This is the depiction of Epicurus I like the most from the ones I've seen so far. It comes from a Polish book 'Lukrecjusz' by Kazimierz Lesniak published in 1985. There's something in the eyes that captures my attention and I think it's the closest visual representation of Epicurus to the one I have in my mind.
The Facial Expression of Epicurus
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The second photo in comment number 11 in the thread on my visit of the institute is the closest close-up I have. I did not take a straight-on close-up because one side of the nose is missing a piece.
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From Martin's photo we can see that it is a very straight look on the lips of Epicurus. Also he seems to be looking downward -- if you factor in that the statue is placed upon a pedestal then you see that that downward gaze is actually a place of power, as he is looking down at the viewer (the pedestal lifts up the form slightly higher than the viewer). So it seems that this seriousness conveys power.
As for a smile, it can convey comraderie, affection, and enjoyment and as modern people I can see that we do need that conveyed at times, whether in one's imagination or in new artistic works.
And as far as creating more graphics which show Epicurus extolling the teachings, I would appreciate anyone uploading images (both serious or slight smile) which you think would help convey wisdom and the aura of a great teacher. And specifically state those that you think would work in graphics.
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I also really like Genevra's portrait of "Epicurus in the Garden" on page 114 of your book (paperback version arrived today!
). Any chance you could add that one to the thread here? Many thanks! -
I also really like Genevra's portrait of "Epicurus in the Garden" on page 114 of your book (paperback version arrived today!
). Any chance you could add that one to the thread here? Many thanks! -
Thanks! What I like about this one is the sense of a relaxed serenity.
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Epicurus in Frankston – PichiAvowww.pichiavo.com
Quite an interesting project here!
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Artists' renderings can certainly evoke a mood. Here is a painting of Zeno of Citium (I couldn't find the artist) and Genevra Catalano's Epicurus:
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Just for fun I put into an AI image generator: "laughing Epicurus" and this is what I got, and these strike me as being not very photogenic. Others who posted here in this thread above have way much better stuff (especially those which are human made art), but I decided to post these anyway because these bring up the human quality of emotions. Even though we see and think of the stern face of Epicurus in carved busts, he was a human being with emotions.
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I agree that the result is not particularly flattering, but the overall look and feel of the AI generation is very impressive.
We need a thread giving information on what AI generators are used, and listing the "instructions" given to the generator, so that more people can get experience in making these as foundations for new meme material.
Update: We already have one. It would be highly desirable to get this conversation going with specific tips on how to do this.
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I came across this short but interesting article on the topic of Epicurus' appearance:
'How the portrait of the Athenian philosopher Epicurus became known to us' by Takis Panagiotopoulos:
https://www.epicuros.gr/pages/en/Panagiotopoulos_EpicurusPortrait.pdf
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This shows how important eyebrows are to the physical appearance of intelligence. (I did this digitally with my tablet and stylus pen). I changed the lips, but thinking that I could add back in some thickness. Also the forehead may need a bit more work.
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That gives a 100% improved result that is much more consistent with the other representations.
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After you've played with that for a while I'd like to post a version of that over on Facebook and make the revised version available in a reasonably high resolution, perhaps accompanied by colorized versions that reconstruct the idea that the ancient statues were painted.
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Asked ChatGPT to work futher the 'after' image and it generated this:
I love generative AI!
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I really, really, really want to recommend never using ChatGPT.
I'm going to be a broken record and annoy everyone until it stops.
There are thousands of artists out their who are HUNGRY for commissions, many of whom are friends, and can no longer work because of AI and other plagiarism programs.
Please be reminded: everyone in here is so much smarter and more creative than AI.
Don't defer to it for any reason, ever, under any circumstances.
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I am sympathetic to Eikadistes ' view and will solicit comments from the moderators about how we can balance competing interests.
Even more than that, however, I need to review where we are on disk space and figure out a way to make sure that we keep image uploads that aren't long-term assets under control.
On that point too I'll ask for comments (separate thread) as we need to consider recommending some sort of image-sharing site so that people know how to post large images and then just post the links here. That will show up the same way but won't permanently occupy disk space here.
So far we have had no real issues but we are now in our tenth year and we probably need to reevaluate disk space issues.
UPDATE: Image Sharing Alternatives
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Finding Things At EpicureanFriends.com
What's the best strategy for finding things on EpicureanFriends.com? Here's a suggested search strategy:
- First, familiarize yourself with the list of forums. The best way to find threads related to a particular topic is to look in the relevant forum. Over the years most people have tried to start threads according to forum topic, and we regularly move threads from our "general discussion" area over to forums with more descriptive titles.
- Use the "Search" facility at the top right of every page. Note that the search box asks you what section of the forum you'd like to search. If you don't know, select "Everywhere." Also check the "Search Assistance" page.
- Use the "Tag" facility, starting with the "Key Tags By Topic" in the right hand navigation pane, or using the "Search By Tag" page, or the "Tag Overview" page which contains a list of all tags alphabetically. We curate the available tags to keep them to a manageable number that is descriptive of frequently-searched topics.