From Boing Boing:
Looking at Paintings is a beginning textbook for young children (I’d say 6-12) who are wondering the same thing. Using beautifully reproduced paintings and crisp prose,Looking at Paintings expounds on the history of visual art, and the use of size, shape, color, light and dark, perspective, frame, motion and materials in creating visual [...]
The Victoria & Albert Museum announced that visitors to its website can now find online over one million records detailing objects in its collections ranging from well known treasures such as Tippoo’s “Tiger” to less familiar paintings and ceramics. People using Search the Collections, at collections.vam.ac.uk, will find images of more than 100,000 objects with more [...]
Until my ex took up portraiture, I thought it was an uninteresting genre of painting. But, in fact, it is a fascinating medium. Through Steve’s eyes I entered a new world wherein I could really lean a lot about the creative imagination.
Transmitting a reliable likeness is not necessarily the goal of the contemporary artist. Indeed, [...]
“It may well be the best statistical graphic ever drawn.” Charles Joseph Minard’s 1861 thematic map of Napoleon’s ill-fated march on Moscow was described thusly by Edward Tufte in his acclaimed 1983 book, The Visual Display of Quantitative Information. Of all the attempts to convey the futility of Napoleon’s attempt to invade Russia and the utter [...]
A cardboard lid is lifted and four archivists peer inside. A postal box from Paris. Who sent it? A piece of crusty wedding cake. Whose? Another box: $17,000 in cash. Yet another: An autographed picture of a naked Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis.
These are some of the many items workers have uncovered as they sift through 610 [...]
Out-of-Bounds: Images in the Margins of Medieval Manuscripts
Date: Daily, September 1 - November 8, 2009,
Location: North Pavilion, Plaza Level, Getty Center
Admission: Free
Part of the genius of medieval art lies in its unique ability to combine serious and profound images with playful and witty ones. In illuminated manuscripts, a primary artistic medium of the Middle [...]
After decades of loving art and going to shows, you learn a thing or two—some good, some bad. One thing that I have really valued is the “discovery.” Often you head out to a show after reading a review, or because you already know and like the artist(s) or because you have heard great word [...]
Dr. Christopher Tyler of the Smith-Kettlewell Eye Researcy Institute, San Francisco has posted an essay online that is titled: “An Eye-Placement Principle in 500 Year of Portraits.” It is very short and well illustrated. Here is an exerpt:
To illustrate the degree to which an eye tends to be set on the center vertical in portraits, [...]
Art Babble, the tagline for which is “Play Art Loud”, aggregates art related videos from a variety of sources, most notably museums like the Art Institute of Chicago, Museum of Arts & Design, Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, Norman Rockwell Museum, Rubin Museum of Art, San Jose Museum of Art, The Solomon R. Guggenheim [...]
Boingboing led me to the tumblog of photographer Clayton Cubitt who has posted a collection of more than 700 black and white photographs taken in the Democratic Republic of the Congo in the early 20th century. To see 73 pages of images, chick Clayton says, here, and then click on the “Search” on the panel on the left [...]