The dark red
fishing shack on Bearskin Neck wharf in the artists' colony
Rockport, Massachusetts "is one of the most famous buildings in the world and instantly recognizable to any student of art or art history."
America's most-painted building received its name in an impulsive exclamation by famed illustrator, etcher and art teacher Lester Hornby. Its name?
Motif No. 1 "One day when a student brought for criticism a pencil drawing of the house, Hornby exclaimed, 'What-Motif No 1 again!' It has been that ever since."
[more inside]
posted by ericb
on Apr 6, 2011 -
24 comments
Did Gauguin Cut Off van Gogh's Ear? According to
a new book by two German art historians,
van Gogh did not slice off his left ear in a fit of madness and drunkenness in Arles in December 1888. His ear was severed by a sword wielded by his friend, the painter, Paul Gauguin, in a drunken row over a woman called Rachel and the true nature of art.
posted by ornate insect
on May 4, 2009 -
38 comments
Art Images for College Teaching is a
searchable,
browsable collection of 2,027, well, art images for college teaching, and appears to be mainly the personal collection of Art Historian
Allan Kohl (previously on MeFi), and thus represents his interests and specialities, not to mention the variable quality of his photographic skills. Rather strong in Ancient and Medieval, especially architecture, but tapers off as you become more distant from Europe or closer to the 20th century. Nice sets include the
Lion Hunt from Ashurbanipal, Iraq; the
exterior sculpture of Chartres; and
grave stele.
posted by Rumple
on Feb 1, 2008 -
4 comments
MUVA El PAIS has been conceived as a dynamic, interactive museum bringing together the most renowned works of contemporary Uruguayan art, an important contributor to Latin American art. MUVA is devoted to quality, content, education, information and recreation through the knowledge of visual arts. In Spanish and English, Flash and/or HTML.
posted by netbros
on Aug 25, 2007 -
2 comments
Did many of the "great masters" of Western art, well, cheat? Not exactly, says David Hockney, but they were close. In his
new book, entitled
Secret Knowledge: Rediscovering the Lost Techniques of the Old Masters, Hockney fleshes out a theory that he's been
toying with for years: that artists from Raphael to Caravaggio used devices similar to a
camera obscura (specifically, a
camera lucida), to "assist" them in making near photograph-quality reproductions of their subjects. The
theory (and the resulting
debate) is fascinating: if these artists did, in fact, benefit from "technical assistance," how should this affect our view of them, and of art history in general?
posted by arco
on Nov 10, 2001 -
16 comments