Inspirations: A Short Film Celebrating the Mathematical Art of M.C. Escher

in Art, Film, Math | February 24th, 2012

Almost two years ago, Span­ish film­mak­er Cristóbal Vila shot an exquis­ite lit­tle film, Nature by Num­bers, which cap­tured the ways in which math­e­mat­i­cal con­cepts (Fibonac­ci Sequence, Gold­en Num­ber, etc.) reveal them­selves in nature. And the short then clocked a good 2.1 mil­lion views on YouTube alone.

This week, Vila returns with a new film called Inspi­ra­tions. In this case, the inspi­ra­tion is M.C. Esch­er (1898–1972), the Dutch artist who explored a wide range of math­e­mat­i­cal ideas with his wood­cuts, lith­o­graphs, and mez­zot­ints. Although Esch­er had no for­mal train­ing in math­e­mat­ics beyond sec­ondary school, many math­e­mati­cians count­ed them­selves as admir­ers of his work. (Vis­it this online gallery to get bet­ter acquaint­ed with Escher’s art, and be sure to click on the thumb­nails to enlarge the images). As Vila explains, Inspi­ra­tions tries to imag­ine Escher’s work­place, “what things would sur­round an artist like him, so deeply inter­est­ed in sci­ence in gen­er­al and math­e­mat­ics in par­tic­u­lar.” It’s a three min­utes of unbri­dled imag­i­na­tion.

If you would like to sup­port the mis­sion of Open Cul­ture, con­sid­er mak­ing a dona­tion to our site. It’s hard to rely 100% on ads, and your con­tri­bu­tions will help us con­tin­ue pro­vid­ing the best free cul­tur­al and edu­ca­tion­al mate­ri­als to learn­ers every­where. You can con­tribute through Pay­Pal, Patre­on, and Ven­mo (@openculture). Thanks!

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Francis Bacon on the South Bank Show: A Singular Profile of the Singular Painter

in Art, Television | February 17th, 2012

When did you first feel the rush of stealth­ily man­nered grotes­querie that is Fran­cis Bacon’s Study after Velázquez’s Por­trait of Pope Inno­cent X? If you’ve seen the paint­ing in detail, even in repro­duc­tion, you’ll always remem­ber that moment. By the same token, if you watch this Emmy Award-win­ning pro­file of Fran­cis Bacon (above), you’ll always remem­ber these 51 min­utes. A pro­duc­tion of Lon­don Week­end Tele­vi­sion (now ITV Lon­don), The South Bank Show offered doc­u­men­tary por­traits of well-known artists and per­form­ers from Dou­glas Adams to Steve Reich to Ter­ry Gilliam to the Pet Shop Boys. Only nat­ur­al, then, that it would turn its lens toward Bacon in 1985, when his can­vass­es of human fig­ures, often in trip­tych, just abstract­ed enough to cause sub­con­scious trou­ble, reached a peak on the art mar­ket. Rov­ing from gallery to stu­dio to café to bar, the pro­gram reveals an artist, one then held, in the words of host Melvyn Bragg, to be the great­est liv­ing painter in the world.

This episode end­ed up win­ning an Inter­na­tion­al Emmy, and beyond the dose of vig­or for the craft it can still shoot into the veins of doc­u­men­tar­i­ans both fresh-faced and world-weary, it attests to the sharp­ness of the minds Lon­don Week­end Tele­vi­sion employed back then. Dis­play­ing a com­bi­na­tion of casu­al­ness, spon­tane­ity, rig­or, and cin­e­mat­ic pre­sen­ta­tion rare even in the­atri­cal films, the broad­cast fol­lows Bragg (now best known as the pre­sen­ter of BBC Radio 4’s In Our Time) and Bacon in a sin­gle long-form con­ver­sa­tion. It begins, sober­ly enough, in the blue glow of a slide pro­jec­tor and ends, drunk­en­ly enough, in the rud­di­ness of the painter’s favorite “drink­ing club,” carv­ing out spaces in between for Bacon’s imagery as well as its visu­al inspi­ra­tions and ref­er­ents.

The pro­gram finds Bacon ready to dis­cuss his life and work with utter frank­ness: his gam­bling; his homo­sex­u­al­i­ty; his dis­taste for the acad­e­my; his famous paint­ings he’d rather see burned; his habit of not only paint­ing with­out a sketch, but doing so on the “wrong” side of the can­vas. And how often do you see an inter­view over a bot­tle of wine whose par­tic­i­pants have actu­al­ly been drink­ing? “Do you think any­thing exists apart from the moment?” Bragg asks Bacon before the lat­ter stag­gers up to pour anoth­er round. “Are you real?” inter­vie­wee lat­er demands of inter­view­er.

Col­in Mar­shall hosts and pro­duces Note­book on Cities and Cul­ture. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall.

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The Story Behind Rodin’s ‘The Kiss’

in Art | February 13th, 2012

NOTE: If you are hav­ing prob­lems view­ing the video on our site, you can also watch it here.

With Valen­tine’s Day almost here, we thought it would be an oppor­tune time to bring you the sto­ry of Auguste Rod­in’s erot­i­cal­ly charged mas­ter­piece, The Kiss.

In this video from the Tate muse­ums, Jane Bur­ton explains how The Kiss was orig­i­nal­ly con­ceived as a detail in an ear­ly ver­sion of Rod­in’s The Gates of Hell, a mon­u­men­tal work that pre­oc­cu­pied the artist for the last 37 years of his life. The Kiss depicts the fate­ful embrace of Francesca and Pao­lo, adul­ter­ous lovers from Dan­te’s Infer­no.

Rodin devel­oped the theme of The Kiss in plas­ter and ter­ra­cot­ta before cre­at­ing a mar­ble ver­sion for the French gov­ern­ment in 1888. That piece is now on dis­play at the Musée Rodin in Paris. The ver­sion fea­tured in the video was com­mis­sioned in 1900 by an Amer­i­can art col­lec­tor liv­ing in Eng­land, and is now part of the per­ma­nent col­lec­tion of the Tate Mod­ern in Lon­don. It’s cur­rent­ly on loan (through Sep­tem­ber 2) to the Turn­er Con­tem­po­rary in Mar­gate, Kent.

The nudi­ty and frank sen­su­al­i­ty of The Kiss drew scorn from many crit­ics when the sculp­ture was first unveiled in 1889. The poet Paul Claudel, a reli­gious con­ser­v­a­tive, wrote:

the man is so to speak attablé [sit­ting down to dine] at the woman. He is sit­ting down in order to make the most of his oppor­tu­ni­ty. He uses both his hands, and she does her best, as the Amer­i­cans say, to “deliv­er the goods.”

Claudel’s con­tempt prob­a­bly had some­thing to do with the fact that his sis­ter, the sculp­tor Camille Claudel, was Rod­in’s lover at the time the work was com­plet­ed. For a more in-depth explo­ration of the fas­ci­nat­ing sto­ry behind The Kiss, be sure to watch the BBC series, Pri­vate Life of a Mas­ter­piece. The episode fea­tur­ing The Kiss can be seen online in four 12-minute seg­ments here.

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Famous Literary Characters Visualized with Police Composite Sketch Software

in Art, Books, Literature | February 10th, 2012

In his 1955 clas­sic, Loli­ta, Vladimir Nabokov described the facial fea­tures of his scan­dalous pro­tag­o­nist, Hum­bert Hum­bert, in small bits. When tak­en togeth­er, here’s what you get:

Gloomy good looks… Clean-cut jaw, mus­cu­lar hand, deep sonorous voice… broad shoul­ders … I was, and still am, despite mes mal­heurs, an excep­tion­al­ly hand­some male; slow-mov­ing, tall, with soft dark hair and a gloomy but all the more seduc­tive cast of demeanor. Excep­tion­al viril­i­ty often reflects in the subject’s dis­playable fea­tures a sullen and con­gest­ed some­thing that per­tains to what he has to con­ceal. And this was my case… But instead I am lanky, big-boned, wooly-chest­ed Hum­bert Hum­bert, with thick black eye­brows… A cesspool­ful of rot­ting mon­sters behind his slow boy­ish smile… aging ape eyes… Humbert’s face might twitch with neu­ral­gia.

In a rather bril­liant move, Bri­an Joseph Davis has run these descrip­tions through law enforce­ment com­pos­ite sketch soft­ware and brought Hum­bert Hum­bert almost to life. (See above.) And he has done the same for a cast of oth­er lit­er­ary char­ac­ters on his Tum­blr, called The Com­pos­ites. Oth­er char­ac­ters get­ting the perp treat­ment include Emma Bovary (Gus­tave Flaubert’s Madame Bovary), Edward Rochester (Char­lotte Bron­të’s Jane Eyre), and Kei­th Tal­ent (Mar­tin Amis’ Lon­don Fields), among oth­ers. Find them all here. h/t Metafil­ter

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Vladimir Nabokov on Loli­ta: Just Anoth­er Great Love Sto­ry?

Vladimir Nabokov Mar­vels Over Dif­fer­ent “Loli­ta” Book Cov­ers

Nabokov Reads Loli­ta, Names the Great Books of the 20th Cen­tu­ry

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Philip Glass Composes Music for a Sesame Street Animation (1979)

in Art, Music | February 1st, 2012

Last night, Philip Glass cel­e­brat­ed his 75th birth­day at Carnegie Hall, attend­ing the US pre­miere of his Ninth Sym­pho­ny. His long and illus­tri­ous career con­tin­ues. But today we’re bring­ing you back to 1979, when Glass wrote a com­po­si­tion to accom­pa­ny “Geom­e­try of Cir­cles,” a four-part series of ani­ma­tions that aired on the beloved chil­dren’s show Sesame Street. A strange detour for an influ­en­tial com­pos­er? Not real­ly. Not when you con­sid­er that Glass came out of a 1960s tra­di­tion that made mod­ern music more play­ful and approach­able.

And speak­ing of approach­able, don’t miss Philip Glass get­ting inter­viewed by his friend­ly cousin Ira Glass. You know Ira as the host of This Amer­i­can Life. The inter­view took place in 1999, and NPR final­ly brought it back yes­ter­day, at least for a lim­it­ed time. You can lis­ten here.

If you would like to sup­port the mis­sion of Open Cul­ture, con­sid­er mak­ing a dona­tion to our site. It’s hard to rely 100% on ads, and your con­tri­bu­tions will help us con­tin­ue pro­vid­ing the best free cul­tur­al and edu­ca­tion­al mate­ri­als to learn­ers every­where. You can con­tribute through Pay­Pal, Patre­on, and Ven­mo (@openculture). Thanks!

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Ira Glass on the Art of Sto­ry­telling

A Min­i­mal Glimpse of Philip Glass

Philip Glass & Lou Reed at Occu­py Lin­coln Cen­ter: An Art­ful View

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A Tour Inside Salvador Dalí’s Labyrinthine Spanish Home

in Art | January 26th, 2012

Along the Cos­ta Bra­va in north­ern Spain, in the lit­tle sea­side vil­lage of Portl­li­gat, sits the house that became Sal­vador Dalí’s main res­i­dence in 1930. It start­ed off as a small fisherman’s hut. Then Dalí went to work on the struc­ture, ren­o­vat­ing it lit­tle by lit­tle over the next 40 years, cre­at­ing a liv­ing, breath­ing, labyrinthine home that reflects the artist’s one-of-a-kind aes­thet­ic. Writ­ing about the house, the author Joseph Pla once said:

The dec­o­ra­tion of the house is sur­pris­ing, extra­or­di­nary. Per­haps the most exact adjec­tive would be: nev­er-before-seen. I do not believe that there is any­thing like it, in this coun­try or in any oth­er.… Dalí’s house is com­plete­ly unex­pect­ed.… It con­tains noth­ing more than mem­o­ries, obses­sions. The fixed ideas of its own­ers. There is noth­ing tra­di­tion­al, nor inher­it­ed, nor repeat­ed, nor copied here. All is inde­ci­pher­able per­son­al mythol­o­gy.… There are art works (by the painter), Russ­ian things (of Mrs. Gala), stuffed ani­mals, stair­cas­es of geo­log­i­cal walls going up and down, books (strange for such peo­ple), the com­mon­place and the refined, etc.

For many, it’s a long trip to Portl­li­gat, and only eight peo­ple can vis­it the house at a time. So today we’re fea­tur­ing a video tour of Dalí’s Span­ish home. The inte­ri­or shots begin around the 1:30 mark. If you love taxi­dermy, you won’t be wast­ing your time.

If you would like to sup­port the mis­sion of Open Cul­ture, con­sid­er mak­ing a dona­tion to our site. It’s hard to rely 100% on ads, and your con­tri­bu­tions will help us con­tin­ue pro­vid­ing the best free cul­tur­al and edu­ca­tion­al mate­ri­als to learn­ers every­where. You can con­tribute through Pay­Pal, Patre­on, and Ven­mo (@openculture). Thanks!

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Des­ti­no: The Sal­vador Dalí – Dis­ney Col­lab­o­ra­tion 57 Years in the Mak­ing

Sal­vador Dalí Appears on “What’s My Line? in 1952

Alfred Hitch­cock Recalls Work­ing with Sal­vador Dalí on Spell­bound

Un Chien Andalou: Revis­it­ing Buñuel and Dalí’s Sur­re­al­ist Film

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The Monk and the Fish, the Classic Animation by Michael Dudok de Wit

in Art, Film | January 18th, 2012

Edi­tor’s note: The text below dis­cuss­es the end­ing of the film. We rec­om­mend that you watch “The Monk and the Fish” before read­ing.

In this charm­ing and visu­al­ly ele­gant film from 1994, the Dutch-born ani­ma­tor Michael Dudok de Wit tells the sto­ry of a sin­gle-mind­ed monk and a very elu­sive fish. While the set­ting and sym­bols are Chris­t­ian, the sto­ry pro­gres­sion is essen­tial­ly Bud­dhist.

“The Monk and the Fish is not a sto­ry about the solu­tion of a con­flict,” Dudok de Wit explained to Sarah Moli­noff in a 2009 inter­view for the Oxon­ian Review. “It’s more about the rise above the con­flict, the rise above dual­i­ty.” The monk does­n’t catch the fish; he and the fish are unit­ed. Dudok de Wit took his inspi­ra­tion from the Ten Ox Herd­ing Pic­tures, a series of Zen poems and images from 12th Cen­tu­ry Chi­na, which illus­trate the jour­ney to enlight­en­ment through the sto­ry of an oxherd’s strug­gle with a way­ward bull. He said:

The gen­e­sis of the film was the end­ing. It was that sequence I want­ed to cre­ate, where there is a serene union between the monk and the fish. The end­ing by itself would be flat, too abstract, to pull the audi­ence in, so I clear­ly need­ed to have a build-up, to estab­lish and feel empa­thy with the char­ac­ter. In con­trast to the end­ing, in the begin­ning the monk is obsessed, obsessed, obsessed, but in the end­ing he arrives at a res­o­lu­tion. In a qui­et way, not with a big act.

The Lon­don-based artist hand-paint­ed each frame in ink and water­col­or. Like the sto­ry, the visu­al style was inspired by the Far East. “The Japan­ese in par­tic­u­lar, and also the Chi­nese and Kore­ans,” said Dudok de Wit, “have a way of using neg­a­tive space, of not fill­ing the pic­ture, which is very typ­i­cal of the Far East and very untyp­i­cal of the West. We can be inspired by it, but it’s pro­found­ly in their culture–in their genes maybe, and not so much in ours. It’s not just about the brush line, it’s also the space around the line that is inspir­ing.”

For the music, Dudok de Wit chose a clas­sic from the West­ern canon, La Folia, a tra­di­tion­al theme that was often adapt­ed or quot­ed by com­posers like Bach, Vival­di, Corel­li, Han­del and Liszt. The film­mak­er select­ed a few of his favorite variations–mainly from Corel­li and Vivaldi–and asked com­pos­er Serge Bes­set to lis­ten to them and cre­ate a new ver­sion to fit the film.

The Monk and the Fish took six months to cre­ate, and was nom­i­nat­ed for Best Short Ani­mat­ed Film at both the Acad­e­my Awards and the British Acad­e­my Film Awards. You will find it list­ed in our col­lec­tion of 450 Free Movies Online, along with anoth­er mov­ing short by Dudock de Wit, Father and Daugh­ter. They appear in the Ani­ma­tion Sec­tion.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Shel Sil­ver­stein’s The Giv­ing Tree: The Ani­mat­ed Movie

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Madeline 365: A Year in the Life

in Art, Life | January 17th, 2012

Remem­ber Jeff Har­ris? He’s the pho­tog­ra­ph­er who has doc­u­ment­ed every day of his life with a self-por­trait since 1999. Now meet Made­line Schich­tel, a young pro­duc­tion assis­tant liv­ing in LA. She record­ed her dai­ly life in 2011 with a Canon Pow­er­shot, then edit­ed each day down to a mean­ing­ful one-sec­ond shot, cre­at­ing the video mon­tage “This is What Made­line Did.” Wired writer Steve Sil­ber­man (aka @SteveSilberman) found the video unex­pect­ed­ly charm­ing, and we have to agree. “All My Friends,” by LCD Soundsys­tem, serves as the sound­track for this endear­ing lit­tle film.

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