If you’re like me, you have a bemused family that doesn’t really know what you’re doing but wants to be supportive. This support can take the form of accompanying you to museums and galleries while travelling or at home. Eventually, despite their best efforts, they get bored and fail to hide their disinterest in seeing another statue, another mosaic, or another religious painting. I even get a bit exhausted from the religious paintings after a while. But I have strategies to keep my family engaged with the artwork and make the trip more interesting for them.
Giorgio Schiavone detail of Madonna with Baby Jesus, c. 1450-1490 Oil on panel Correr Museum
1. Ugliest baby wins Art History is filled with babies that look utterly terrifying. I don’t like small children at the best of times but some of these children are reminiscent of the baby crawling on the ceiling in Trainspotting. So, the aim is to capture the souls of these evil critters in a photograph and then compare later to see who found the ugliest one. N.B. You can only photograph the babies in the artwork, it’s against the rules to photograph any particularly ugly children that happen to be in the museum or gallery that day.
I took this photo at the State Archive in Venice, but I don’t know its history.
2. Funny Lions I’m currently undertaking a research trip in Venice so the place abounds in lions. However, they are a recurrent theme in art so there won’t be any issues with your family or friends finding some odd-looking creatures. In this category, wonky cats and leopards are also acceptable.
Vittore Carpaccio Saint Peter Martyr, c. 1490 Oil on panel Correr Museum
3. Best Death This is a fun one if you have a dark sense of humour. I am particularly fond of paintings of St Peter where he has a huge blade stuck in his head but only looks mildly annoyed. Find and photograph the best death (or miracle) of a Saint depicted in the artwork.
Guido Reni The Martyrdom of Saint Sebastian, 1616 Oil on canvas Boston Athenaeum
4. Sexy Saint Sebastians This is the adults-only challenge. It’s a bit of a cliche that St Sebastian is generally depicted as hot and with the cloth covering his privates just about to slip off – much like Athena’s clothing in Hellenistic sculpture. So, to keep your museum-going family entertained, send them to find the hottest St Sebastian that they can among the plethora that inhabit any gallery with an okay-ish collection of Renaissance art. For bonus points, you can try to identify one of the lesser St Sebastians. The Correr Museum has one, you can find it for yourself.
There you go, four strategies (or missions) that you can keep your friends and family busy at the museum instead of asking when we are leaving, how long are you going to look at that one artwork, or don’t all those busts look the same?
When I packed my bags to head to Athens for a research trip, I was excited to visit the Acropolis and as many museums as I could manage. My aim was to view in-situ the artefacts that I examine in my PhD thesis, but I was unaware of the many fascinating archaeological finds that I’d come across in the most unexpected places.
My main way of getting around was the Athenian metro service, and while heading to the platforms I noticed that each station I entered contained museum-like exhibitions. One day I got a full-day metro pass just so that I could properly check out some of the metro exhibitions, and it ended up being a highlight of my trip. I visited five stations, saw actual artefacts and archaeological remains, and was blown away by the innovative curatorial practices for displaying artefacts outside of museum walls. A twenty-four-hour ticket costs under five euros and provides access to sixty-six different stations, making it possible for almost anyone to take themselves on a self-guided tour of the local archaeology of Athens. I did just that, and these were some of my favourite finds …
Map of the Athenian metro, highlighting the stations I visited in a 24-hour period. Original source: urbanrail.net.
Evangelismos Station
I began my private tour of the Athenian metro at my local station, Evangelismos. I was excited to learn more about an area that I’d passed so many times and was pleased to find a plaque explaining what was excavated during the construction of the metro. An interesting find is the expansive water-supply system dating to the sixth century BCE. You can see a large segment of on the clay pipes preserved behind a clear barrier, and the plaque on the wall contains photos from the archaeological excavation.
A clay pipe unearthed during construction of the Evangelismos metro station. Photo: Connie Skibinski.
The excavation also unearthed a cemetery, and several of the grave goods discovered there are on display inside the metro station. This section brings the feeling of a traditional museum experience right into your daily life – each artefact is given a number and a corresponding description of the object and its date. Being able to view these artefacts so close to the site where they were excavated brings the past to life in a very special way.
Various vessels excavated from a cemetery in Evangelismos, on display at the metro station. Photo: Connie Skibinski.
Syntagma Station
The Syntagma metro station boasts an impressive number of archaeological finds and was the one that I spent the most time exploring. I was taken aback by the size of the archaeological site around the Eridanos riverbed. The site includes the road to Mesogaia, a cistern from the Ottoman period, a fourth century BC grave containing a skeleton, and an Early Christian grave. Walking past this site I felt like I was walking in the footsteps of the ancient, and it was a humbling experience.
The archaeological site at the Syntagma metro station. Photo: Connie Skibinski.
Right next to the site is the Syntagma Metro Station Archaeological Collection, where a wide range of excavated artefacts are displayed in well-lit glass cabinets that you can walk around, viewing the objects from all angles. It was bizarre to see the ancient artefacts situated right inside the metro – a really interesting clash of old and new. I liked how detailed the descriptions of objects were. For example, a display of spindle whorls contained written descriptions as well as an illustration showing the set up of an ancient loom. This stood out to me the most because I took a loom weaving workshop earlier in my trip, so I could really picture how the objects would have been used in their time.
Artefacts on display in the Syntagma metro. Photo: Connie Skibinski.
Of all the metro stations I visited, this one was the busiest, with many families and individuals taking the time to stop and appreciate the artefacts. It was really nice to see so much interest among the community.
Akropoli Station
As you can guess from the name, Akropoli is the closest metro station to the Athenian acropolis. While the acropolis is home to many ancient sites, it is best known as the site of the Parthenon, the temple of Athena constructed under Pericles in the fifth century BCE.
When you step off the metro, you can see a true-to-size replica of the Parthenon’s East pediment, depicting the birth of the patron goddess Athena, which is on display at the Acropolis Museum. As the plaque on the wall explains, the pieces exhibited at the metro are casts of the original Parthenon sculptures. It’s easy to be overwhelmed by the size and scale of the sculptures when you see them so close, and it’s striking to see such a famous mythological scene unfold as you go about your day-to-day life.
Replica of the Parthenon East pediment at Akropoli metro. Photo: Connie Skibinski.
There’s something special about seeing these sculptures as you’re on the way to the Parthenon and the museum. I took my time to admire the intricate details of the sculpting and to understand the narrative of the scene with the help of the plaque’s identification of individual figures. I then viewed this same scene in the Acropolis Museum where the pediment is displayed among the Parthenon metopes, and when I finally viewed the Parthenon itself I was able to identify the key figures at the very top of the Eastern end. I enjoyed being able to interact with the artefacts on both a zoomed-in and big-picture level.
Monastiraki Station
During the construction of the Monastiraki metro, excavations uncovered remains of settlements around the riverbed of Eridanos dating from the eighth century BCE to the nineteenth century CE. Sectioned off for preservation, you can clearly see the archaeological remains right in front of your eyes. It was amazing to see such a large archaeological site inside a train station and I was grateful for the diagrams on the wall that helped me make sense of the structures I was seeing.
View of the Monastiraki excavations from the metro. Photo: Connie Skibinski.
Integrated within the excavation is a clearly labelled map pinpointing the stoa wall and drain as well as buildings dating to the Classical, Roman and early Christian periods. Next to this are photographs of various artefacts uncovered during the excavation, including vases, coins and lamps. These descriptions helped me understand and appreciate the expansive history of settlement at the site, which I would otherwise not be aware of, and seeing the structures right in front of me brought the past to life.
Labelled map and illustrations explaining the archaeological excavation. Photo: Connie Skibinski.
Kerameikos Station
Inside Kerameikos station you can’t miss the large-scale installation artwork titled ‘Stratifications – Energy Images’, created by artist Yiannis Bouteas who studied at the Athens School of Fine Arts. His artworks are characterised by his use of natural and artificial light, and the Kerameikos installation features red neon lights with bright images inspired by ancient statues.
Yiannis Bouteas’ ‘Stratifications – Energy Images’ at the Kerameikos metro station. Photo: Connie Skibinski.
Commissioned specifically for the station, it’s a fitting artwork to represent the nearby archaeological site – the ancient cemetery of Kerameikos, which is renowned for its intact large-scale sculptures used as grave-markers. I admired how this artwork blended ancient and modern art forms while paying homage to the ancient Athenian tradition of sculpting.
Final Thoughts
My Athens trip reinforced my understanding as a Classical Reception scholar that history is all around us and that the past and the present are tightly woven together, sometimes in surprising and unexpected ways. While I’ll always love visiting traditional museum spaces, there’s something enlightening and deeply moving about coming across hidden gems outside the four walls of the museum.
