"Hurrian Hymn No. 6" (c.1400 B.C.E.) Ancient Mesopotamian Music Fragment The Oldest Known Melody, which is known as “Hurrian Hymn No. 6,” that
dates all the way back to 1400 B.C.E., performed by the very talented
Michael Levy on solo lyre. This piece was discovered in the 1950’s in
Ugarit, Syria. It was interpreted by Dr. Richard Dumbrill. There were 29
musical texts found in the ruins of the palace at Ugarit, all dating to
the same time, c.1400 B.C.E., right at the end of the Hurrian
civilization - the numbers given to the musical texts are simply to
catagorize the texts, which is why even though it’s the oldest known
melody, it is entitled “Hurrian Hymn Number ‘6.’” There is no
chronological order implied. Dr. Dumbrill wrote a book entitled “The
Archaeomusicology of the Ancient Near East.” (Source: youtube.com)
ASSESSMENT PREP- FIRST TRY TO RELAX. WINTER IS NOT ONLY COMING IT'S HERE FOR THE FORESEEABLE FUTURE. SO, CURL UP WITH A GOOD (and large) ART HISTORY BOOK AND SCROLL DOWN TO THE POSTING STARTING WITH THE WORD..."THINGS". If later you have some time take a look at the other-newer postings-a little something for all.
GIOTTO CIMABUE LIMBOURG BROTHERS JAN VAN EYCK ROGIER VAN DER WEYDEN BOSCH GHIBERTI BRUNELLESCHI MASSACIO DONATELLO VERROCHIO BOTTICELLI FRA ANGELICO MANTEGNA PIERO DELLA FRANCESCA LEONARDO MICHAELANGELO RAPHAEL BELLINI GEORGIONI TITIAN PARMIGIANO TINTORETTO GRUNEWALD DURER HOLBEIN BRUEGEL EL GRECO VELAZQUEZ BERNINI CARRAVAGIO RUBENS REMBRANDT VERMEER HUGO VAN DER GOES
foreshortening perspective plan value mass line volume contour elevation section texture hue proportion scale chiaroscuro bas-relief iconography subtractive sculpture additive sculpture primary colors complementary colors conceptual approach perceptual approach in situ provenance subject matter content axis chroma chronological sequence
Follow the metamorphosis of architectural engineering...from
POST and LINTEL CORBELLED WALLS RELIEVING TRIANGLES CEMENT ARCHES DOMES COFFERED CEILINGS BASILICAS CENTRAL PLANNED STRUCTURES PENDENTIVES SQUINCES
Follow the development of painting...from
THE FOUR STYLES OF ROMAN MURALS PORTRAITS IN ENCAUSTIC FROM THE FAYUM REGION ATMOSPHERIC/ARIEL PERSPECTIVE STYLIZATION VS NATURALISM ICONS/IKONA VENERATION VS ADORATION "To pray through not to" HIERATIC ILLUSION THAT RE-ENFORCES THE FLATNESS OF THE PICTURE PLANE
Some terms to travel artstor with- Byzantine icon iconastasis (sacred image wall) Ravenna Hagia Sophia Mount Athos Saint Catherines MonastaryByzantine mosaics Byzantine reliquaries Andre Rublev Theophanes
Appalling Restoration Destroys Giotto Frescoes at the Basilica of Saint Francis in Assisi
Hili Perlson, Friday, February 20, 2015 SHARE
Giotto, Renunciation of Wordly Goods Basilica of St. Francis of Assisi, Upper Church Photo via: Wikimedia Commons
Fourteenth-century frescoes in the Basilica of St. Francis of Assisi have been damaged by over-ambitious restorations, Italian daily La Repubblica reports. Experts claim the frescoes have been significantly compromised; segments that have fallen victim to over-enthusiastic work now stand in stark contrast to the untouched areas.
Unique in their range and quality, the murals were created by numerous late medieval painters from the Roman and Tuscan schools, and include Giotto frescoes as well as works by Simone Martini, Pietro Lorenzetti, and possibly Pietro Cavallini. The frescoes are considered instrumental for understanding developments in Italian art history. (Giotto artworks had some bad luck last year also; see Giotto Chapel Damaged by Lightning).
The Directorate General for Fine Arts of the Ministry for Cultural Heritage, led by architect Francesco Scoppola, was alarmed that changes have been made at the Basilica of Saint Francis in Assisi, and ordered an inspection.
Bruno Zanardi, a restorer and lecturer at the University of Urbino, Italy, said he noticed considerable changes in the chapel: “I saw the site in 2011, and got the impression it was a good job, executed by someone I thought was a capable and expert restorer. But when I went back to the basilica a couple of months ago with my students, I had a very different impression," Zanardi told La Repubblica.
Frescoes at one end of the transept in the Chapel of St. Nicholas, where restoration is already concluded, are heavily compromised. A fresco by Giotto depicting the Madonna fainting at the cross has lost its light and shade contrasts and its colors are dulled. (Could the frescoes qualify as candidates for the TEFAF Restoration Fund? See TEFAF Restoration Fund Saves Priceless Zurbarán Works.)
Martini's figures of saints appear flattened, while some details of the decor have been obliterated. The Virgin Mary at the center of the triptych in the Chapel of St. Nicholas has completely (and allegedly irreversibly) lost its top coat.
However, Sergio Fusetti, lead restorer at the Basilica of Saint Francis in Assisi, claims that the allegations reported in the Italian press are completely unfounded. “The problem doesn't exist. We carry out regular checks and maintenance, taking off the hard dust that's been deposited on the frescoes. We have never done anything without the authorization from the superintendency, which is the culture ministry in the territory," he told the Guardian.
Fusetti has overseen the restoration work since 1997, when the basilica was hit during an earthquake. “I was the last restorer there after the earthquake. I risked my life," he said.
At the end of an assiduous restoration process following the earthquake, art experts were afforded a moment of celebration in 2012 when Giotto's signature was discovered on one of the frescoes.
Talk about a lasting romance. This couple couldn’t keep their hands off each other -- foralmost 6,000 years.
The grave of two Neolithic skeletons locked in a tight embrace was discovered in a Greek cave in 2013, and now DNA testing has determined each skeleton's sex, revealing a man and woman, the Associated Press reported.
The skeletons -- found lying in a fetal position, seemingly spooning each other -- are estimated to be around 5,800 years old.
(Story continues below photo.)
The remains of a man and woman in their early twenties, buried as they died nearly 6,000 years ago -- locked in a tight embrace in Diros, southern Greece.
Anastassia Papathanassiou, a member of the excavation team that unearthed the grave, told the AP that the couple likely died holding each other. The grave sits near the Alepotrypa Cave, part of the Diros Cave complex in southern Greece.
Many questions remain as to the couple’s story, including the cause of their death and whether they were related. Papathanassiou told the AP that further DNA testing will be conducted on the remains.
…Lior Shamir, a computer scientist at Lawrence Technological University, has taken a series of image analysis algorithms and shown that they can discriminate between real Pollocks and pieces painted in an attempt to mimic his style. This isn’t the first time that computer science has intruded into the world of fine art. In several cases in the past, it has done so via the art community’s invitation, as scientific analysis can help determine whether a suspicious work is likely to be genuine or not. Since Pollock painted very recently, however, it’s relatively easy for a forger to match his materials. Whether they match his style or not is debatable given the disagreements noted above about whether there’s a distinctive style involved at all. There are, however, a number of possible Pollocks that are, as Shamir puts it, of “controversial authenticity,” and computer scientists have attempted to use image analysis to weigh in on the issue. The idea that an artist paints in ways that create a distinctive style that’s possible to identify based on multiple paintings isn’t at all controversial. The question is whether that style can be reduced to a value through the mathematical processing of the information in an image of those paintings. In Pollock’s case, past attempts indicated that his paintings have a distinctive fractal nature that can be recognized by algorithms…
At Auction in London, ‘Jewels of the 20th Century’
Photo
Monet’s 1908 canvas ‘‘Le Grand Canal.’’CreditSotheby’s
Auctions
By SCOTT REYBURN
LONDON — Are “Imps & Mods,” the ultimate trophy art of the 1980s, making a comeback?
Over the past few days news has trickled out that a Qatari buyer may have paid as much as $300 million — a record sum for any artwork — for an 1892 Paul Gauguin canvas of two Tahitian women.
On Tuesday, meanwhile, Sotheby’s held a 75-lot evening auction of Imps and Mods — the trade name for Impressionist and modern works — that grossed 186.4 million pounds with fees, or about $285 million. The total was the highest for any art auction ever held in London. The next evening, an equivalent £147 million sale at Christie’s included a Surrealist section that took in £66.7 million — a new high for the category.
These results were remarkable, given that Impressionist and modern works have fallen out of vogue with many of the world’s wealthiest collectors in recent years. In 2014, Christie’s worldwide sales of Impressionist and modern art totaled £732.5 million, less than half the £1.7 billion achieved at the company’s auctions of contemporary works. (Sotheby’s figures are not yet available.)
Photo
A 1909-1910 self-portrait by Kazimir Malevich.CreditSotheby’s
But as the prices of must-have artists such as Gerhard Richter, Christopher Wool, Wade Guyton — and of painters not yet out of their 20s — spiral giddily upward, and wider economic indicators become increasingly uncertain, the museum-proven greats of the late 19th and early 20th centuries are viewed by many as a safe bet.
“Contemporary is about playing the casino,” said the Paris dealer Christian Ogier, who attended the London sales. “Impressionist and modern art is about serious money looking for an investment. My clients are trying to find somewhere to park their money.”
The presence of expanded teams of more than 100 people staffing telephones at both Sotheby’s and Christie’s was an indication of the international demand for investment-grade Impressionist and modern art. Both sales found buyers for more than 85 percent of their lots, with Christie’s saying they had bidders registered from 34 countries.
On this occasion, Sotheby’s offered the more commercial selection. The company, which has just increased its fees to buyers, spent about £60 million of its own money to secure 12 desirable works that carried presale guarantees in the catalog. These included two of five Monet paintings, estimated in a range from £1.2 million to £30 million.
“Monet has become the trophy name of this market cycle,” said the London art adviser Wendy Goldsmith, a former head of 19th-century paintings at Christie’s. “He’s so coveted, like Renoir was in the 1980s. He’s become a currency.”
All five of Sotheby’s Monet paintings were successful, attracting competition from 14 different bidders. The 1908 “Le Grand Canal,” bought by its seller for $12.9 million at auction in 2005, topped the evening with a price of £23.7 million. The 1887 landscape “Les Peupliers à Giverny,” sold by the Museum of Modern Art in New York, went for £10.8 million. Those works were bought by telephone bidders just above their low estimates, having been guaranteed to fetch minimum prices by both Sotheby’s and external third parties.
Photo
‘‘Painting (Woman, Moon, Birds),’’ 1950, by Joan Miró.CreditChristie's
In recent years, Russians have been active buyers at London auctions. But with the ruble slumping 46 percent against the dollar in 2014, and a further 7 percent this year, they were selling as well as buying this time around.
Dealers said a Russian woman living in London was the seller of a 1909-1910 Kazimir Malevich self-portrait on paper that was a part of last year’s Tate Modern retrospective on the artist. Bought at auction for £162,000 in 2004, it was offered at Sotheby’s with a low estimate of £1 million. It was eventually bought by the London dealer Harry Blain, on behalf of a client identified by several dealers as the Russian businessman Roman Abramovich, who lives in London. The price was £5.7 million with fees, after a lengthy struggle with the Cologne dealer Alex Lachman, who advises Petr Aven, the head of Russia’s largest private bank. Mr. Blain had not responded to a call seeking confirmation that Mr. Abramovich was the buyer.
The seller made a handsome profit, but would have made more had she not made the 11th-hour decision to share the “upside” above the estimate with a third party who guaranteed the sale. The guarantor’s share could have been about 20 percent of £4 million, dealers said.
The Malevich was a one-off price. Far more typical were the hefty sums being paid again and again at these sales for iconic images by bankable names.
“People want the identifiable brand on the wall, something that will be instantly recognized when people walk in the room,” Ms. Goldsmith said.
Christie’s record-breaking Surrealist sale included the large 1950 Joan Miró canvas, “Painting (Woman, Moon, Birds),” estimated at £4 million to £7 million. Filled with the playful biomorphic figures that are Miró’s hallmark, and notable for its bright decorative colors, the painting had never appeared at auction before and had been in the same European private collection since 1963.
Photo
René Magritte’s circa 1961 gouache work ‘‘Souvenir de voyage.’’CreditChristie's
It was bought by a telephone bidder for £15.5 million against determined competition in the room from the Nahmad family of dealers and Acquavella Galleries in New York. The price for this instantly recognizable and showy Miró contrasted with the slightly less feverish £13.5 million, just above the high estimate, paid at Christie’s by the New York art adviser Nancy Whyte for Paul Cézanne’s historically important, but more cerebral circa 1883-1885 landscape “Vue sur l’Estaque et le Château d’If” being sold by the family of the English collector Samuel Courtauld.
Had the painting dated from the last 15 years of Cézanne’s life — the period that every billionaire collector covets — the price might have been a little closer to the $100 million “super-trophy” price paid for the 1904 landscape, “La Montagne Sainte-Victoire vue du bosquet du Château Noir,” in 2013.
“Over the last four or five years we’ve seen people willing to go the extra distance for A-plus works,” the New York art adviser Abigail Asher said. “Those prices leave the rest of the market behind.”
The Impressionist and modern market is now being driven by images, and the most obviously appealing are rising in price. At Sotheby’s, Patti Wong, the chairwoman of the company’s Asia division, took a winning double-estimate telephone bid of £2.3 million for the small, generic 1890 Renoir painting “Tête de jeune fille” that had been bought by its seller for $1.5 million at auction in 2001.
Twenty-four hours later, Christie’s telephones were buzzing with bids for a group of four gouaches that René Magritte made of his signature motifs in the 1960s. From a group of 16 modern and Surrealist works entered by the Belgian collector Pierre Salik, who sold Francis Bacon’s “Seated Figure (Red Cardinal)” at Christie’s in New York in November, these raised an aggregate £7 million, against a low estimate of £1.7 million.
Ms. Asher, the adviser, had to pay a top price of £2.7 million for “Souvenir de voyage,” showing an apple wearing a mask — far more than the £1.8 million achieved for a less typical Max Ernst-influenced 1927 oil from the Salik collection. “These were iconic objects, small jewels of the 20th century,” Ms. Asher said of the Magritte gouaches after the auction.
Given the right kind of jewel, the auction market for Impressionist and modern art is beginning to sparkle o
Gay marriage has been legal in Florida
for a month now, and at this point, even the state’s hardcore
conservatives seem increasingly resigned to the fact that marriage
equality is here to stay. Accordingly, Florida’s more bigoted
legislators have decided to turn their ire toward another maligned,
disfavored minority—trans people—by proposing one of the most viciously
sadistic, hypocritical bills the legislature has ever considered.
Mark Joseph Stern is a writer for Slate. He covers science, the law, and LGBTQ issues.
The basic purpose of the bill
is quite simple: to forbid trans people from using the public bathroom
that matches their true gender. According to the bill’s text, any trans
person who enters a “single-sex public facility” that doesn’t match
their “biological sex” is guilty of a first-degree misdemeanor. A
“single-sex public facility” includes bathrooms “maintained by an owner
of public accommodations, a school, or a place of employment”—basically,
any public bathroom in the entire state. Any trans person who violates
the act could be sentenced to one year in prison.
It gets much, much worse. Any non-trans person who discovers a trans
person using a bathroom that doesn’t align with their “biological sex”
would be permitted to sue that trans person under the act. (If sued
successfully, the trans person would have to pay their accuser’s
attorney fees.) And, in a final turn of the screw, an “owner of public
accommodations, a school, or a place of employment” who allows a
trans person to use the bathroom of their true gender is liable for a
civil suit. In other words, if a store owner does not actively prevent
trans people from using her bathrooms, she can be sued by other
customers. And of course, if the trans-friendly store owner is found to
have allowed a trans person to use the bathroom, she’ll not only have to
pay damages to disgruntled customers—she’ll also have to pay their
attorney’s fees.
The obvious intent of this bill is to humiliate trans people by
opening them up to criminal and civil liability merely for performing
the most basic of bodily functions. Trans people already face harassment, discrimination, and sometimes violence
while attempting to use the bathroom. This bill would effectively give
anti-trans harassers the state’s blessing, while providing them a new
avenue through which to shame trans Floridians—the court system. Many
trans people are already anxious about using public bathrooms; some are
afraid to leave their homes given the risk of verbal and physical abuse
they face in public facilities. With this bill, the state would
effectively legalize anti-trans harassment, sending a resounding message
to trans people that they are not welcome in public life.
But perhaps the galling component of the bill is its astonishing
interference into private businesses. For years, conservatives have been
complaining that LGBT non-discrimination ordinances impede the liberty
of business owners. These businesses, conservatives argue, should have
the freedom to conduct their affairs however they so choose—even if that
means kicking out gay customers
who want to buy their products. With the tables turned, however,
Florida’s right-wing legislators have changed their tune, arguing that
private business owners should be forbidden from letting trans
customers use their bathrooms. This intrusion into the autonomy of
businesses is as hideously hypocritical as it is unsurprising. Most
conservatives are only willing to defend business owners’ rights so long
as they’re exercising their right to discriminate against LGBTQ people.
When businesses wish to tolerate LGBTQ customers, conservatives have no problem passing a law restricting their liberty.
It is probably too soon to tell whether Florida’s bill will pass—though given this legislature’s track record,
any bill designed to demean a sexual minority has fair odds of becoming
law. Either way, the mere existence of such a mean-spirited bill sends a
blunt message to the state’s trans community that they are not welcome
here. It was probably inevitable that, once the marriage equality debate
settled down, those who dedicate their lives to promoting hatred would
set their sights on trans people. But the maliciousness and celerity
with which Florida’s legislators have zeroed in on the trans community
suggests the next battle for LGBTQ rights will be a brutal one.
Hyperallergic and ArtF City (Paddy Johnson founder great writer) are wonderful overall sites- (Hyper is International-Art F City is geared for NYC) sometimes serious and sometimes gossipy. Artnet is a much more established source of info on contemporary and historical ( former student of mine from Rutgers Brian Boucher writes for them-check his stuff out-he's insightful and can be wickedly funny.Artforum magazine has been a major force in contemporary art journalism since before I WAS IN ART SCHOOL!!!!! It's Vogue slick and essentially all about the money ( so yes, it's very important). The Bruce High Quality Foundation is a semi-anonymous group of former Cooper Union students ( taught Joe Kay) that have sky rocketed to the highest recognition level in the global art world...quite the phenomenon! They're funny-sometimes hilarious -sometimes Fraternity prank humorous ( granted they ARE ALL in their twenties) but never boring. The site is a resource primarily of their works/projects but will give you a peak inside the sometimes insane contemporary art world. enjoy-
Lost chunk of pioneering Edsac computer found By Mark Ward Technology correspondent, BBC News
The recovered Edsac part is thought to have been sold at auction in the 1950s Continue reading the main story Related Stories
Museum switches on historic computer Two-tonne Witch gets a reboot Long lost plans aid computer rebuild An original part of one of the UK's pioneering computers has been found in the US.
The part is a significant chunk of Edsac - a machine built at Cambridge in the late 1940s to serve scientists at the university.
It came to light because of publicity surrounding an effort to rebuild the computer.
The part has now been donated to the rebuild project and will be incorporated into the finished machine.
Edsac, the Electronic Delay Storage Automatic Calculator, ran its first programs in May 1949 and through its working life aided many scientists by analysing data generated by many different experiments.
Before now, it had not been known what happened to the parts of Edsac after it was decommissioned and dismantled in the 1950s.
The uncovering of the part, called the Chassis 1A, solved part of that riddle, said Dr Andrew Herbert who is leading the reconstruction project at the National Museum of Computing at Bletchley Park.
Jump media playerMedia player helpOut of media player. Press enter to return or tab to continue. WATCH: The pioneering Edsac computer is being recreated by engineers It now appears that at the end of Edsac's life it was sold off in an auction but it is not known who bought all the parts.
"Details of the 'auction' are unclear, but there is a possibility that other parts of the original Edsac still exist and could even be in the Cambridge area stored away in lofts, garden sheds and garages," said Mr Herbert.
Book shelves The Chassis 1A found its way to the US after being bought by Robert Little, who currently lives in Pennsylvania.
He got it from a Cambridge scientist called Dr Robert Clarke in 1969, who had bought several Edsac pieces in the auction intending to turn them into bookshelves.
Mr Little contacted the Edsac reconstruction team after reading about the project online.
The Chassis is designed to hold 28 of the 3,000 valves that formed the main computational elements of Edsac.
The 12 vertical racks of Edsac held up to 14 individual chassis on to which the valves were fixed.
Edsac was the first machine created specifically to act as a computational resource for experimentalists Dr Herbert said the donated chassis was "quite distressed" by corrosion after being in storage for several decades.
Work is now under way to see how much of it can be incorporated into the reconstructed Edsac.
"It would be a major task to return this particular chassis to operating condition," he said.
"However, we hope to try to use some of the valves, if they are still functional, in our reconstructed Edsac thus providing a very tangible connection with the original machine."
The chassis is the second Edsac artefact that publicity about the reconstruction has brought to light. In June last year, detailed circuit diagrams of Edsac were discovered and are now aiding project workers.
The reconstruction of Edsac is due to be completed by the end of the year.
MONDAY WE WILL BE DISCUSSING THE ROMANESQUE CHAPTER- PLEASE HAVE IT READ/WITH NOTES TAKEN. A WORD TO THE WISE - I WILL BE MOVING INTO THE GOTHIC CHAPTER BY MID/LATE THIS WEEK PLEASE READ AND TAKE NOTES OF THAT CHAPTER IN ANTICIPATION OF CLASS DISCUSSION.
Terracotta pomegranate, 5th–4th century B.C. Greece
REMINDER STUDENTS WHO MISSED THE LAST TEST WE WILL HAVE YOUR MAKE UP EXAM TOMORROW DURING THE BREAK IN ROOM 152!!!
