How to Paint Water Lilies Like Monet in 14 Minutes

in Art, Travel | April 17th, 2020

Some of us are using this peri­od of self-iso­la­tion to make sour­dough.

Oth­ers are learn­ing to play an instru­ment or ini­ti­at­ing a dai­ly yoga prac­tice.

For those con­sid­er­ing tak­ing up paint­ing, David Dun­lop’s Emmy-Award win­ning PBS series Land­scapes Through Time offers an excel­lent alter­na­tive (or sup­ple­ment) to the well-estab­lished joys of cult fig­ure Bob Ross, the eter­nal king of tele­vi­sion art instruc­tion.

Like Ross, Dun­lop has a mel­low onscreen tem­pera­ment that pairs beau­ti­ful­ly with the enchant­i­ng set­ting of Claude Monet’s famous water gar­den, above.

(Those who’ve vis­it­ed Monet’s house and gar­den at Giverny will envy him his tourist-free access to the site. Even those with no inten­tion of pick­ing up a brush should find it restora­tive to spend time gaz­ing at the same love­ly view that Dun­lop, like Mon­et before him, looks at through a delib­er­ate­ly Impres­sion­is­tic squint.)

He packs a lot of art appre­ci­a­tion into 14 eas­i­ly digest­ed min­utes, touch­ing on art his­to­ry, brush tech­nique, com­po­si­tion, use of light, and, in par­tic­u­lar, col­or the­o­ry.

When the muse­ums reopen, you may find this crash course has enhanced your enjoy­ment, espe­cial­ly as per­tains to can­vas­es by Mon­et and his fel­low Impres­sion­ists.

For those pur­su­ing the hands-on oil paint­ing expe­ri­ence, Dun­lop pro­vides a sup­ply list of col­ors, all read­i­ly avail­able:

Cobalt Blue

Cad­mi­um Yel­low

Alizarin Crim­son

Ultra­ma­rine

Bril­liant Rose

Emer­ald Green

Hooker’s Green

Tita­ni­um White

His brush­es and paper appear to be gar­den vari­ety, and his approach, like Ross’, is fast and loose.

Those who favor a less brazen approach may feel more at home with his water­col­or paint­ing demon­stra­tion in Cezanne’s Mont Sainte-Vic­toire in Provence, France, below.

There are more excerpts and instruc­tion on Dunlop’s YouTube chan­nel. For those wish­ing to take it to the next lev­el, Dun­lop is teach­ing a series of inter­ac­tive stu­dio demon­stra­tion class­es via Zoom. Reg­is­ter here.

Relat­ed Con­tent: 

Rare 1915 Film Shows Claude Mon­et at Work in His Famous Gar­den at Giverny

Watch Every Episode of Bob Ross’ The Joy Of Paint­ing Free Online: 403 Episodes Span­ning 31 Sea­sons

Bob Ross’ Christ­mas Spe­cial: Cel­e­brate, Relax, Nod Off

Ayun Hal­l­i­day is an author, illus­tra­tor, the­ater mak­er and Chief Pri­ma­tol­o­gist of the East Vil­lage Inky zine.  Her art in iso­la­tion has tak­en the form of a hasti­ly assem­bled trib­ute to the clas­sic 60s social line dance, The Madi­son. Fol­low her @AyunHalliday.

by | Permalink | Make a Comment ( None ) |

Experience the Van Gogh Museum in 4K Resolution: A Video Tour in Seven Parts

in Art, Technology | April 16th, 2020

When we think of the most tech­no­log­i­cal­ly inclined artists of all time, we don’t nec­es­sar­i­ly think of Vin­cent van Gogh. Though he wrote of his deter­mi­na­tion to cre­ate “the art of the future,” when he got down to paint­ing he did so with tra­di­tion­al tools. What­ev­er Van Gogh’s own feel­ings about tech­nol­o­gy, tech­nol­o­gy cer­tain­ly seems to like him: take, for exam­ple, 2017’s Lov­ing Vin­cent, a fea­ture film about him ani­mat­ed with 65,000 paint­ings; the dig­i­tal exhi­bi­tion of his work that took place in Paris last year; his paint­ings brought to life with 3D ani­ma­tion and visu­al map­ping; and a vir­tu­al-real­i­ty ver­sion of The Night Cafe, all pre­vi­ous­ly fea­tured here on Open Cul­ture — not to men­tion the 1,400 paint­ings and draw­ings by van Gogh made avail­able online by the Van Gogh Muse­um.

How­ev­er for­ward-look­ing its full-fea­tured online pres­ence made the Van Gogh Muse­um seem before, this par­tic­u­lar moment has made it look like an even more pre­scient insti­tu­tion. With it and so many oth­er brick-and-mor­tar muse­ums tem­porar­i­ly closed due to the coro­n­avirus pan­dem­ic, online is the only way any of us can enjoy them.

In addi­tion to its exist­ing resources on the web, the Van Gogh Muse­um has over the past month been upload­ing a pri­vate tour, all shot in 4K video. Much like the five-hour iPhone ad shot in the Her­mitage about which we post­ed last month, this series pro­vides a drift­ing, float­ing view of the muse­um’s gal­leries and the works they proud­ly dis­play, all quite unlike any expe­ri­ence one could ever have had there in per­son.

In the six parts of the series that have gone up so far, with a sev­enth and final install­ment to come next, not a sin­gle oth­er per­son appears to get between you and Van Gogh’s por­traits, Van Gogh’s still lifes, Van Gogh’s scenes urban and rur­al. But you do get some accom­pa­ni­ment in the form of a full musi­cal score, an ele­ment that has become quite impor­tant for this now-emerg­ing form of cin­e­mat­ic, high-res­o­lu­tion muse­um tour video.

Though brief, this Van Gogh Muse­um tour in 4K cov­ers a wide swath of the artist’s work, and will sure­ly only whet the appetite of view­ers who’ve been mean­ing to make the trip to Ams­ter­dam them­selves. Until then, we can take in Van Gogh’s “art of the future” using the tech­nol­o­gy of the present — the likes of which would­n’t have appeared in even his wildest visions.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Explore 1400 Paint­ings & Draw­ings by Vin­cent van Gogh–and Much More–at the Van Gogh Museum’s Online Col­lec­tion

Near­ly 1,000 Paint­ings & Draw­ings by Vin­cent van Gogh Now Dig­i­tized and Put Online: View/Download the Col­lec­tion

Down­load Hun­dreds of Van Gogh Paint­ings, Sketch­es & Let­ters in High Res­o­lu­tion

13 Van Gogh’s Paint­ings Painstak­ing­ly Brought to Life with 3D Ani­ma­tion & Visu­al Map­ping

Van Gogh’s 1888 Paint­ing, “The Night Cafe,” Ani­mat­ed with Ocu­lus Vir­tu­al Real­i­ty Soft­ware

Down­load Vin­cent van Gogh’s Col­lec­tion of 500 Japan­ese Prints, Which Inspired Him to Cre­ate “the Art of the Future”

Based in Seoul, Col­in Mar­shall writes and broad­casts on cities, lan­guage, and cul­ture. His projects include the book The State­less City: a Walk through 21st-Cen­tu­ry Los Ange­les and the video series The City in Cin­e­ma. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall, on Face­book, or on Insta­gram.

by | Permalink | Make a Comment ( 2 ) |

Take a Long Virtual Tour of the Louvre in Three High-Definition Videos

in Art | April 16th, 2020

So, you’ve had to put off a trip to Paris, and a long-await­ed vis­it to the Lou­vre, which “will remain closed until fur­ther notice,” has been pushed into the indef­i­nite hori­zon. It could be worse, but the loss of engag­ing up close with cul­tur­al trea­sures is some­thing we should all grieve in lock­down. Art is so impor­tant to human well-being that UK Sec­re­tary of Health Matt Han­cock argued all doc­tors in the NHS should pre­scribe gallery vis­its and oth­er art activ­i­ties for every­thing from men­tal issues to lung dis­eases.

As you know from plan­ning your trip (ide­al­ly sev­er­al trips) to the famous museum—first opened to the pub­lic in 1793 on the first anniver­sary of Louis XVI’s imprisonment—you can lux­u­ri­ate in art for days on end once there, pro­vid­ed you can evade the mas­sive crowds.

The Lou­vre is immense, with 60,500 square meters of floor space and around 35,000 paint­ings, sculp­tures, and oth­er arti­facts. But with rough­ly 10 mil­lion vis­i­tors per year, who make it the world’s most vis­it­ed muse­um, it isn’t easy to find space for con­tem­pla­tion.

Video vis­its are no sub­sti­tute, but these days they’re the best we’ve got. If you’re eager to see what you’re missing—or what you could nev­er get to in per­son even with­out a pandemic—take a look at the 4K vir­tu­al tours here from Wan­der­lust Trav­el Videos. Yes, you’ll see the hero­ic mas­ter­works of Jacques-Louis David, Eugene Delacroix, and Théodore Géri­cault. You’ll see the famous glass pyra­mid, the trea­sures of Napoleon’s Apart­ments, and, yes, the Mona Lisa.

But you’ll also see hun­dreds and hun­dreds of works that don’t get the same kind of press, each one named in a time­stamped list on the YouTube pages. The expe­ri­ence is admit­ted­ly like vis­it­ing the muse­um in per­son, rush­ing through each gallery, peer­ing over and around the backs of heads to get a glimpse of the Fra Fil­ip­po Lip­pis, Cimabues, and Man­teg­nas. But you can mute the con­stant back­ground chat­ter and pause and rewind as much as you like.

After tour­ing a good bit of the muse­um, stroll around the Car­rousel Arc de Tri­om­phe, Jardin de l’infante, and the Pont Neuf, above. Judg­ing by the com­ments, these videos are prov­ing a balm to the psy­ches of home­bound art lovers around the world, whether they’ve been to the Lou­vre before, just scrapped their trav­el plans, or know they’ll prob­a­bly nev­er get the chance to vis­it.

The vir­tu­al oppor­tu­ni­ty to tour this mag­nif­i­cent col­lec­tion, or part of it, may refresh our exhaust­ed imag­i­na­tions. It may also soothe the part of us that real­ly miss­es huge crowds of peo­ple all talk­ing at once. Some­thing about the expe­ri­ence, even on the screen, feels so strange­ly com­pelling right now you might find your­self hop­ing if and when you final­ly get to the Lou­vre, it’s sim­ply mobbed.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Mona Lisa Self­ie: A Mon­tage of Social Media Pho­tos Tak­en at the Lou­vre and Put on Insta­gram

Take a Vir­tu­al Tour of 30 World-Class Muse­ums & Safe­ly Vis­it 2 Mil­lion Works of Fine Art

Vis­it The Muse­um of Online Muse­ums (MoOM): A Mega Col­lec­tion of 220 Online Exhi­bi­tions

Josh Jones is a writer and musi­cian based in Durham, NC. Fol­low him at @jdmagness

by | Permalink | Make a Comment ( 3 ) |

Why is Vermeer’s “Girl with the Pearl Earring” Considered a Masterpiece?: An Animated Introduction

in Art, History | April 14th, 2020

Long­time Open Cul­ture read­ers will have encoun­tered Johannes Ver­meer here in var­i­ous forms: his paint­ings have appeared as ani­ma­tions, as the sub­ject of a doc­u­men­tary, and even free for the down­load in high res­o­lu­tion as well as view­able in aug­ment­ed real­i­ty. Though paint­ed in the mid-17th-cen­tu­ry Nether­lands, the Dutch mas­ter’s work now appeals to mod­ern view­ers every­where. Most who enter Ver­meer’s world pass through the gate­way of Girl with a Pearl Ear­ring, his 1665 por­trait of just that. What is it about that young lady against a plain black back­ground, so much sim­pler an image than the detailed domes­tic inte­ri­ors that con­sti­tute most of Ver­meer’s oeu­vre, that cap­ti­vates us?

In the TED-Ed les­son above, art his­to­ri­an James Ear­le places Girl with a Pearl Ear­ring in con­text with the rest of Ver­meer’s work, reveal­ing how it fits in as well as how it stands apart. “Instead of being like a set piece in a the­atri­cal nar­ra­tive scene, she becomes a psy­cho­log­i­cal object,” Ear­le says. “Her eye con­tact and slight­ly part­ed lips, as if she is about to say some­thing, draw us into her gaze” — one aspect of what’s made the paint­ing’s rep­u­ta­tion as “the Mona Lisa of the North.”

Though not a mem­ber of the nobil­i­ty or cler­gy, the tra­di­tion­al sources for sub­jects of por­trai­ture in Ver­meer’s day, this “anony­mous girl” is enno­bled by how the artist depicts her. This reflects the chang­ing polit­i­cal and eco­nom­ic real­i­ties of the Nether­lands at the time, a coun­try that had “turned against the rul­ing aris­toc­ra­cy and the Catholic Church.”

Cities like Ver­meer’s home­town of Delft, Ear­le tells us, “were unsu­per­vised by kings or bish­ops, so many artists like Ver­meer were left with­out tra­di­tion­al patrons.” But the ascen­dant mer­chant class, dri­ven by the inno­va­tion of the Dutch East India Com­pa­ny, pro­duced new ones. These mid­dle-class patrons pre­ferred to be depict­ed with sym­bols of their own world­li­ness: maps hang­ing on the wall in domes­tic inte­ri­ors, or more osten­ta­tious­ly the “ori­en­tal tur­ban” worn by the sub­ject of Girl with a Pearl Ear­ring. They also tend­ed to appear with sym­bols of wealth of the kind almost par­o­died by the implau­si­bly large pearl ear­ring itself. “Like­ly just a glass or tin drop var­nished to look like a pearl,” the object nonethe­less appears to poss­es con­sid­er­able shape and weight” — at least before “a detailed view shows that it’s just a float­ing smudge of paint.” But what a smudge, in the behold­ing of which “we are remind­ed of Ver­meer’s pow­er as an illu­sion-mak­er.”

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Down­load All 36 of Jan Vermeer’s Beau­ti­ful­ly Rare Paint­ings (Most in Bril­liant High Res­o­lu­tion)

Mas­ter of Light: A Close Look at the Paint­ings of Johannes Ver­meer Nar­rat­ed by Meryl Streep

Paint­ings by Car­avag­gio, Ver­meer, & Oth­er Great Mas­ters Come to Life in a New Ani­mat­ed Video

See the Com­plete Works of Ver­meer in Aug­ment­ed Real­i­ty: Google Makes Them Avail­able on Your Smart­phone

Inge­nious Impro­vised Recre­ations of Vermeer’s Girl with a Pearl Ear­ring, Using Mate­ri­als Found Around the House

Meet Noto­ri­ous Art Forg­er Han Van Meegeren, Who Fooled the Nazis with His Coun­ter­feit Ver­meers

Based in Seoul, Col­in Mar­shall writes and broad­casts on cities, lan­guage, and cul­ture. His projects include the book The State­less City: a Walk through 21st-Cen­tu­ry Los Ange­les and the video series The City in Cin­e­ma. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall, on Face­book, or on Insta­gram.

by | Permalink | Make a Comment ( None ) |

An Art Gallery for Gerbils: Two Quarantined Londoners Create a Mini Museum Complete with Gerbil-Themed Art

in Art, Comedy, Creativity, Life, Museums | April 10th, 2020

Lon­don-based cou­ple Fil­ip­po and Mar­i­an­na’s self-iso­la­tion project calls to mind artist (and muse­um cura­tor) Bill Scan­ga’s At the Met, exhib­it­ed near­ly 20 years ago as part of the group show Almost Warm and Fuzzy: Child­hood and Con­tem­po­rary Art at P.S.1 Con­tem­po­rary Art Cen­ter (now known as MoMA PS1).

Scan­ga’s instal­la­tion involved hang­ing mini-repli­cas of works from the Met­ro­pol­i­tan Muse­um’s Amer­i­can col­lec­tion on extreme­ly long wires that trav­eled from under-ceil­ing pic­ture rail to the base­board, where a col­lec­tion of art-lov­ing taxi­der­mied mice wait­ed expec­tant­ly. One rest­ed on a famil­iar-look­ing, black vinyl uphol­stered bench, a tiny blue shop­ping bag from the Met’s gift store parked near its dain­ty, shoe­less feet.

Fil­ip­po and Marianna’s art-lov­ing rodents are ger­bils, and unlike Scanga’s art­ful­ly stuffed mod­els, theirs—9‑month-old broth­ers Pan­doro and Tiramisù—are very much alive, as Tiramisù proved when he gnawed the unseen gallery assistant’s painstak­ing­ly assem­bled card­board stool to bits under the watch­ful eye of the tiny Girl with a Pearl Ear­ring fac­sim­i­le Mar­i­an­na craft­ed for his cul­tur­al enrich­ment.

A video the cou­ple pub­lished on Red­dit, above, shows the fur­ry muse­um goers scam­per­ing under the bench­es to the tune of “The Blue Danube” and plac­ing their paws on the art­work, includ­ing an expert, ger­bil-themed forgery of Gus­tav Klimt’s gold-flecked Sym­bol­ist mas­ter­piece, The Kiss.

Not to be vul­gar, but if this muse­um has a restroom, Pan­doro and Tiramisù seem to have giv­en it a miss, an impro­pri­ety sur­pass­ing any waged by the tit­u­lar char­ac­ters of Beat­rix Potter’s Tale of Two Bad Mice.

Fil­ip­po and Mar­i­an­na accept­ed the destruc­tion of their exquis­ite­ly staged set with a cheer that sug­gests they’re not shut up for the dura­tion with a small child… just ger­bils, who can be deposit­ed back into their Habi­trail when the fun’s over.

The atten­tion to detail—the gallery tags! The lam­i­nat­ed cards in mul­ti­ple lan­guages in a wall-mount­ed holder!—captured the imag­i­na­tion of Red­dit. Users jumped Marianna’s orig­i­nal post—(Quar­an­tine, day 14. Me and my boyfriend spent the whole day set­ting up an art gallery for our ger­bil)—with sug­ges­tions of oth­er famous works to recre­ate in minia­ture and add to the col­lec­tion. Rest assured no groan-wor­thy, pun-based, ger­bil-cen­tric title was left unex­pressed.

With cul­tur­al insti­tu­tions tem­porar­i­ly shut­tered for the good of pub­lic health, many view­ers also shared their yearn­ing to get back inside favorite muse­ums. (Mar­i­an­na reports that Fil­ip­po is a muse­um work­er.)

For now, we must be patient, and live vic­ar­i­ous­ly through ger­bils ’til the long wait is over.


Via Hyper­al­ler­gic

Relat­ed Con­tent: 

Two Cats Keep Try­ing to Get Into a Japan­ese Art Muse­um … and Keep Get­ting Turned Away: Meet the Thwart­ed Felines, Ken-chan and Go-chan

Take a Vir­tu­al Tour of 30 World-Class Muse­ums & Safe­ly Vis­it 2 Mil­lion Works of Fine Art

14 Paris Muse­ums Put 300,000 Works of Art Online: Down­load Clas­sics by Mon­et, Cézanne & More

Ayun Hal­l­i­day is an author, illus­tra­tor, the­ater mak­er and Chief Pri­ma­tol­o­gist of the East Vil­lage Inky zine.  Like Choir! Choir! Choir!, she has been crowd­sourc­ing art in iso­la­tion, most recent­ly a hasti­ly assem­bled trib­ute to the clas­sic 60s social line dance, The Madi­son. Fol­low her @AyunHalliday.

by | Permalink | Make a Comment ( 1 ) |

Meet Notorious Art Forger Han Van Meegeren, Who Fooled the Nazis with His Counterfeit Vermeers

in Art, History | April 7th, 2020

Peo­ple love sto­ries of suc­cess­ful crim­i­nals. They must pos­sess some admirable qual­i­ties, we assume, some great dar­ing or cun­ning or keen insight. Myths sup­plant real­i­ty, and we for­get about the net­works of enablers that help ruth­less but not espe­cial­ly bright peo­ple suc­ceed. But suc­cess­ful art forg­ers present us with anoth­er case entire­ly. “Forg­ers, by nature, pre­fer anonymi­ty,” notes the site Essen­tial Ver­meer 3.0, “and there­fore are rarely remem­bered.” Yet the evi­dence of their mas­tery lies incon­tro­vert­ibly before us, fool­ing col­lec­tors, cura­tors, and even art his­to­ri­ans. Fakes, may be “the great art of our age.”

Or so claims the sub­ti­tle of 2013 book Forged, in which philoso­pher and con­cep­tu­al artist Jonathon Keats sur­veys the careers of six noto­ri­ous forg­ers, includ­ing Dutch artist Han van Meegeren, who “tricked the world—and the Nazis—with his coun­ter­feit Ver­meer paint­ings,” the TED-Ed les­son above tells us.

Van Meegeren’s biog­ra­phy seems almost script­ed. Hav­ing failed to inter­est crit­ics in his work as a young man, he became embit­tered and decid­ed to revenge him­self upon the art world with fakes. His choice of Ver­meer was “ambi­tious” to say the least, giv­en the Baroque painter’s rep­u­ta­tion for a unique tech­ni­cal bril­liance.

He worked for six years to re-cre­ate Vermeer’s mate­ri­als and tech­niques and per­fect an aging process for his can­vas­es. The foren­sic sci­ence that would today detect such meth­ods was not suf­fi­cient­ly advanced at the time. Yet “even today,” the les­son notes, authen­tic­i­ty is a mat­ter of the “sub­jec­tive judg­ment of spe­cial­ists.” Van Meegeren used such depen­dence on author­i­ty against the experts by cre­at­ing a work he knew would fill in a his­tor­i­cal gap, an ear­ly reli­gious peri­od of Vermeer’s from which no works sur­vived; also, con­ve­nient­ly, a peri­od when the artist’s tal­ents were less devel­oped.

“In 1937,” Essen­tial Ver­meer writes, “Abra­ham Bredius… one of the most author­i­ta­tive art his­to­ri­ans,” who had “ded­i­cat­ed a great part of his life to the study of Ver­meer” pro­nounced van Meegeren’s fake Ver­meer, Christ and the Dis­ci­ples at Emmaus (detail above), “a hith­er­to unknown paint­ing by a great mas­ter, untouched, on the orig­i­nal can­vas, and with­out any restora­tion, just as it left the painter’s stu­dio.” His praise was so effu­sive it allowed no room for doubt. This was “the mas­ter­piece of Johannes Ver­meer of Delft… every inch a Ver­meer.”

Van Meegeren coun­ter­feit­ed works by sev­er­al oth­er Dutch mas­ters and “was so good,” says the nar­ra­tor of a Sotheby’s pro­file, above, “that he duped art experts, muse­ums, and even Hitler’s right-hand man Her­mann Göring.” And here, the usu­al admi­ra­tion for art forgers—who can seem like hero­ic trick­sters next to their greedy, over­con­fi­dent marks—takes a patri­ot­ic turn. Tried for col­lab­o­ra­tion, the forg­er argued he was in fact a nation­al hero for trad­ing anoth­er coun­ter­feit Ver­meer, Christ with the Woman Tak­en in Adul­tery (below), to Göring for 200 works of loot­ed Dutch art.

Van Meegeren’s defense depend­ed on him con­vinc­ing the court that he had made the paint­ing. This took some doing. He had even for­gone using mod­els so there would be no wit­ness­es. As Sotheby’s Direc­tor of Sci­en­tif­ic Research James Mar­tin and art his­to­ri­an Jonathan Lopez show us, van Meegeren’s work real­ly was that con­vinc­ing, its flaws near­ly unde­tectable. He did serve two years for forgery and fraud, but in the end achieved his ear­ly desire for artis­tic fame and his lat­er wish to be regard­ed as an out­law hero. Per­haps more than most art world forg­ers, he is deserv­ing of both rep­u­ta­tions.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Anato­my of a Fake: Forgery Experts Reveal 5 Ways To Spot a Fake Paint­ing by Jack­son Pol­lock (or Any Oth­er Artist)

How a Book Thief Forged a Rare Edi­tion of Galileo’s Sci­en­tif­ic Work, and Almost Pulled it Off

F for Fake: Orson Welles’ Short Film & Trail­er That Was Nev­er Released in Amer­i­ca

Josh Jones is a writer and musi­cian based in Durham, NC. Fol­low him at @jdmagness

by | Permalink | Make a Comment ( None ) |

Classic Songs Re-Imagined as Vintage Book Covers During Our Troubled Times: “Under Pressure,” “It’s the End of the World as We Know It,” “Shelter from the Storm” & More

in Art, Books, Current Affairs, Music | April 7th, 2020

Even before the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic, how many of us sought solace from the tur­bu­lent 21st cen­tu­ry in cul­tur­al arti­facts of bygone eras? Our favorite records by the likes of the Bea­t­les, Queen, David Bowie; our favorite nov­els by the likes of Ray­mond Chan­dler, Ian Flem­ing, Philip K. Dick: all of them now pos­sess a solid­i­ty that seems lack­ing in much cur­rent pop­u­lar cul­ture. The work of all these cre­ators has its own kind of artis­tic dar­ing, and all of it, too, also came out of times trou­bled in their own way.

Hence the cul­tur­al res­o­nance that has long out­last­ed their first burst of pop­u­lar­i­ty — and that fuels the visu­al mash-ups of Todd Alcott. A pro­fes­sion­al screen­writer and graph­ic design­er, Alcott takes mid-20th-cen­tu­ry works of graph­ic design, most often paper­back book cov­ers, and reimag­ines them with the lyrics, themes, and even imagery of pop­u­lar songs from a slight­ly lat­er peri­od. This project is eas­i­er shown than explained, but take a glance at his Etsy shop and you’ll under­stand it at once.

You’ll also take notice of a few mash-ups espe­cial­ly rel­e­vant to the present moment, one in which we all feel a bit “Under Pres­sure.” The whole of “Plan­et Earth,” after all, has found itself sub­ject to the kind of dead­ly pan­dem­ic that only hap­pens “Once in a Life­time,” if that often.

Increas­ing­ly many of us feel the need to “Call the Doc­tor,” but increas­ing­ly often, the doc­tor has proven unavail­able. Most of us can do no bet­ter than seek­ing “Shel­ter from the Storm” — and some of us have been forced by law to do so.

In some coun­tries, all this has begun to feel like “Life Dur­ing Wartime.” Extend­ed peri­ods con­fined to our homes have ren­dered some of us “Com­fort­ably Numb,” and no few Amer­i­cans have begun to say, “I’m So Bored with the U.S.A.” Per­haps you’ve even heard from friends who describes them­selves as in the process of “Los­ing My Reli­gion.” Some see human­i­ty as plung­ing into “The Down­ward Spi­ral” that ulti­mate­ly means “It’s the End of the World as We Know It.”

Oth­ers say “Don’t Wor­ry About the Gov­ern­ment,” expect­ing as they do a “Rev­o­lu­tion” for which they’ve already begun to arm them­selves with “Lawyers, Guns and Mon­ey.” But how many of us can real­ly say with con­fi­dence what a post-coro­n­avirus world will look like, and how or whether it will be dif­fer­ent from the one we’ve grown used to? Best to draw all we can from the wis­dom of the past — what­ev­er form it comes in — and bear in mind that, as a 20th-cen­tu­ry sage once put it, “Tomor­row Nev­er Knows.” You can pur­chase copies of Todd Alcot­t’s cov­ers (which extends well beyond what appears here) at his Etsy shop.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Bea­t­les Songs Re-Imag­ined as Vin­tage Book Cov­ers and Mag­a­zine Pages: “Dri­ve My Car,” “Lucy in the Sky with Dia­monds” & More

Clas­sic Songs by Bob Dylan Re-Imag­ined as Pulp Fic­tion Book Cov­ers: “Like a Rolling Stone,” “A Hard Rain’s A‑Gonna Fall” & More

David Bowie Songs Reimag­ined as Pulp Fic­tion Book Cov­ers: Space Odd­i­ty, Heroes, Life on Mars & More

Talk­ing Heads Songs Become Mid­cen­tu­ry Pulp Nov­els, Mag­a­zines & Adver­tise­ments: “Burn­ing Down the House,” “Once in a Life­time,” and More

Clas­sic Radio­head Songs Re-Imag­ined as a Sci-Fi Book, Pulp Fic­tion Mag­a­zine & Oth­er Nos­tal­gic Arti­facts

Songs by Joni Mitchell Re-Imag­ined as Pulp Fic­tion Book Cov­ers & Vin­tage Movie Posters

Based in Seoul, Col­in Mar­shall writes and broad­casts on cities, lan­guage, and cul­ture. His projects include the book The State­less City: a Walk through 21st-Cen­tu­ry Los Ange­les and the video series The City in Cin­e­ma. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall, on Face­book, or on Insta­gram.

by | Permalink | Make a Comment ( None ) |

Ingenious Improvised Recreations of Vermeer’s Girl with a Pearl Earring, Using Materials Found Around the House

in Art, Creativity, Museums | April 6th, 2020

One can only tol­er­ate so many edu­ca­tion­al videos in self-iso­la­tion before the brain begins to rebel.

Hands-on learn­ing. That’s what we’re crav­ing.

And ulti­mate­ly, that’s what the Get­ty pro­vides with an addic­tive chal­lenge to cap­tive audi­ences on Twit­ter, Face­book, and Insta­gram to re-cre­ate icon­ic art­works using three house­hold objects.

Par­tic­i­pants are encour­aged to look at the Get­ty’s down­load­able, dig­i­tized col­lec­tion and beyond for a piece that speaks to them, pos­si­bly because of their abil­i­ty to match it by dint of hair col­or, physique or  per­fect prop.)

Cer­tain works quick­ly emerged as favorites, with Johannes Ver­meer’s Girl with a Pearl Ear­ring (c. 1665) the clear front run­ner.

The Mau­rit­shuis, where Girl with a Pearl Ear­ring is quar­an­tined, along with oth­er Hague-dwellers such as Rem­brandt’s The Anato­my Les­son of Dr Nico­laes Tulp and Fab­ri­tius’ The Goldfinch, describes it thus­ly:

Girl with a Pearl Ear­ring is Vermeer’s most famous paint­ing. It is not a por­trait, but a ‘tron­ie’ – a paint­ing of an imag­i­nary fig­ure. Tron­ies depict a cer­tain type or char­ac­ter; in this case a girl in exot­ic dress, wear­ing an ori­en­tal tur­ban and an improb­a­bly large pearl in her ear.

Johannes Ver­meer was the mas­ter of light. This is shown here in the soft­ness of the girl’s face and the glim­mers of light on her moist lips. And of course, the shin­ing pearl.

Let’s have a look, shall we?

 

View this post on Insta­gram

 

A post shared by Mills Col­lege (@millscollege) on

 

View this post on Insta­gram

 

A post shared by 🍷 (@darlingrvlz) on

 

View this post on Insta­gram

 

A post shared by Anna Ryan (@desertsirenart) on

Ver­meer’s extra­or­di­nary appli­ca­tion of light and shad­ow is a tall order for most ama­teurs, but it’s won­der­ful to see how much care­ful con­sid­er­a­tion has been giv­en to the orig­i­nal sub­jec­t’s expres­sion, the cant of her head, the arrange­ment of her gar­ments.

It seems the best way to study a work of art is to become that work of art… espe­cial­ly when one is trapped at home, seek­ing dis­trac­tion, and forced to impro­vise with avail­able objects.

Let us pray we’ll be set loose long before Hal­loween, but also that the chal­lenge tak­ers won’t for­get how inge­nious, eas­i­ly sourced, and cost-effec­tive their cos­tumes were: a pil­low­case, a but­ton, an invert­ed par­ty dress, the hem of a sib­ling’s blue t‑shirt, res­cued from the rag bag still smelling faint­ly of vine­gar from pre-coro­n­avirus house­hold clean­ing.

That off-the-rack “sexy cat” won’t stand a chance.

 

View this post on Insta­gram

 

A post shared by india kotis (@indiakotis) on

 

View this post on Insta­gram

 

A post shared by A.C. Jones (@acjonesmusic) on

 

View this post on Insta­gram

 

A post shared by @anelsona on

 

View this post on Insta­gram

 

A post shared by MICHAELLA (@micyourday) on


No one’s dis­qual­i­fied if the num­ber of items used in ser­vice of these recre­ations exceeds the orig­i­nal­ly stiu­plat­ed 3. As long as the par­tic­i­pants are hav­ing (edu­ca­tion­al!) fun, this is one of those chal­lenges where every­body wins… espe­cial­ly the baby, the dog, the guy with the mus­tache and the lady with the turkey on her head, even though the baby and the guy with the mus­tache for­got their ear­rings.

 

View this post on Insta­gram

 

A post shared by ADO (@albrechtduerergymnasiumberlin) on

 

View this post on Insta­gram

 

A post shared by Michelle Grig­ore (@michellegrigore) on

 

View this post on Insta­gram

 

A post shared by David Jaloza (@sublatum19) on

 

View this post on Insta­gram

 

A post shared by Lon­don 👀 🍬 (@londoneyecandy) on


Some tips for par­tic­i­pants accom­pa­ny a hand­ful of mem­o­rable entries on the Get­ty’s behind-the-scenes blog, The Iris. We’ve got links to a num­ber of world class muse­ums’ and libraries’ dig­i­tal col­lec­tions here  and can’t wait to see what you come up with.

Mean­while, enjoy even more recre­ations by search­ing for #get­ty­chal­lenge or hav­ing a look at the Insta­gram of Tussen Kun­st & Quar­an­taine, whose attempt to con­jure Girl With A Pearl Ear­ring using a place­mat, a tow­el and a gar­lic bulb, launched the project that prompt­ed the Get­ty and the Rijksmu­se­um to fol­low suit.

Extra points if you accept the #neck­ruf­fchal­lenge inspired by our his­to­ry-lov­ing artist friend, Tyler Gun­ther’s take on the #get­ty­chal­lenge, below.

 

View this post on Insta­gram

 

A post shared by Tyler Gun­ther (@tylerguntherart) on

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Down­load All 36 of Jan Vermeer’s Beau­ti­ful­ly Rare Paint­ings (Most in Bril­liant High Res­o­lu­tion)

See the Com­plete Works of Ver­meer in Aug­ment­ed Real­i­ty: Google Makes Them Avail­able on Your Smart­phone

Flash­mob Recre­ates Rembrandt’s “The Night Watch” in a Dutch Shop­ping Mall

Ayun Hal­l­i­day is an author, illus­tra­tor, the­ater mak­er and Chief Pri­ma­tol­o­gist of the East Vil­lage Inky zine.  She has been crowd­sourc­ing art in iso­la­tion, most recent­ly a hasti­ly assem­bled trib­ute to the clas­sic 60s social line dance, The Madi­son. Fol­low her @AyunHalliday.

by | Permalink | Make a Comment ( 1 ) |

« Go Back — More in this category... »
Quantcast