Camera Obscura

Jasmijn, to the light, 2008
Richard Learoyd (British, b.1966)
unique camera obscura Ilfochrome photograph
h: 71.1 x w: 60.2 in
image: http://www.artnet.com/artwork/425986868/396/richard-learoyd-jasmijn-to-the-light.html

I browse through art magazine dog-earing images that catch me eye, and this is one from today. On first glance I thought it was a painting, the softness, the light, look on the woman's face. Currently part of the exhibition, Unique Photographs at the McKee Gallery in NYC, Learoyd's photographs are more than life size.

"Created with a camera obscura, each image is projected directly onto giant pieces of Ilfochrome, and each glossy print is unique. The lack of a negative yields an almost overwhelming clarity and one needs to see the prints in person to truly appreciate them." (Brea Souders Photography: A Place for New Projects and Updates blog)

Beguiling of Merlin

Edward Coley Burne-Jones (British, 1833-1898)
Beguiling of Merlin, 1872-7
Oil on canvas 186-111 cm.
LL3121
National Museums Liverpool - Lady Lever Gallery

It's normal to find different versions of art images in the web due to a multitude of copying, potentially bad photography and scanning. I tend to trust that the institution that owns a work will have the better quality image, or should have the better quality as well as most true to life (meaning color and tone) that you'll find. I've included 2 versions of the same painting here, but the quirky thing is, they were both found on the National Museums Liverpool's (who owns the painting) website.

I'm inclined to believe that the image on the left is the more true, but I still find the discrepancy very odd. Of course, finding the best image on the museum website is not always true, see wikipedia's version.

As for the image, Edward Burne-Jones was greatly influenced by the early Pre-Raphaelites such as Dante Gabriel Rosetti but evolved into his own artist. While using well-known stories as subject matter the focus of Burne-Jones' painting was beauty and sensuality.

Dignity and Impudence

Dignity and Impudence, 1839
Sir Edwin Henry Landseer (1802-1873)
Oil on canvas
Tate Collection
Image: tate.org.uk

Not usually much of a fan of animals in art but I discovering otherwise lately. I discovered Sir Edward Henry Landseer today, a 19th century British painter whose paintings usually depicted animals with human attributes. A significant talent from a very young age, exhibiting at the Royal Academy at only age 13 and became one of the most famous English painters of his generation.

The hound is Grafton and the terrier is Scratch, dogs of his friend and patron, Jacob Bell.

More animal paintings by Landseer.

Light-Dark

An experiment on a Bird in the Air Pump, 1768
Joseph Wright of Derby (1737-1797)
Oil on canvas
183 x 244 cm.
National Gallery, London

We got a catalog in today about Darwin, natural science and the visual arts and I started looking for art with connections to science (and started up a bibliography of it for a display at the library :). After a bit of searching, I remembered this wonderful painting by Joseph Wright (and happily remembered his name, though not the title despite its straightforwardness).

While my mind made direct connections to science, science may only serve as a cursory subject base for the painting as a whole. Everyone is watching a man demonstrate the air pump, but Wright's focus is on emotion and mood and style (the pump had been invented in previous century). The nighttime setting enables Wright to use very strong chiaroscuro (light-dark) to create dramatic affect. The people crowded around the demonstration have a wide range of reactions to the spectacle, fascination, horror, boredom, contemplation, all stemming from the same centralized source. This is the most well-known painting of Wright's, inspiring discussion of morality, science and enlightenment. Note that if you link to the image on the nga website you can access some awesome zooming capabilities.

I shared something from the fantastic Transcriptions LFS Shorts collaborative project at the National Gallery, London in a previous post and discovered Transcriptions: Animation this time around (there are also a couple of short films connected to this painting). I can't embed the animation but I highly recommend linking over to the website to see The Poison Tree inspired by Wright's painting. I get very excited when I discover all the wonderful collaborations happening between museums and schools, museums are still often a fantastic world of untapped possibilities, so much innovation still awaits!