Art
pharyngula | August 23, 2006I'm sorry to say that on our last trip to New York, we missed this museum.
Peruse an 1814 sketchbook by the Japanese artist Katsushika Hokusai and eventually you'll come across a bashful, wide-eyed octopus. You'd never guess that the innocent creature leads a secret life of debauchery. But a few years later, there he is on a woodblock print, still wide-eyed, now presented by Hokusai in a moment of infamous passion—his bulbous head pushed between the legs of a young woman, delivering a rather well-received session of cunnilingis. Hilarious and startling, it's just one example of the explicit…
pharyngula | August 7, 2006
I won't post this lovely print directly, since it might not be safe for work—not because it shows breasts, but because if any of your passing colleagues know anything about molluscan anatomy, they'll realize that that cephalopod is gnawing on her head and be horrified.
(hat tip to Leslie Madsen-Brooks)
pharyngula | August 5, 2006Steve Borres sent along a few shots from his Aegean vacation. Something seems to have reminded him of me, and it wasn't bare-breasted Cretan dancers:
Very cool. If I'd been around 2500 years ago, there's something I could have gotten into.
pharyngula | July 31, 2006A reader discovered this fascinating graffiti in downtown Minneapolis, near the transit center on Hennepin Avenue.
In Minneapolis! So far from the sea, but I'm not alone in pining for it.
I may have to look this up. This is a travel week for me, as I have to run around taking care of some essential pre-school year duties—I'm actually sitting in the St Cloud mall right now, watching the senior citizens do their laps, while waiting for our car to get some minor repairs and maintenance—and tomorrow I have to run in to the university to attend a meeting and to the airport to dispose of one of my…
dmunger | July 31, 2006[originally posted on March 16, 2005]
I've taken only two pictures of the Mona Lisa, and both turned out about the same: they captured the frenzied attempts of dozens of tourists trying to take a picture of the most-recognized image in the world. Here's the one I took last summer:
I hadn't noticed it until now, but the motion of the painting in the background seems to mirror the chaotic struggle of the tourists with their cameras. I wonder if the Louvre's curators placed it there as a sort of an inside joke.
But this post isn't about museum curators, it's about one feature of the Mona Lisa…
pharyngula | July 30, 2006Carel Brest van Kempen has posted one of his paintings of Cambrian animals—be sure to click on it to get the larger size. I wish I had a pet anomalocarid in my aquarium.
pharyngula | July 24, 2006That army of undead cyborg squid-human hybrids idea? It looks like it might be old hat. Owlmirror found an old and rather crypticJapanese print of armored warrior cephalopods…and there's a much, much higher resolution image of the same at that link. I can't quite make out what they're fighting, though…an army of dumplings? Meatballs? Who reads Japanese out there?
pharyngula | July 23, 2006
I have no idea what the cephalopods flying over the city have to do with the ecological message in the small print, but heck, it's a cool picture anyway.
Maybe it has something to do with octopuses swimming over flooded cities, but they look airborn to me.
pharyngula | July 16, 2006
John Bentley sent me an issue of Seven Days with this interesting illustration on the cover: it's titled "California", by Chris Varricchione. Excuse the smudginess, but I just scanned it in from newsprint, so it isn't exactly the cleanest image to start with. Still, I had to make it my desktop image—who can resist a flying mollusc/bird chimera? Now if only someone would point me to a sharper original source…
Thanks, John!
grrlscientist | July 15, 2006
New York Movie
by Edward Hopper, 1939.
Oil on canvas (The Museum of Modern Art, New York City).
Rough times, my peeps, rough times.
You all sit together in darkness while I stand hidden in bright light,
listening to you enjoy the unfolding story.
.
tags: New York Movie, Edward Hopper, American Art
pharyngula | July 8, 2006I've been told that there is a drop of old Dutch blood in my ancestry—that way back in the 17th century, an intrepid few Dutch immigrants mingled their seed with the mongrel mess of my father's line. I think now I sense a kindred spirit. Adriaen Coenensz, a fisherman and fish seller from Scheveningen in Holland wrote and illustrated a book between 1577 and 1580 titled Het Visboek ("The Fishbook"). It's an amazing browse. Apparently, Coenensz was interested in adventure and exotic dining experiences…
…he was an early devotee of science fiction…
…and most of all, he was obsessed with squid…
pharyngula | July 2, 2006
Whoa. A reader sent a link to this lovely print—I wouldn't mind having that on my wall.
(please don't hate me for my title; it's actually called "Stay, and I will love thee," but I couldn't resist.)
pharyngula | May 24, 2006I saw it first at Virge's place, but Mike Snider is also on the blogroll and I would have gotten to it eventually…but hey, if you're a fan of fossil tetrapods and poetry, here's a treat: a Tiktaalik sonnet. You can also view some drafts of its construction, which is developmentally interesting, I think, and not quite as messy as chopping up embryos.
I think my title reveals why I'll leave the poesy to the pros.
grrlscientist | April 26, 2006
The Rocks near Pourville at Ebb Tide (1882)
by Claude Monet.
Click image for larger view in its own window.
This painting and this poem (below the fold) also seem to be made for each other.
This poem is one that I discovered several years after Gene Wilder first introduced me to it. When I was a wee one, I loved his delighful movie, Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (1971) so much that I tape recorded it from the TV and played the tape often. (Surprisingly, after all my relocations, I still have that cassette tape). The dialogue in this particular scene made a huge impression;
Willy…
grrlscientist | April 24, 2006
Autumn Path through the Woods (1876)
by Camille Pissarro.
Click image for larger view in its own window.
Not only do I love this poem (below the fold) and this painting, but I think they were made for each other.
The Road not Taken
By Robert Frost
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them…
grrlscientist | April 22, 2006
Branch of White Peonies, with Pruning Shears (1864)
by Edouard Manet.
I have always loved (and written) poetry, but on those days following September 11, 2001, I first read a poem by Mary Oliver, who immediately became one of my two favorite living poets.
I was in Seattle Center on several of the most silent autumn days that I have ever experienced, watching thin sunlight struggle through the cool mist. In front of me stood a mountain of flowers that reached eight feet high, creating a riot of color that contrasted with soft grey skies. In fact, every flower in the entire city and…
grrlscientist | April 18, 2006tags: Rigor Vitae: Life Unyielding, Carel Pieter Brest van Kempen, book review, art, books
Several weeks ago, a good friend of mine who is an aviculturist, businessman and art collector, emailed to tell me about a book he had just purchased. Usually reserved, his praise was so effusive that I contacted the publisher immediately to obtain a review copy. A week later, the carefully bubble-wrapped and packed book arrived in the mail; Rigor Vitae: Life Unyielding: The Art of Carel Pieter Brest van Kempen (2006, Eagle Mountain Publishing, Eagle Mountain, Utah. Click image for larger view in its…
grrlscientist | March 30, 2006Ivory-Billed Woodpecker trio, Campephilus principalis,
by John James Audubon.
Hey everyone, it might surprise you to learn that I saw ivory-billed woodpeckers in NYC recently! Even better, I saw a trio, and I stood so close that I could have reached out and touched them! I clearly saw the spectacular iridescent flash of red from the male's crest, the two nearly parallel white stripes down the birds' backs, the snowy wings, and the huge pale bills. After such a close look at them, there was no mistaking these birds for anything other than ivory-billed woodpeckers.
How did I manage to see…
dmunger | March 27, 2006Take a look at these two shapes. Which appears more "joyful"? Which appears fearful?
How about these shapes? Which is angrier? Which appears to be suffering more?
If you're like most people, the shapes that appear to be less stable (number 2 in the figures above) are also more fearful. Those that are rotated more from the vertical position (again, number 2 in the figures) are more suffering and less angry.
Assigning emotions to shapes is nothing new. In experiments as early as the 1940s, individuals have been found to consistently apply the same emotions to shapes in schematic cartoons: "…
grrlscientist | March 22, 2006
Circus Colors of Chemistry.What happens when aqueous sulfate salts of cobalt, nickel and copper mix together?
Solids of flamboyant colors separate into riotous domains and boundaries that only nature can conceive.
Photo courtesy of chemistry graduate student, Jack Hess.
Click image for a larger version in its own window.
I discovered this stunning photo at Flickr's Laboratory Photo Pool. (I also store my photos at Flickr). I wrote to Jack Hess, the (currently blogless) photographer, seeking permission to use this photo here, and I received a gracious reply from him within 20 minutes. I share…