I have a fascination with ancient Greece and its history. It frequently intersects my art and poetry.
My oldest daughter Lizzie has a cool ancient history class on Outschool. I think culture is important. I also teach the kids ancient history myself. They receive it well.
Free Ancient Greece Learning Resources
Free document. Ancient Greece Learning Ideas with images and 49 ideas for learning about Greek history and ancient Greek culture. Download yours through this link:
Read our blog as we have shared ancient Greek inspired poetry, lesson plans, mythology, art, paper dolls, and more.
Follow us as I will be creating more materials based on these stunning images. I created this ebook to use it in my daughter’s home education, so you will see much more on this topic.
I didn’t want to share my Athena paper doll because the fashion illustration was historically inaccurate. It was silly, so here it is in its imperfect glory.
Athena paper doll by Eve
Minerva was Athena in Rome
Atenea is Spanish
Atena in Italian
Since Athena’s name is extremely ancient, the sound of the letter Eta (uppercase Η, lowercase η) has changed in the thousands of years of Athena’s reach. This is why she has been Athena, Athene. I have to look more into this because I also saw her name spelled with an Alpha at the end, which corresponds to our modern Athena.
This dress turned out wrong, attempted a tied look on the waist, but the skirt should be pleated and fall at her sides.
Now that I have shown you my defective work, I will have to finish it. I have a second page where I stopped. It has a shield and another dress that also made me feel I had done a poor job.
Ancient Greek fashion
The ancient Greeks didn’t have sewing machines. They used fabrics and tied them into dresses.
Even in Rome, dresses called Stolas in Latin (the equivalent of togas for males) were very large tied fabrics.
We loved learning about Athena, and we drew lots of Athena images. I did not share with you, my Athena paper doll. I have a bad excuse. It was imperfect… I get it, it is not a good trait to teach my daughters, to be a perfectionist, so, I will show you on my next post. I will re-create my Athena paper doll until it is perfect. Those are opposing statements, but I will show you the imperfect job, then I will recreate and perfect.
But this is not about me, or my perfectionism.
This is about Lilli.
I sent Lilli to the computer to work on her Duolingo lesson. But I got distracted by a funny picture of one of the Duolingo characters “dressed” as the Venus of Boticelli. I had been meaning to show Lilli because of how funny it looks and the fact that Lilli knows about Venus and that painting (I am a bit obsessed with the goddess).
Since we learned about Athena, the next goddess we were going to learn about was Aphrodite. Of course, Venus is the Roman name for Aphrodite. Lilli likes Aphrodite even more than Athena, she said. I realized that we must not forget Artemis….
I started with Athena on purpose. I intended to initiate the ancient goddess club with the wise one. Obviously.
About Lilli’s Boticelli inspired Venus:
I was making fun of this hilarious Venus inspired character when I started talking to Lilli of the famous painting which she already knows and considers sus(picious), because, well, Venus is undressed in the painting and covering up with her fabulous hair, just like this hilarious character is covering up with his beard.
The painting is of her birth. According to myth, she was born fully grown like Athena, with one difference, Athena was born in full armor, Venus, was born fully grown and without clothes. Int he very gorgeous Boticelli painting, Venus is being offered a gorgeous cloth to cover herself up.
Duolingo’s Oscar as Venus (Inspired by the famous Boticelli painting)
Between one joke and the next, we were looking up the famous Boticelli picture. We saw that there were countless pictures of it for sale and Lilli was amazed at how expensive they were, and I told her that is really nothing for a copy of one of the most famous paintings in the world. One of the most reproduced paintings ever.
I realized that the original painting is so old that it precedes copyright laws and thus it is completely free to be copied and used in any way and even to sell. I immediately told Lilli that she should draw her, not thinking anything of it. I opened Duolingo and went to work with Lizzie on her story, I will write about that story as soon as she is ready, but it is a marvelous project.
While I was sitting with Lizzie at her computer, Lilli calls me, and she shows me this incredible Venus art! I was speechless.
Venus of Boticelli by Lilli
Lilli dressed her Venus! That was sweet. Something about her wearing rags, though, she said since the Greeks tied their clothes. But I am not certain why she dressed Venus in rags but for a child, it is much better than in her birth suit. So, I take her creativity, and I loved it.
I am simply in love with that hair, and you bet I will spend the better of the next 5 years drawing my Venus of Boticelli. That was a joke….
Boticelli and his birth of Venus painting
Take advantage and learn some art history through the links below:
(How are the kids’ language learning going? Lizzie did her first ever Duolingo class today, that was a huge success, and she noticed what she didn’t know, of course, but I noticed how much she actually knew. Perspectives.). Lilli and Vivi both do Duolingo Spanish. I have to remind them, but they understand so much. I am getting Alex (4) to understand what it means that other language Spanish, huh, he doesn’t fully get it yet, but he likes papas fritas (fried potatoes)….
Meanwhile, I am learning three languages. I will have to go back to the drawing board with my initiative for teaching the children languages. However, the children have learned Spanish, they simply are not language “nerds” like me. The thing is I love language learning. They love art and games. To me language is art and fun.
NOTE: I used the word nerd full of love and with no judgement. I think language nerds are some of the coolest people ever. Perspectives.
You must be logged in to post a comment.