The poet Sappho and her lyre from Lydia

This is my newest painting of the poet Sappho from the isle of Lesbos and her magic lyre from Lydia (the actual Turkey)

My acrylics on canvas painting of Abanthis playing lyre for Gongyla

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

This poem written by Sappho has inspired me to make some pencil drawings and the painting above

You can watch me painting in the video below

A talented girl from Sappho's thaisos playing lyre in the sunset

Not one girl, I think, will ever look at the sunlight
of another  time who has such talent as this one does

This words written by Sappho have inspired me to make a painting of a young girl playing lyre while she is watching the sunset

Terpsichore, the muse of dance and choral poetry

This painting about Terpsichore, the muse of dance and choral poetry is on display on the walls of the Gloria Jean's Coffees caffee in Bucharest's old town

Dedication of Nikandre or my view of an ancient kore

The dedication of Nikandre kore statue has inspired me to make this pencil drawing. The statue was a represantation of the goddess Artemis

The poets Corinna Erinna and Sappho coffee painting

The poets Corinna Erinna and Sappho coffee painting

13.09.2017
19:11



Sappho was the best known female poet in the ancient Greece but not the only one.
By that time there was a culture of the feminine poetry and art and young women and girls were organized in groups  ruled by poets like Sappho were they were writing poems, they were singing in chorus, they were dancing.
Corinna from Tanagra, Boetia was a poet too. She wrote epic poems about the daughters of Minyas, Oedip and Orion and an invocation to  Therpsichore, the muse of dance and chorus. Like Sappho did, Corinna has ruled a group of young maidens.
Corinna has inspired the poet Ovid too and I'm proud to bear her name. The name Corina has her story behind it.
Erinna was one of Sappho's followers.
She has written Distaff, a poem about her childhood friend Baucis who has died shortly after the wedding. Was marriage something unwanted  for Baucis? Erinna died shortly after she has written the poem. She was just 19.
This is my coffee painting of Corinna, Erinna and Sappho.

Sappho's rose kissed by Aphrodite's red lips

Sappho's rose kissed by Aphrodite's red lips

23.01.2017
0:17


Sappho's poem "The rose" has inspired me to make this painting of Aphrodite kissing 💋 the king of flowers.
You can read the poem below.

If Zeus1 chose us a King of the flowers in his mirth,

He would call to the rose and would royally crown it,

For the rose, ho, the rose! is the grace of the earth,

Is the light of the plants that are growing upon it.

For the rose, ho, the rose! is the eye of the flowers,

Is the blush of the meadows that feel themselves fair,--

Is the lightning of beauty, that strikes through the bowers

On pale lovers who sit in the glow unaware.

Ho, the rose breathes of love! ho, the rose, lifts the cup

To the red lips of Cypris10 invoked for a guest!

Ho, the rose, having curled its sweet leaves for the world,

Takes delight in the motion its petals keep up,

As they laugh to the Wind as it laughs from the west.

Athena parthenos

This is my drawingof the goddess Athena. My source of inspiration is the statue of Athena in the Parthenon that has been destroyed by the christians. This winter I visited the Parthenon, the ancient temple of Athena

Me and the Parthenon

Mnasidica missing Atthis and Sappho

This is my painting of Mnasidica, one of the followers of Sappho.

I've made this painting being inspired by the poem Sappho has written about her being far away in Lydia(a place that belongs to Turkey today), still missing Atthis who was like a goddess to her and the life they shared in Sappho's thaissos,she can almost see the shadow of Atthis singing and dancing in her mind, she can almost hear the echo of her lyre and divine voce from the past.

Like many other young girls Mnasidica had to leave Sappho's feminity school  to get married and she got married to a rich man who had an important role in that society but even is she was shining like a diva among the lydian women, she was not happy and watching the sea with her sad eyes all she wanted was her desperate scream to be heard but Sappho And Atthis to were far, over the sea.

You can read Sappho's poem below

Atthis, our loved Mnasidica dweels at far-
off Sardis, but she often sends her thoughts
hither, thinking how once we used to love
in the days when she thought thee like a
glorious goddess, and loved thy song the
best. And now she shines among the dames
of Lydia as after sunset the rosy-fingered
moon beside the stars that are about her,
when she spreads her light o'er briny sea
and eke o'er flowery field, while the good
dew lies on the ground and the roses revive
and the dainty anthrysc and the honey-lotus
with all its blooms. And oftentime when
our beloved, wandering abroad, calls to mind
her gentle Atthis, the heart devours her
tender breast with the pain of longing; and
she cries aloud to us to come thither; and
what she says we know full well, thou and I,
for Night, the many-eared, calls it to us
across the dividing sea.

To Atthis, a poem written by Sappho and two ball point pen drawings

These drawings are about the sad story of a girl who had to leave Sappho's thaissos to marry a man who was living somewhere in Sardis. Even if she was shining among the Lydian women she was not happy. She was missing Atthis and the life they shared at Sappho's Thaissos.

To Atthis

Though in Sardis now,
she things of us constantly

and of the life we shared.
She saw you as a goddess
and above all your dancing gave her deep joy.

Now she shines among Lydian women like
the rose-fingered moon
rising after sundown, erasing all

stars around her, and pouring light equally
across the salt sea
and over densely flowered fields

lucent under dew. Her light spreads
on roses and tender thyme
and the blooming honey-lotus.

Often while she wanders she remem-
bers you, gentle Atthis,
and desire eats away at her heart

for us to come.

Sappho and the girl who had to leave the isle of Lesbos

Sappho and one of her muses, in the sad moment when the girl had to leave against her will, acrylics on canvas painting.
The poem below has inspired me

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...''

Sappho

Sappho's rose, oil on canvas painting

F Zeus chose us a King of the flowers in his mirth,

He would call to the rose, and would royally crown it;

For the rose, ho, the rose! is the grace of the earth,

Is the light of the plants that are growing upon it!

For the rose, ho, the rose! is the eye of the flowers,

Is the blush of the meadows that feel themselves fair,

Is the lightning of beauty that strikes through the bowers

On pale lovers that sit in the glow unaware.

Ho, the rose breathes of love! ho, the rose lifts the cup

To the red lips of Cypris invoked for a guest!

Ho, the rose having curled its sweet leaves for the world

Takes delight in the motion its petals keep up,

As they laugh to the wind as it laughs from the west.

This poem Sappho has wrote about the rose, the king of the flowers as she said has inspired me to make the oil on canvas painting above and the drawing below.

This is how I imagine Sappho, a beautiful woman with white soft skin and long dark hair, holding a rose in her hand, being inspired by the delicate beauty of the flower, an image of grace, beauty and femininity.

The portrait of the poet Sappho

The legend of the Milky Way

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

Sappho and Gongyla

This is my balpoint pen drawing of the poet Sappho and Gongyla, one of her girlfriends.
I have a tempera painting too.

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.

Sappho and the girl with the violet tiara, the muse of the poem “No word”

This is my 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...''

Sappho, coffee painting

This is my painting of Sappho and one of the girls who came to the isle of Lesbos to study poetry and arts. I've made this painting using only Lavazza coffee and sugar.

Sappho, pencil drawing

This is my pencil drawing of the poet Sappho and one of the girls on the Isle of Lesbos

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.

Sappho and the girl who left the island

This is my pen drawing of Sappho and one of the young girls who had to leave the island, a drawing inspired from Sappho’s poem No word.

Sappho – No word

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...''
Sappho