An Analysis of Fifty Days at Iliam

An Analysis of Fifty Days at Iliam
By Lily Nesvold

Fusing ancient storytelling and modern art, Fifty Days at Iliam is a ten-part canvas painting that uses a mixture of oil, crayon, and graphite. Based on Alexander Pope’s translation of Homer’s Iliad, it is permanently on display at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. This unique installation recalls a story that everyone knows, classicists and non-classicists alike, and its expression packs so much meaning into so few brushstrokes.

Seeing Bearden’s “Circe”

Seeing Bearden’s “Circe”
By Margaret Dunn

This visual essay was created for Race & Ethnicity in the Ancient World, a course taught by Professor Kate Meng Brassel. The class sought to uncover how ancient peoples perceived both themselves and others in regard to ethnic identity, and how those perceptions were used or appropriated in the modern era. This piece studies the work of Romare Bearden, the esteemed collagist known for…