Evidence Found of Parthenon Coloring
British Museum researchers say they have detected tiny traces of blue paint on the Parthenon's statues and friezes.
June 30, 2009
June 24, 2009
Creation of Art
It is known that cave paintings were the first form of two dimensional art. The most predominant theory is that man created art through a trance like state caused by either the self through rituals or by the environment through light deprivation. This is a possible explanation of objects not seen in our three dimensional world being represented in cave painting (such as lines, boxes, and dots).
The trance theory is a good explanation of why objects not seen in reality were drawn on the cave walls. It seems plausible that prehistoric man would want to transfer the strange objects that he was seeing in his mind into our three dimensional world. However, its hard to believe that this is also how animals came to be drawn as well. Is it possible after discovering the ability to draw objects man began to focus on other mysteries and the most dominant must have been great majestic animals such as woolly mammoths, oxen, and horses?
Image courtesy of Google Images
June 23, 2009
Afghanistan Treasures Hidden for 25 Years
Opening at The Metropolitan Museum of Art this summer, the traveling exhibition Afghanistan: Hidden Treasures from the National Museum, Kabul, celebrates the country's unique role, as both the recipient of diverse cultural elements and the creator of distinctive styles of art from the Bronze Age into the Kushan period. The presentation also commemorates the heroic rescue of Afghanistan's national treasures long thought to have been destroyed.
Read more at artdaily.
June 14, 2009
3-D Reconstructive Virtual Models of Teotihuacan
The National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), through Aragon Faculty of Superior Studies (FES Aragon), and the National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH), at the National Museum of Anthropology, will create 3-D reconstructive virtual models of archaeological zones in Mexico. The first project to be undertaken is the site of Teotihuacan, which will include digital elevations of the Sun and Moon pyramids, Quetzalpapalotl and Feathered Shells Temples, the Jaguars Yard, the West Square Conjunct, as well as La Ventanilla, Tetitla, Atetelco and Zacuala residential conjuncts. Other elements of the Teotihuacan Project are graphic reconstructions of ceramic objects, burials, and mural paintings.
June 13, 2009
What's My Line? - Salvador Dali
This clip is from the 1950s game show What's My Line?. The guest star for the episode was Salvador Dali.
June 10, 2009
June 4, 2009
Conceptual Art
Michael Craig-Martin, An Oak Tree, 1973
At the Tate Modern there is a three-quarter full glass of water on a high shelf. Beside it there is the following text:
Q. To begin with, could you describe this work?
A. Yes, of course. What I've done is change a glass of water into a full-grown oak tree without altering the accidents of the glass of water.
Q. The accidents?
A. Yes. The colour, feel, weight, size ...
Q. Do you mean that the glass of water is a symbol of an oak tree?
A. No. It's not a symbol. I've changed the physical substance of the glass of water into that of an oak tree.
Q. It looks like a glass of water.
A. Of course it does. I didn't change its appearance. But it's not a glass of water, it's an oak tree.
Q. Can you prove what you've claimed to have done?
A. Well, yes and no. I claim to have maintained the physical form of the glass of water and, as you can see, I have. However, as one normally looks for evidence of physical change in terms of altered form, no such proof exists.
Q. Haven't you simply called this glass of water an oak tree?
A. Absolutely not. It is not a glass of water anymore. I have changed its actual substance. It would no longer be accurate to call it a glass of water. One could call it anything one wished but that would not alter the fact that it is an oak tree.
Q. Isn't this just a case of the emperor's new clothes?
A. No. With the emperor's new clothes people claimed to see something that wasn't there because they felt they should. I would be very surprised if anyone told me they saw an oak tree.
Q. Was it difficult to effect the change?
A. No effort at all. But it took me years of work before I realised I could do it.
Q. When precisely did the glass of water become an oak tree?
A. When I put the water in the glass.
Q. Does this happen every time you fill a glass with water?
A. No, of course not. Only when I intend to change it into an oak tree.
Q. Then intention causes the change?
A. I would say it precipitates the change.
Q. You don't know how you do it?
A. It contradicts what I feel I know about cause and effect.
Q. It seems to me that you are claiming to have worked a miracle. Isn't that the case?
A. I'm flattered that you think so.
Q. But aren't you the only person who can do something like this?
A. How could I know?
Q. Could you teach others to do it?
A. No, it's not something one can teach.
Q. Do you consider that changing the glass of water into an oak tree constitutes an art work?
A. Yes.
Q. What precisely is the art work? The glass of water?
A. There is no glass of water anymore.
Q. The process of change?
A. There is no process involved in the change.
Q. The oak tree?
A. Yes. The oak tree.
Q. But the oak tree only exists in the mind.
A. No. The actual oak tree is physically present but in the form of the glass of water. As the glass of water was a particular glass of water, the oak tree is also a particular oak tree. To conceive the category 'oak tree' or to picture a particular oak tree is not to understand and experience what appears to be a glass of water as an oak tree. Just as it is imperceivable it also inconceivable.
Q. Did the particular oak tree exist somewhere else before it took the form of a glass of water?
A. No. This particular oak tree did not exist previously. I should also point out that it does not and will not ever have any other form than that of a glass of water.
Q. How long will it continue to be an oak tree?
A. Until I change it.
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