My paintings of the Pleiades

These are my paintings of the Pleiades, the seven sisters, followers of the goddess Artemis

Sappho, Artemis and the Pleiades, oil on canvas paiting

lonely Sappho, the moon and the Pleiades, oil on canvas painting

The pleiades, oil painting

Abanthis and Gongyla

smacap_Bright

smacap_Bright

These are my drawings of Abanthis playing lyre for Gongyla, the girl she was in love with. A poem written by Sappho has inspired me to draw this.

This is the poem

Please Abanthis your Sappho calls you:
Won’t you take your Lydian lyre and play
Another song to Gongyla while desire still
flutters your heart-strings

for that girl, that beautiful girl: her dresses
clinging makes you shake when you see it, and i’m
happy for the goddess herself once blamed me
Our Lady of Cyprus

The legend of the Milky Way, oil on glass painting

This is my oil on glass painting of Hera, Hera’s milk, what the greeks believed it was the Milky way and baby boy Heracles. I’ve made this painting yesterday

Kore or a girl from the ancient Greece

Kore, pencil drawing of a young girl from the ancient Greece

 

This is a pencil drawing I’ve made starting from a Kore statue. These statues  represented young girls, maybe teenagers, maidens (in Greek language kore means maiden). Some say the statues were representations of the goddess Persephone also called Kore while others thing they were just girls that lived by that time in Greece and inspired the sculptors.

From Sappho and the ancient Greek civilization to the actual orthodox Greece

Sappho the poet of Lesbos and Gongyla, painting

This is my painting of the poet Sappho and Gongyla one of her muses. Looking at this painting and thinking about Sappho and her poetry that has been lost and the actual Greek culture one idea comes to my mind. Thee Greeks that lived by her time were more open minded and civilized than those who live now and CHRISTIANITY is responsible for this. The Christians have destroyed the poems of Sappho be cause they were wrote by a bisexual(?) woman. I thing the main reason they did this was Sappho’s gender. Sappho was a woman and they, just like the Muslims, considered women are inferior and dirty.  The abrahamic religions such as Christianity ans Islam promote misogyny, discrimination and hate against LGBT people while they are talking about love and wisdom at the same time.

Sappho and Gongyla, one of her muses, oil on canvas painting

 

I don’t knw if Sappho was bisexual (She couldn’t be 100% lesbian in the actual meaning of the word be cause she was married to a man, she had a daughter and she wrote love poems for men too, not only poems dedicated to young girls) but one thing is clear: Sappho was a  feminist. Sappho was a promoter of the feminine values, such as beauty, aesthetic sense, softness etc. Sappho was teaching young girls to be more feminine, to be proud of their femininity and love themselves for what they are.  I don’t know if the legends about the homosexuality of the girls who came to the Isle of Lesbos to become the followers of Sappho were real but the Isle of Lesbos was one of the places where women had more rights than in other places where they had no right to decide, not even about their own life, they were forced into marriage, raped and used only for giving birth to children.  That’s what Christians hated, the fact a woman can do something better than a man and encourage young girls to rise their heads and say no to the male domination.  That’s why they destroyed her poems and for the same reason they killed the scientist Hypatia, who was a great mathematician interested in astronomy too. The Christians made the Greek people  misogynous, homophobic and very intolerant. In the ancient Greece homosexuality was not punished and gay and lesbian people could live normal lives but now the church intrigues to hate against them while many of  their own monks in the Athos mountain (where the access of women is forbidden)  are gay and hide this and judge others for this.

The Christianity has pulled Greek civilization backwards and unfortunately the Greek orthodox church is still strong keeping the nation from progress. I thing this has to do with the European recession too  be cause Romania and Greece, two orthodox were worst hit by the economical crisis. A lot of money go to the orthodox church making it stronger and stronger and affecting the country’s economy. I know the situation in Romania that is similar to Greece. We have no money for the health system and for education but we have for cathedrals and priests get more money than doctors and teachers. We have no money for research but we have for church. This brings Romania and Greece closer to Islamic countries  like Iran and Afganistan, countries ruled by religion and not by rational principles and far away from the civilized world. There are so many similarities between orthodoxy and Islam be cause these religions have a common origin.

I don’t know why the orthodox church has a strong influence in the eastern Europe even now in the 21 th century, when science has proved the bible is just a mixture of stupid texts and God doesn’t exist.

Sappho, oil on canvas painting

Sappho and Gongyla, one of her muses, a girl she wrote a poem for, oil on canvas painting

The two faces of Persephone

The two faces of Persephone oil on canvas painting

 

This is my painting of the daughter of Demeter with her two faces, Kore, the maiden aspect of the goddess the goddess of spring, the bright side and persephone, the queen of the underworld, the wife of Hades, the dark side

Sappho and the girl with the violet tiara, the girl she wrote the poem “No word” for

This is my color pencil drawing of Sappho and the girls she wrote the poem “No word” for, a very sad poem about a girl who has to leave the island and Sappho unwillingly This is what happened to many women in the past. They were forced to marry men who they didn’t love and leave the true love behind. Their life was so painful and sad be cause they didn’t have the freedom and the right to choose the person to spend their life with. This happened in Romania too in the past. There is a waterfall in our country where a young bride committed suicide be cause she had to marry a man she didn’t love and there was nothing she could do.

This is the poem I am talking about

 

I have had not one word from her
Frankly I wish I were dead.
When she left, she wept
a great deal; she said to
me, “This parting must be
endured, Sappho. I go unwillingly.”
I said, “Go, and be happy
but remember (you know
well) whom you leave shackled by love
“If you forget me, think
of our gifts to Aphrodite
and all the loveliness that we shared
“all the violet tiaras,
braided rosebuds, dill and
crocus twined around your young neck
“myrrh poured on your head
and on soft mats girls with
all that they most wished for beside them
“while no voices chanted
choruses without ours,
no woodlot bloomed in spring without song…”

New drawing of Sappho and Gongyla

This is my newest pen drawing of the poet Sappho and Gongyla, one of her girlfriends.

This is the poem Sappho wrote for Gongyla, the poem that inspired me.

Please

Come back to me, Gongyla, here tonight,
You, my rose, with your Lydian lyre.
There hovers forever around you delight:
A beauty desired.

Even your garment plunders my eyes.
I am enchanted: I who once
Complained to the Cyprus-born goddess,
Whom I now beseech

Never to let this lose me grace
But rather bring you back to me:
Amongst all mortal women the one
I most wish to see.

A new drawing of the goddess Athena

This is a drawing of the goddess Athena I’ve made yesterday. This is the way I imagine her: a strong independent woman caring the flame of wisdom