For a variety of reasons, I found myself at the office late Friday night with time on my hands. I exhausted my entire backlog of Google Reader items (!) and switched to my second favorite form of internet time wastage: flickr. In the process I discovered a treasure trove of pictures that I had uploaded but never actually made public! My favorite by far is this collection from last year’s fourth of July weekend, when I capitalized on the long weekend and went home to visit family and celebrate my grandfather’s birthday.
There may or may not have been cupcakes involved. We’re looking into it.
Macro
I have to admit, I’ve had some pretty memorable experiences with museums and the works of art contained there: the very crowded visit to the Royal Academy of Art in London, where at 11 I first remember understanding what “studying the light” meant after seeing half a dozen of Monet’s cathedral hanging next to each other; the time a coat check attendant at the National Gallery of Art snuck me into a completely sold out Van Gogh exhibit, and I ended up and entering the last room of the show through a secret door that dropped me squarely in front of Harvest in Provence; the first art show I went to in Providence, where the What Cheer Brigade randomly stopped by, turning what was otherwise a quiet poster show into a sweaty Mardi Gras dance party; and then there was the afternoon class spent in the rare books room of the Brown library, where we casually leafed through the Gutenberg Bible.
With the possible exception of that last one, the one thing you couldn’t do in any of those experiences was get really super close to the painting and experience what the canvas was like, how thick the paint was, the level of obsessive attention to detail in the brush strokes, etc. The think I’m loving about the Google Art Project is that you can zoom in to levels that would give any reputable docent a heart attack.
The Starry Night — Van Gogh
Holbein is particularly fun to look at because he was known for writing teeny tiny messages in his paintings.
The Ambassadors — Hans Holbein the Younger
The Merchant Georg Gisze — Hans Holbein the Younger
At top, The Bottle of Anis del Mono by Juan Gris.
(Thanks to Jason for sending this to me!)