DIANA GUBER

         The world of my childhood was steeped in what had previously been an ancient Greek colony, known as Bosporus Panticapeum, which is more than 2,600 years old. The ruins of Panticapaeum were located on top of the Mithridates Mountain situated…

         There is always a powerful story standing behind each archaeological object, and in the history of Ukrainian archaeology, it is one of the most famous finds — the Scythian Pectoral— that is described as “a symphony and a story in…

          Before recent scholarly revisions of the history of art in terms of forgotten artists, French artist Jean Béraud (1849-1935) was considered to be an elegant yet limited painter of modern Parisian life and thus ignored as insignificant in the canon…

“Whatever is imagined must exist somewhere in the universe… Which [life] is real, which is imaginary, depends upon the position of the observer.”–- J.B. Priestley, The Thirty First of June, 1957. 

        Neuroscience has made incredible strides, helping us realize how…

        Art museums have long been compared to monumental ceremonial structures such as Renaissance palaces or Greek or Roman temples due to an abiding tradition of museums appropriating architectural forms from monuments of the past. From the eighteenth through the mid-twentieth…

       According to recent scholarship, Edgar Degas’s pictures of ballet dancers as well as of bathing or nude women are situated between voyeurism and misogyny. It has been observed among art historians that Degas’s ballerinas are not necessarily pretty. An especially…

        Chinese society is often viewed in terms of the three main religions of China: Confucianism, Taoism, and Buddhism, and although different in ideological influence, each has had a powerful effect on Chinese art. During the reign of the Han Dynasty…

        For many days, I have been absorbed completely with memories of the hauntingly beautiful city of Savannah, where I spent several seasons between the years of 2006 and 2008, when attending my art history courses at the Savannah College of…

        I have long been mesmerized by Salvador Dali’s conception of “The Madonna of Port Lligat,” where architecture, figures and objects are suspended, disintegrated, separated, as if the atomic bomb had exploded over the canvas. After seeing, for the first time…

        Nowadays, I am feeling much moved in spirit to study early music, learning songs in old European languages, such as Occitan or langue d’oc, Latin, and old northern French. When appropriating medieval songs into my own repertoire, I recognize the…

        Lately, I have written poetry in the style of medieval epic poets, such as laments of troubadours and trouvères, which I find remarkably intriguing. Among the medieval troubadours were many distinguished noblemen and women, like William IX of Aquitaine (1071–…

        Impressionism is usually characterized by a conscious attempt to break with the artistic tradition of naturalistic representation. I have learned, however, that the Impressionists were not irreverent of the art of the past, when visiting many years ago the exhibition…

        “The Kiss” by the Austrian painter Gustav Klimt (1862–1918) has long been a source of competing interpretations of the intended identities of the gracefully rendered man and woman captured in a timeless embrace. Some scholars have argued that the composition…

        Born in the southern Russia, the modern-day Ukraine, I have always honoured my heritage. Ukraine is a country of diverse ethnic and cultural traditions, many of which have roots in the times when the Kyiv Rus fell under the rule…

        I have long been fascinated by Kandinsky’s Compositions, demonstrating the complete abandonment of perspective in favour of colour and line – the only elements suggestive of pictorial depth, and it was the artist’s interest in ethnography that had subsequently led…

        In “Lamentation,” Giotto depicts the dead Christ in the arms of the Virgin Mary, both surrounded by grieving people. The two holy figures, however, are rendered with “the scale being in all respects human,” and emphasized through the other figures…

        “Meeting at the Golden Gate” demonstrates the story of both Virgin Mary’s parents, Anna and Joachim, in which the elderly husband and wife embrace and kiss each other at the Golden Gate in Jerusalem, when learning separately from angels that…

        “Joachim Takes Refuge in the Wilderness” tells the story of the Virgin Mary’s father, Joachim, which takes place at the time before Mary’s birth. The old Joachim is forced to leave the temple due to his inability to produce a…

        Picasso was a pioneer in the appreciation of African art for its formal qualities. The Spanish artist had turned to various sources for inspiration, notably to Cezanne and Iberian (pre-Roman Spanish) sculpture, before the arts of Sub-Saharan Africa opened his…

        We learn the past in an attempt to better understand the present, and it is possible because time repeats itself in our minds. In our intellectual and spiritual pursuits, we are the grandchildren of the Romans and the great grandchildren…

        In Ancient Rome,  the priestesses of Vesta occupied a unique position in society because the Vestal was a woman who belonged to herself. The most important task of the Vestal Virgin was to keep the city's sacred flame, and if…

       Why pearls? It is the oldest known gem, and for centuries it was considered the most valuable, known in antiquity as “the gem of queens and the queen of gems.” The oldest known pearl known as “the Abu Dhabi Pearl,”…