Art Archaeology

It probably doesn't come as news to many since it was picked up by the associated world news organizations, but I figured I'd repeat the story here in case you missed it, but last Thursday, researchers from the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam declared that a painting, "Still Life with Meadow Flowers and Roses," in the Kröeller-Müeller Museum, Otterlo, Netherlands, formerly believed not be a Van Gogh was indeed a work by the painter.

Van Gogh's "Still Life with Meadow Flowers and Roses"

The painting was purchased by the Kröeller-Müeller Museum in 1974, but skeptics pointed said the composition was too busy, the canvas was too large, and the signature was in an unusual location, so the painting was removed from their Van Gogh section and displayed elsewhere.

In 1998, the painting was subjected to X-ray analysis and it was revealed that there was an image below the visible one, but this last year, an even more detailed X-ray was taken and it clearly shows an image of two wrestlers.

After more closely examining the underpainting, experts are now convinced that the strokes and pigments used in the wrestlers match Van Gogh's style.  Experts can place the larger canvas at Van Gogh's time in an Antwerp art academy where he studied in 1886 and the image corresponds to a letter between Vincent and his brother Theo where mention is made of the two wrestler image.  So, for now, the case is closed and the still life has been returned to the museums' Van Gogh section.

Peter Newell

Yesterday's Person-of-Mystery was none other than Peter Newell (1862-1924).

Peter Newell

Newell was one of the most popular illustrators of his day and his style helped define the turn of the century era.  His work appeared in all of the most popular magazines (Harper's, McClure's, Collier's Saturday Evening Post, Scribner's, etc.) and graced the novels belonging to authors like Lewis Carol, Mark Twain, and Stephen Crane.

Newell's Humpty Dumpty from Carroll's Through the Looking Glass

Newell's humor was evident in so much of his poetry and illustration.

"Of what are you afraid, my child?"

Enquired the kindly teacher.

"Oh, Sir, the flowers, they are wild!"

Replied the timid creature.

Newell's "Wild Flowers," Harper's Monthly, August 1893

He couldn't make up his mind,

And she couldn't make up hers;

But finally they put their heads together,

And it was all right.

Newell's "The Solution," Harper's New Magazine, June 1898

Newell also authored a number of popular novelty children's books.  Among these were Topsys and Turvys in which pictures could be viewed from either right side up or upside down.

The Elephant leans o'er the fence and wonders why it is

The Ostrich has a longer neck and smaller mouth than his.

Another creative book was Newell's Slant Book which was produced a rhomboid shape with pictures and text to match.

Newell's ingenious Shadow Book contained blank images with a silhouetted shape that seemed recognizable, however when held to the light with the image on the next page, the silhouette in the oval would change into another form altogether.

One of my favorites was his Hole Book where a physical hole was drilled through the book and a travels of a bullet accidentally fired by a boy are detailed.

If you've never seen the book, it may be viewed online HERE, but it's far more fun for a kid to see the actual hole and place a finger in it.

A younger Newell at work

Self Portrait

Percolator App

I'm a big fan of the startup business entrepreneurs, especially ones with creativity.  And since the launch of the iPhone, I've been watching the iTunes App Store with interest.  With very little overhead, a talented software developer can write a program for the iPhone or iPad and if they're good enough, maybe even quit their day job.

Today, I want to highlight one of my favorite such apps and the genius behind it.  Percolator was created by John Balestrieri, founder of Tinrocket, LLC.  It's a wonderful little program that can take a guy like me (someone with the inclination to be a talented artist – just without the talent part) and make his images look interesting and fun.  Here are some examples from John's iPhone:

 

(Original iPhone photo on left and with Percolator magic on right)

Percolator made it's debut in August of 2010 and back then it was a fun little program.  I enjoyed taking snapshots with the iPhone and seeing what it would do.  Unlike a lot of neat programs where the developer creates something fun and just forgets about it, since it's original release, John was hard at work tweaking and improving Percolator to make it even better.  A couple weeks ago, Tinrocket released a new and improved Percolator 2.0!  And it's more beautiful than ever and loaded with more awesome features to satisfy my creative impulses!

Photo using Percolator's Superstar filter

Percolator's easy to use interface on an iPad screenshot

Here's one I took of my son (using a different Percolator filter) headed to the surf yesterday (yes, we live in California):

Kudos to John for producing such a great program.  Percolator is on my short list of must buys for the iPhone/iPad.  I'm looking forward to seeing what Tinrocket comes up with next!

John Balestrieri, author of Percolator

Oh, and let me know if you have an iPhone/iPad.  John has told me, he'll give me some promo codes to hand out and I'm giving it to the people who post the nicest comments about his program and how they might use it.

Landscape Photography of Kim Keever

I enjoy seeing good landscape photography, so when a friend recently sent me some photographs of Kim Keever's work, I was a little stunned.  In many ways they looked more like paintings than photographs.  But perhaps even more curious is to realize that there is no digital manipulation of these photographs.  I was amazed.

So how does Keever achieve these stunning colors and beautiful atmospheric conditions without Photoshop?

Well basically, he creates miniature landscape scenes in a 200-gallon tank in his studio in New York City.  Keever illuminates his tank with colored lights and fills the aquarium with water.  To create the atmospheric effect, he adds paint and then swirls it around to achieve the cloud-like scenery as he photographs the quickly changing environment.

If you'd like to see more, check out more of his work at this gallery HERE.

Heaven of Delight

Full disclosure:  I'm not a big fan of modern art.  While I admit, much of it is creative, I keep thinking just because you can do something, doesn't mean you should do something.  However, every now and then, something in the the modern art world does strike me as something really neat.  Which brings me to the subject for today, a piece of artwork titled Heaven of Delight, created by the artist Jan Fabre, installed in 2002 at the Royal Palace of Brussels in Belgium.

Fabre's medium of choice for the work were the iridescent shells of jewel beetles (specifically those of the Sternocera acquisignata).  So with the blessing of Queen Paola, Fabre coated the ceiling panels of the Hall of Mirrors along with the central chandelier.

About one and a half million beetle shells were used and even though the photos are fascinating, I have to imagine that the effect when viewed in person is particularly stunning.  And all that beauty from a bunch of bugs!

If you'd like to take a quick video tour, you can see that here:

San Francisco's Lost Liberty

I work about about a 30 minute drive from my home, so I listen to a lot of podcasts in the car to help pass the time.  I have a few favorite podcasts, but I'm always looking for new ones to brighten my drive.

Today I listened to the 99% Invisible podcast.  This show is all about design.  It's an okay show, but I can't tell yet if it'll stay on my playlist.  They only have six episodes so far, each about 5 minutes long.  Today I listened to one from September 30 about San Francisco's former Statue of Liberty.

This news took me by surprise as I never knew San Francisco had such a statue.

(copy of Triumph of Light)

Apparently in 1887 (the year after the more famous New York statue was installed) a wealthy philanthropist named Adolph Sutro had a statue titled, "Triumph of Light," installed atop Mt. Olympus hill in the center of San Francisco.  It was a 12 foot bronze statue designed by Antoine Wiertz of Lady Liberty triumphing over Despotism while holding aloft her light was placed atop a 30 foot pedestal.  The statue commanded breathtakingly unobstructed 360 views of San Francisco.

(Triumph of Light in 1927)

Over time, the statue was largely neglected and eventually fell into disrepair.  Sometime in the 1950s it was removed altogether.  Today, only the pedestal remains with a mostly unreadable inscription surrounded by trees and condominiums.

Sad.  It looked like an interesting statue.

Bubble Art

Yesterday I was checking out some computer art programs, when I stumbled upon a new iPhone app called Percolator.  It takes your pictures and turns them into bubble art.  Pretty cool!  It reminds me of the funky late-1960s art that my mom dabbled in when I was a kid.

What do you make of it?