Feorlen's Other Blog

I got some paper spam the other day, an advertisement for a fancy hotel chain showing an assortment of people in what is presumed to be a hotel lobby. It immediately struck me as familiar, and although it took me a few minutes to recall the details of the original piece I recognized the source immediately. Raphael’s The School of Athens. This work, a fresco, is by far the best known from the Room of the Segnatura, commissioned by Julius II for his private library at the Vatican.

Here’s the original, from wikipedia:

And here’s the one from the advertisement:

There are so many things here that mimic the original, from Diogenes sitting on the steps to the tile pattern on the floor. Is the dark-haired woman with the violin case to the left representing Hypatia? Euclid and his pupils appear to be replaced by a pair who look to be perusing a map of for all we know is Hollywood Homes of the Stars. Who knows. I would hope this would suggest that somewhere there is an advertising agency that employs those with an actual knowledge of classical antiquity and Renaissance art. Of course, they did leave out Plato and Aristotle.