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GIANT Mayflys on the Tisza River, Silas 2009

I just listened to a wonderful interview of Susan Silas, by Will Corwin of ArtonAir.org, on the occasion of the opening of her exhibit, Helmbrecht’s Walk. It is at the Hebrew Union College Museum on One West 4th Street, NYC, and will be up for the academic year ending in June 2010.

She talks about the walk, of course, but also covers decaying birds and giant mayflys on the Tisza River in Hungary, all apropos of time passing. My dad often swam in the Tisza when he lived in Szolnok and worked at the Cukorgyar (beet sugar factory) before WWII. He always had plenty of sweets to treat the girls on the beach.

Makes me anticipate even more Sean Carroll’s book, From Eternity to Here, due out this week. Then I’ll have the art and science of time covered.

Wishing everyone a sweet New Year!

Viva!

116 years ago today abstract painter/sculptor Joan Miró was born in Barcelona. He had an obsession with imaging the Sun in new ways. Apparently, so do IBM and Oracle.

(From left to right) The Red Sun, Dancing Under the Red Sun, The Adoration of the (Blue/Red) Sun, The Gold of the Blue, Managing the Sun, Upsidedown Under the Red Sun.

 

Dr. Lynette Davidson writes a great article, What do Templars, the Jesus Family and DaVinci have to do with Nazis?, about how bad history, even fictionalized, has real consequences.

But do Knight’s Templar, as seen in their heyday and in the 1930’s, suffer?

    

Does DaVinci’s Last Supper suffer from being repainted, or from modern interpretations?  The artwork at the top is

“A life sized rendering of Leonardo da Vinci’s The Last Supper constructed from 20,736 spools of thread strung onto aluminum ball chain. When seen with the aid of optical devices, the spools of thread coalesce into realistic images of Christ and his disciples.”

Below is the repaired version along with a detail showing before and after of JohnMary.  The third picture is an ad showing a sacred feminine version that was banned in Milan.

  

As for albinos, Karen Jordan, Lexi’s mom, says this about the stereotypical depiction of albinos in books and movies:

One more evil albino makes things just a little harder for my daughter and many others.

Incidentally, athough albinos usually do have some vision impairment, their eyes are only red, like everyone else’s, in flash pictures.

Guess which book I’m reading!  There is a lot of mumbo jumbo about the golden ratio (Φ) in the book, so I think it is interesting that the Mona Lisa hanging in the Louvre is ~4% too wide in aspect – compare first Mona above to “Φ ratio-ed” second.  The third Mona is a contempory’s copy of the original, showing the original original may have been wider yet – note columns on sides - a full ~31% too wide for Φ.

The three Mona Lisa variations to the right of the pentagram are: Dali’s self-portrait, my favorite – check out the 30(?) pieces of silver he/she is holding in his/her hand;  MAD Magazine cover art;  and an eye test.  Can you see what’s wrong with the last Mona, aside from the obvious?

The earliest Anamorphism goes back to Da Vinci.  Anamorphosis is very much in use today by artists such as Istvan Orosz, Kurt Wenner, and Julian Beever (don’t miss Beever’s amazing street art).  I used this free program to create projections of the love cakes  Alice made for Lia and Alan for Valentine’s Day.

              

http://www.susanfgreaves.com/

Plein Air artist Susan Greaves is best known for her landscapes.  But I like her portraits best.  She makes great use of vibrant color.