's death mask that he ripped it off of the body, taking a good chunk of Tut's face with it. Now that's responsible archaeology.

The death mask of Tutankhamun is currently touring the U.S. in an exhibition called "Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs." When "Tutankhamun" was in LA, LACMA decided to stay open 24/7 to accommodate for demand. (When I made it to LACMA about a month later, I ran into a few bitter museum staff members.) The exhibition will be in Fort Lauderdale, Florida until April 23rd, (why Fort Lauderdale, of all places??) and will then move on to Chicago, Philadelphia and London. If you're planning on seeing it, make sure to get your tickets in advance. For more info, visit www.kingtut.org.