Dr Francesca Santoro
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phyllida.bsky.social
Dr Francesca Santoro
@phyllida.bsky.social
1.6K followers 770 following 3K posts
Greek & Roman history, politics, art history, literature. Music: Mahler, DSCH, opera, chamber music. Have lived in Rome & Amsterdam. Love languages, theatre, museums in general, Shakespeare, London, the House of Commons, Rowson cartoons, in particular.😊
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Reposted by Dr Francesca Santoro
simonewunderlich.bsky.social
'Verloren im Dunst' #FotoVorschlag
Auf der Festung Königstein
November 16, 2025 at 7:09 AM
Reposted by Dr Francesca Santoro
dickyfield.bsky.social
No longer #caturday but I thought BlueSky would like to see Sadie as a kitten. She is polydactyl and her feet were huge as a kitten. 💖
A calico kitten with polydactyl feet.
November 16, 2025 at 5:15 PM
Reposted by Dr Francesca Santoro
darren32359.bsky.social
November 16, 2025 at 11:28 AM
Reposted by Dr Francesca Santoro
annesmien.bsky.social
Watercolour painting of a cat called Barney! #cats #kittens #catsofbluesky #petportraits #art #painting #watercolours
November 15, 2025 at 2:50 PM
phyllida.bsky.social
Sheesh!🤔 I should have accompanied this thread with a disclaimer: The opinions of Richard III's ghosts in act V.3 are *not* shared by the poster, for whom Josephine Tey's "Daughter of Time"—pointing out all the holes in Holinshed's scenario—was required reading in History. 🙄 #ShakespeareSunday
phyllida.bsky.social Dr Francesca Santoro @phyllida.bsky.social · 12h
#ShakespeareSunday Richard III, 🧵 Theme: The Hollow Crown Plays @lightacandle.bsky.social @tonylarch.bsky.social @linda2.bsky.social @charlaynvonsolms.com @marshacoupe.bsky.social

Synopsis: On the eve of battle, Richard has a nightmare [that he's woken up in a car park😼]

The bard's words follow:
November 16, 2025 at 10:06 PM
Reposted by Dr Francesca Santoro
tribelaw.bsky.social
November 16, 2025 at 4:24 PM
Reposted by Dr Francesca Santoro
thetnholler.bsky.social
Wow.
November 16, 2025 at 4:30 AM
Reposted by Dr Francesca Santoro
jkz12769.bsky.social
One third of the country supported the January 6 2021 attempted take over the government & are the same ones who voted him back in. They are traitors in my book.
November 15, 2025 at 8:46 PM
Reposted by Dr Francesca Santoro
mdstamper.bsky.social
"Isabella (Young Woman with a Fan)" by Simon Maris (Dutch) - Oil on canvas / 1906 - Rijksmuseum (Amsterdam, Netherlands) #WomenInArt #art #artText #artwork #BlueskyArt #SimonMaris #Maris #Rijksmuseum #DutchArt #portrait #DutchArtist #AmsterdamArt #ArtOfTheDay #PortraitofaGirl #arte #GenrePainting
Painted in Maris’s Amsterdam studio around 1906, this portrait once circulated under vague or openly racist titles that treated its sitter as an anonymous type rather than an individual. Later research in the artist’s archive including letters, photographs, and notes revealed that Maris himself repeatedly wrote her name as “Isabella,” prompting the Rijksmuseum to restore that title and center her identity. A young Black girl of about twelve or thirteen sits turned slightly toward us in a deep, cushioned armchair with gilded armrests carved as goat heads. She has warm brown skin, dark eyes, and tight curls that spill from beneath an enormous white bonnet trimmed with soft pink-red flowers and gauzy ribbons. Her blue-green satin dress shimmers with quick, loose strokes, its bodice and sleeves edged in pale lace. She holds open a pale gold folding fan with her right hand as her left fingertips rest on the fan’s tassel. A slim bracelet circles left her wrist and a small ring glints on her finger. Behind her, a tall mirror catches the back of her bonnet and dress so we see her twice at once, while the surrounding studio of dark wood, patterned upholstery, and a glimpse of rug falls into a warm brown haze that makes her face, fan, and costume seem to almost glow. These days, Isabella is read as a carefully observed portrait of a particular Black girl, dressed in theatrical 19th-century European finery that both flatters and distances her. The fan, mirror, and stage-like chair remind us that she is posing in the world of a white Dutch portraitist celebrated for images of fashionable women and children, yet the painting also insists on her dignity and presence. In museum galleries and print reproductions, "Isabella" has become a touchstone in conversations about how Black girls were seen and often unnamed in European art, and how reclaiming a sitter’s name can shift an entire story.
November 14, 2025 at 12:01 AM
Reposted by Dr Francesca Santoro
mdstamper.bsky.social
“Les Fées (The Fairies)” by Madeleine Lemaire (French) - Oil on canvas / 1908 - Musées de Sens (France) #WomenInArt #WomensArt #WomanArtist #WomenArtists #MadeleineLemaire #Lemaire #MuseeDeSens #FairyArt #BelleEpoque #BlueskyArt #FrenchArt #art #artText #1900s #arte #FrenchArtist #WomenPaintingWomen
French artist Madeleine Lemaire titled the work “Les Fées” (or The Fairies) placing these figures somewhere between Belle Époque society portrait and dreamlike allegory. Painted around 1908, late in her career and shortly after she was awarded the Legion of Honor, the canvas shows how she carried her success as the “empress of roses” into more overtly fantastical scenes, trading garden backdrops for the charged atmosphere of an encounter between women. On this large, vertical oil painting, two light-skinned young women stand pressed together in the foreground, set against a dark, softly blurred backdrop. The 60 x 42 in. canvas is almost human scale, so their bodies feel “close” to us. A blonde figure turns three-quarters toward us, shoulders bare above a low, off-the-shoulder gown made of pale, shimmering fabric gathered closely around her bodice. Her hands a crossed loosely in front of her, as if she is pausing between gestures. Just behind her, a brunette companion leans in, draping her arms along the blonde’s shoulders and looking outward with a small, knowing smile. Both women wear delicate ornaments in their hair and gauzy wraps that fall in long, translucent folds down their backs, suggesting fairy wings without depicting them literally. The space around them dissolves into loose strokes and soft glows rather than a detailed room or landscape, so our attention stays on the closeness of their bodies plus the tilt of heads, the touch of hands, and the shared, intimate pose. Lemaire often painted a brunette clinging to a blonde, and here that pattern invites queer and feminist interpretations as the scene can be read as tender friendship, tipsy confidantes at the end of a ball, or a quietly romantic embrace that slips past polite norms by hiding in the guise of fairies. The painting helps expand Lemaire’s legacy beyond floral still lifes to include images that resist simple, cisheteronormative stories about desire, companionship, and women’s presence.
November 14, 2025 at 7:24 AM
Reposted by Dr Francesca Santoro
mdstamper.bsky.social
"Sulla panchina al Bois (On the Bench at the Bois)" by Giovanni Boldini (Italian) – Oil on panel / 1872 – Palazzo Blu (Pisa, Italy) #WomenInArt #GiovanniBoldini #Boldini #PalazzoBlu #BelleEpoque #art #artText #artwork #BlueskyArt #PortraitofaWoman #arte #ItalianArtist #GenrePainting #BelleÉpoque
Italian artist Giovanni Boldini painted this work in 1872, shortly after moving to Paris, at a time when the city was undergoing rapid transformation and the era known as the Belle Époque was beginning to take shape. A young white woman sits slightly turned on a green slatted park bench, framed tightly in a vertical view. Her brown hair is swept into a soft chignon, topped with a small hat trimmed with feathers or flowers. She wears a lustrous dark dress that pools into heavy folds, its sheen catching the light against frothy white cuffs and a pale blue ruffle at her throat. Her right hand rises to her lips in a half-thoughtful gesture, while her left arm wraps around a pink bundle like a shawl or bouquet resting in her lap. Beside her, a large straw basket tilts on the bench, its woven ribs echoing the bench’s rhythm. Behind her, dense shrubs, climbing greenery, and a scattering of red blossoms dissolve into quick strokes, while a pale sky glows above, turning the chic Bois de Boulogne into a softly blurred, rustling backdrop for this moment of pause. Boldini paints this woman at rest yet mentally in motion, catching her in that suspended instant when the mind wanders and the body forgets to pose. Her hand at her mouth, the turned-away gaze and slightly tense shoulders hint at shyness or worry, even as her fashionable dress and carefully arranged hair mark her as a participant in modern urban leisure. The public park evoked by the title “Bois” becomes a stage where middle-class women can stroll, sit and be seen. Brushwork quickens in the foliage and gravel path, echoing Impressionist experiments around him, while the figure remains sharply defined, a living portrait anchored in the middle of the scene. The panel fuses genre scene and society portrait, turning this unidentified sitter into one of the many anonymous, stylish women who animated the new Belle Époque city and claimed space and visibility within the rapidly changing city around them.
November 14, 2025 at 10:44 PM
Reposted by Dr Francesca Santoro
mdstamper.bsky.social
Ｔ嬢の像 (Portrait of Miss T) by 小磯良平 / Ryohei Koiso (Japanese) - Oil on canvas / 1926 - Hyogo Prefectural Museum of Art (Kobe, Japan) #WomenInArt #art #artText #artwork #RyoheiKoiso #小磯良平 #Koiso #HyogoPrefecturalMuseumOfArt #BlueskyArt #portraitpainting #JapaneseArt #kimono #兵庫県立美術館 #洋画 #JapaneseArtist
A young Japanese woman sits slightly turned in a broad upholstered armchair, seen from a gently elevated angle. She wears a cool, pale kimono sprinkled with small blue floral motifs, tied with a soft peach obi that wraps firmly around her waist. A folded, pink-violet cloth rests on her lap like a handkerchief, adding small flare. Her light skin and dark hair, combed back smoothly and gathered low, catch a quiet side light that softens the curve of her cheek and nose and lays gentle shadows around her eyes and under her chin. Her fingers interlace loosely in front of her, relaxed yet composed, while her gaze slips slightly away, thoughtful rather than posed. Behind her, two walls meet at a right angle in bands of light and shadow, and above her shoulder a blue-grey plate with a figure accents the wall, echoing the painting’s cool, airy palette and the still, interior calm of the scene. Painted in 1926, when Japanese artist Ryohei Koiso (小磯良平) was still a student at the Tokyo School of Fine Arts, this large canvas portrays his distant cousin and childhood friend, Toshiko Ochiai (落合 敏子), later Toshiko Kawano, who posed in the reception room of the family home in Kobe. Critics quickly recognized the work as a breakthrough with its crisp, rhythmic brushwork and fresh, almost breezy color that captures the “youthful” vitality of both sitter and painter, and the painting received the special prize at the 7th Imperial Art Exhibition which was an unusual honour for a student. His Western-style oil technique and the armchair interior counter the intimacy of a kimono-clad woman, to embody Taishō-era modernity without sacrificing tenderness. Knowing Miss T’s name sharpens that intimacy as Toshiko is not anonymous, but a specific young woman, poised at the edge of adulthood. Her composed hands, slightly averted gaze and the cool architecture of the room suggest a quiet, inward moment, as if between the expectations of tradition and the possibilities of a changing urban world.
November 15, 2025 at 7:45 AM
Reposted by Dr Francesca Santoro
flackjd.bsky.social
"Let heaven kiss earth! Now let not Nature’s hand 
Keep the wild flood confined."

Henry IV, Part 2
Act 1, Scene 1
#ShakespeareSunday
Theme: The Hollow Crown Plays
a pixel art of the aurora borealis over a snowy forest
Alt: The aurora borealis can be seen as brilliant green lights over a forest.
media.tenor.com
November 16, 2025 at 6:55 AM
Reposted by Dr Francesca Santoro
flackjd.bsky.social
"Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more,
Or close the wall up with our English dead!"

Henry V
Act 3, Scene 1
#ShakespeareSunday
Theme: The Hollow Crown Plays
Screenshot from "The Hollow Crown" featuring Tom Hiddleston as King Henry V. In this pic he is holding a shield and the national flag of England.
November 16, 2025 at 6:56 AM
Reposted by Dr Francesca Santoro
flackjd.bsky.social
"My thoughts are whirled like a potter's wheel;
I know not where I am, nor what I do;"

Henry VI, Part 1
Act 1, Scene 5
#ShakespeareSunday
Theme: The Hollow Crown Plays
a cat is playing with a pottery wheel with a sign that says ' ceramics ' on it
Alt: An orange and white cat is trying to figure out a pottery wheel. It reaches out a paw and pats the clay on the wheel.
media.tenor.com
November 16, 2025 at 7:00 AM
Reposted by Dr Francesca Santoro
flackjd.bsky.social
"Put forth thy hand, reach at the glorious gold."

Henry VI, Part 2
Act 1, Scene 2
#ShakespeareSunday
Theme: The Hollow Crown Plays
a close up of a man 's face with a ring in his finger
Alt: Gif from "The Fellowship of the Ring" - Frodo reaches up to catch the ring on his finger and promptly disappears.
media.tenor.com
November 16, 2025 at 7:03 AM
Reposted by Dr Francesca Santoro
wiccewicker.bsky.social
#BlueSkyArtShow A #Bright sunrise over the paddock on a misty morning
Sun rising through the trees sends beams of light through the mist over a small flock of sheep
November 15, 2025 at 11:47 AM
phyllida.bsky.social
#ShakespeareSunday Richard III, 🧵 Theme: The Hollow Crown Plays @lightacandle.bsky.social @tonylarch.bsky.social @linda2.bsky.social @charlaynvonsolms.com @marshacoupe.bsky.social

Synopsis: On the eve of battle, Richard has a nightmare [that he's woken up in a car park😼]

The bard's words follow:
November 16, 2025 at 10:36 AM
phyllida.bsky.social
ATTENTION, all Pocket-Burroughs! 🦘🐨 🦘🐨🦘

@lightacandle.bsky.social @tonylarch.bsky.social @linda2.bsky.social 😊
drdragases.bsky.social Dr. Jeroen W.P. Wijnendaele @drdragases.bsky.social · 16h
The golden age of diversity and democracy in Oz.
November 16, 2025 at 8:53 AM
phyllida.bsky.social
Decodex 2025-11-16

🟢🟢🟢🟢🟢🟢🟢🟢

Time: 1:23

⛳

@lightacandle.bsky.social @tonylarch.bsky.social

True!

Play here: playdecodex.com
Decodex – A Daily Cryptogram Puzzle Game
Decode a quote a day! Play the daily cryptogram at playdecodex.com.
playdecodex.com
November 16, 2025 at 2:47 AM
Reposted by Dr Francesca Santoro
noofieninja2.bsky.social
November 14, 2025 at 12:38 PM
Reposted by Dr Francesca Santoro
diluc.off.camera
dude i love cats. look at this
November 14, 2025 at 6:41 AM
Reposted by Dr Francesca Santoro
landguyminor.bsky.social
Golden aisle
#scape #forestfriday #japanesegardens #gibbsgarden #eastcoastkin #autumn #fall
November 14, 2025 at 4:02 PM
Reposted by Dr Francesca Santoro
aflcio.org
Starbucks’ CEO makes 6,666x what the average @sbworkersunited.org barista does. It would take less than one day of sales to finalize a fair contract.

Baristas at Starbucks corporate stores nationwide are on strike to fight this corporate greed and get the fair contract they deserve.
November 14, 2025 at 7:09 PM
Reposted by Dr Francesca Santoro
mehdirhasan.bsky.social
This is super bad for US citizens, especially on the left of the spectrum. Gives this authoritarian administration potentially the power to surveil & go after US citizens on spurious "funding of FTO" grounds. This whole antifa boogeyman is being fully weaponized. So dangerous.
kenklippenstein.bsky.social Ken Klippenstein @kenklippenstein.bsky.social · 2d
My NSPM-7 coverage has for weeks been met with smug assurances that there's no law for domestic terrorism. Well, the Trump admin just designated Antifa groups as Foreign Terror Orgs - for which there is a law:
www.kenklippenstein.com/p/trump-slap...
Trump Escalates War on Leftists With Antifa Foreign Terror Label
Move cites NSPM-7, saying four European Antifa groups espoused "anti-Christianity," "anti-capitalism," and "anti-Americanism"
www.kenklippenstein.com
November 14, 2025 at 3:49 AM