Extremely detailed study of a painting

I hadn't even finished watching before deciding it was blogworthy, especially when I learned why angel wings resemble watermelon slices.

"Hilma af Klint" - an awesome movie about a remarkable artist

I was blown away last evening watching this documentary movie from our library.   I have zero background education in art history, and had never heard of this woman.  Apparently I am not alone in that regard.  After watching the movie I went to the Wikipedia entry, where it was explained that "The family surname is 'af Klint', af being a Swedish nobiliary particle."  She was of noble (but not royal) lineage, born in a palace and educated at the Royal Academy in the fine arts, beginning with landscape paintings and botanical illustrations:

When she was about twenty years old, something happened that altered her perception of the world.  Details at the link and in the movie, but basically by the time she was 40, she began pouring out an immense number of totally abstract paintings, such as these (cellphone camera images from the movie on my TV):

"The pictures were painted directly through me, without any preliminary drawings, and with great force. I had no idea what the paintings were supposed to depict; nevertheless I worked swiftly and surely, without changing a single brush stroke."

And the final startling fact is that she was creating this art in the early 1900s (before WWI, for reference, and at the time of my grandparents), and that there was no precedent for this style of artistic expression.  Most textbooks date the onset of abstract art to the works of Kandinsky and Mondrian, who followed (?imitated) her.  This lady's paintings were never exhibited in her lifetime because she was a woman and because the style and content of the images were considered "improper" at that time.

Enough from me.  You already know whether you want to see this movie or not.  It may be streamable for $ on Apple or Prime.  I found the DVD in our South Central Wisconsin library system (a huge system that normally has dozens or hundreds of copies of popular movies had only 2 copies of this one).  It can also be ordered directly from Kino Lorber.   Here is the trailer for the movie:

Modified manhole cover, Copenhagen

"Rosie the Rock Snake"

Today while on a butterfly hike at Badger Prairie County Park (Verona, Wisconsin) I encountered Rosie the Rock Snake.  This was clearly a community art project, presumably initiated by a local teacher, parent, or scout leader.  I was delighted to see that it has apparently not been subject to thievery or vandalism (remembering that Wisconsin is a state where local farmers leave corn on the cob, pumpkins, and other produce out by the road and invite passers-by to take the veggies and leave some money).  I was also impressed by the quality of the painting on many of the rocks.

Locals who would like to see the artwork just need to find your way to the highest point in the park (where the old water tower used to be).  If you plan to do so, consider bringing a painted rock...

I would also note that today the Monarch butterflies were literally "too numerous to count" because this is the migratory season and the Madison area is under the flyway for legions of Monarchs heading south from areas up north.

(This sort of reminded me of the "ditch ducks" in northern Minnesota)

Condom made from a sheep's appendix

As reported by The Guardian:

A 200-year-old illustrated condom will go on display with Dutch golden age masters in Amsterdam this week, after the 19th-century “luxury souvenir” became the first-ever contraceptive sheath to be added to the Rijksmuseum’s art collection.

The condom, which was probably made of a sheep’s appendix circa 1830, is thought to have come from an upmarket brothel in France, most likely in Paris. It features an erotic etching depicting a partially undressed nun pointing at the erect genitals of three clergymen, as well as the phrase Voila, mon choix (“There, that’s my choice”).

The Rijksmuseum curator Joyce Zelen said the composition of the etching deliberately alluded to the Greek myth of the Judgment of Paris, in which a Trojan prince is asked to pick the most beautiful of three goddesses. “So we believe that whoever acquired the condom would have been fairly sophisticated and well-educated,” she said.

Water strider

Here's a 3-minute newscast report on the Minneapolis Manhole Art Cover Project.

Cats who balance babies' cradles in floods - updated

Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema
'The Inundation of The Biesbosch in 1421"

"Lawrence Alma-Tadema painted [the top image] in the 1800s,
after a true story from 1421 when a flood carried off a cat and a cradle.
The cat jumped from side to side on the cradle to keep it upright..."

John Everett Millais: 'A Flood', 1870

Images found at My Own Thoughts, via A Polar Bear's Tale [as of 2016, both sources have undergone linkrot].

A hat tip to reader Ceridwen for the name of the artist for the second image.  He notes that the painting "represents an incident following the flooding of Sheffield UK after a reservoir burst in 1864."

Reposted from 2010 (wow) with a tip of the blogging cap to another (anonymous) reader who found a third painting of this subject matter:

Found on a commercial website, described as "after" the same artist (Millais) - whatever that means.

The historical event is in any case not a miracle - the cat is trying not to get wet, rather than trying to save the baby per se.

Hammerhead shark embroidery - by Mary, Queen of Scots (~1570)

From the collections of the Victoria and Albert:

[A panel from] The Oxburgh Hangings. Hanging with applied panels of embroidery, formerly at Oxburgh Hall, Norfolk.

Inscriptions: A ZYDRACH ' 'ZYGAENA' hammer headed shark from C Gesner Icones Animalium Aquatilium Zurich 1560 p 150

Mary Queen of Scots' troubled reign in Scotland ended in 1568 when the Scottish Lords forced her to flee across the border into England. As Elizabeth's cousin Mary had long claimed the English throne, leading Elizabeth to see Mary as a threat and place her in the custody of the Earl of Shrewsbury. Mary was held captive in various English country houses for 19 years. She was finally executed in 1587.

Mary Queen of Scots (1542-1587) embroidered these panels with Elizabeth Talbot, Countess of Shrewsbury (Bess of Hardwick) and ladies of the household, during her imprisonment. Mary may have intended the large central panel as a cushion for Philip Howard, Earl of Arundel (1557-1595), an English Catholic courtier imprisoned in London by Elizabeth I.

I was startled to learn that she was even aware of the existence of hammerhead sharks, much less that she would embroider one (reasonably accurately). 

Via A London Salmagundi. (Image cropped and brightened from original).  Reposted from 2012.

Addendum:  A tip of the blogging cap to reader Temptoetiam, who provided a link to a JSTOR article which in turn cited the Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes and provided this preview info:

I had no idea of the connection.  Thank you so much.

The iconic green bathrobe is made from dried lamb's ear

I was surprised today when I checked TYWKIWDBI for previous posts about seed art and couldn't find any.  Time to correct that.  Embedded above is a Facebook entry about one of the artworks being submitted to the "seed art" competition at this autumn's Minnesota State Fair.  The subject matter of the art is particularly apt for Minnesota, but seed art in general deserves greater appreciation.

Here's the original photograph (credit Leila Navidi, Minnesota Star Tribune) on which this art is based:

"This image captures a scene in St. Paul, Minnesota last week during an incident involving ICE. The central figure in the light-green bathrobe and slippers is Sam Stroozas, a producer for Minnesota Public Radio. Stroozas, who lives only blocks away, rushed to the scene of the car crash that involved federal agents without changing clothes to record the results of their high-speed chase of an immigrant, who was later hospitalized."

Seed art or crop art has been a standard feature at many American state fairs since the 19th century.  When I was young, my family made annual visits to the state fair.  My favorite destination was not the rides but the crafts building.  I don't have the time or requisite skills to create seed art, but I do appreciate the time and effort involved.  I'll look to find other entries to this year's competition after the fair opens and hope to append some of them below later on.

Native mask decorated with lethal seeds

A ceremonial mask from the Benue River Valley region of Nigeria, from the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The black and red sprinkles are apparently abrus seeds - which is interesting in an of itself, because a quick search reveals that the seeds are more toxic than ricin:

The toxin abrin is a dimer consisting of two protein subunits, termed A and B. The B chain facilitates abrin's entry into a cell by bonding to certain transport proteins on cell membranes, which then transport the toxin into the cell. Once inside the cell, the A chain prevents protein synthesis by inactivating the 26S subunit of the ribosome. One molecule of abrin will inactivate up to 1,500 ribosomes per second. Symptoms are identical to those of ricin, except abrin is more toxic by almost two orders of magnitude; the fatal dose of abrin is approximately 75 times smaller than the fatal dose of ricin...

The seeds of Abrus precatorius are much valued in native jewelry for their bright coloration. Most beans are black and red, suggesting a ladybug, though other colors are available. Jewelry-making with jequirity seeds is dangerous, and there have been cases of death by a finger-prick while boring the seeds for beadwork.

Photo via A London Salmagundi.

Reposted from 2011 (!!) to accompany a new post about seed art at a state fair.

Latvian manhole cover

No useful comments in the Facebook discussion thread.  I could't find evidence that this image is from Hieronymus Bosch.  I've joined the group to see what else might be posted there.  There is also a subreddit of manholeporn where years ago I found this very "metal" manhole cover.

Was the sign designed like this on purpose ?

Unusual "throne"

As an elderly person I applaud the presence of the armrests, but as a housekeeper I'm dismayed by the prospect of cleaning it.

Found at the Awful Taste But Great Execution subreddit.

Rechalking the Cerne Abbas Giant

Readers here will certainly be familiar with the Cerne Giant.  What I had not appreciated from casual reading is the depth to which the chalk is embedded in the hillside.  Makes sense, of course, explaining how the figure came to be buried by natural growth and why it lay "hidden" for so long.  Details re the history here.

Photos in a Guardian article show volunteers "rechalking" the figure.

The custom has been to rechalk the 55-metre-tall giant roughly every seven to 10 years. It was last done in 2019 and before that in 2008... The rechalking technique is being adapted. In 2008 and 2017, it involved packing in dry chalk and tamping it down. “But that’s very difficult because the hill is so steep,” Dawson said.

So this time they are experimenting with mixing chalk (they need 17 tonnes of it) with water to create a paste. Dawson said: “It’s like a putty, which makes it easier to make it stick.”

I'm impressed by the quality of the preservation work being undertaken.

O.K - here's the photo, for those unfamiliar with it.  Now go to the links and read.  And please nobody tell Donald Trump about this; a ballroom/bunker is bad enough.

Storytime chair (Penzance, Cornwall)

Details of the chair's design elements from local folklore are clarified at the Neatorama via.  I presume the colorful discs by the chair are little sit-upon pads for the children.  

How very cool.  I would be delighted to sit and listen to stories read by someone sitting in this chair.

Pythagorean tiling

The painting is Street Musicians at the Doorway of a House, by Jacob Ochtervelt (1665).  The pattern on the floor is an example of "Pythagorean tiling."

In geometry, the Pythagorean tiling or two squares tessellation is a tessellation of the plane by squares of two different sizes, in which each square touches four squares of the other size on its four sides. A tiling of this type may be formed by squares of any two different sizes.  It also is commonly used as a pattern for floor tiles; in this context it is also known as a hopscotch pattern...

This tiling is called the Pythagorean tiling because it has been used as the basis of proofs of the Pythagorean theorem by the ninth-century Arabic mathematicians Al-Nayrizi and Thābit ibn Qurra, and by the 19th-century British amateur mathematician Henry Perigal. If the sides of the two squares forming the tiling are the numbers a and b, then the closest distance between corresponding points on congruent squares is c, where c is the length of the hypotenuse of a right triangle having sides a and b. For instance, in the illustration the two squares in the Pythagorean tiling have side lengths 5 and 12 units long, and the side length of the tiles in the overlaying square tiling is 13, based on the Pythagorean triple... By overlaying a square grid of side length c onto the Pythagorean tiling, it may be used to generate a five-piece dissection of two unequal squares of sides a and b into a single square of side c, showing that the two smaller squares have the same area as the larger one.

Reposted from 2012 to accompany a related post. 

Tessellated pavement tiles in Granada

It just absolutely fascinates me that each of these hexagonal tiles has the same pattern, but that the resultant overall result can be so variable.

Tessellation longread in Wikipedia.

Anne Boleyn's hands and fingers

Anne Boleyn’s Hever “Rose” portrait is one of history’s most iconic faces, with her “B” pendant, her French hood, her dark eyes and a red rose in her right hand... Scientific analysis of the painting at Hever Castle, her childhood home in Kent, has uncovered evidence that an Elizabethan artist sought to create a “visual rebuttal” to claims that Henry VIII’s ill-fated wife was a witch with a sixth finger on her right hand...

In her 2025 book, The Many Faces of Anne Boleyn, Helene Harrison suggested that Anne’s hands were prominently displayed in the Hever Rose portrait to counter claims by Nicholas Sanders, a 16th-century writer and activist, who campaigned for the restoration of Roman Catholicism in England. He sought to undermine Elizabeth I’s legitimacy, writing that Anne had “on her right hand six fingers”. On being told of the new evidence, Harrison said it was amazing to find that the analysis supported her theory.

Kate McCaffrey, who is also an assistant curator at Hever, said: “It’s really thrilling. This is very strong evidence of a visual rebuttal of a very specific myth of witchcraft and six fingers, which is really quite extraordinary. The scientific analysis extends this to a very specific political moment in time.

“It’s Elizabeth’s way of not only reclaiming her own legitimacy and lineage, but also restoring the legitimacy of her mother. It’s impossible to say that Elizabeth herself commissioned this portrait, but it certainly seems too much of a coincidence for it not to be in response to rumours that were circulating at this time.”

Additional discussion at The Guardian.

Public service announcement

Viewers at Neatorama are advised by Miss Cellania that this brief video is a public service announcement, so I was alert to the possibility, but didn't figure out the message until the 3:40 mark.  I'm reposting it not so much for the message as for the artwork, which I find very appealing - especially the styling of the willow tree by the pond.

"Blind Faith" - a new Banksy

Cleverly conceived, and well-executed.  Not apparent from this view is that the subject's front foot is going to lead to him fallling off the plinth.

Addendum:  Side view of the statue stepping off its plinth -

- cropped for emphasis from the original posted at the BBC.  Hat tip to a reader for sending me the link.

One more.  The best view, via Kottke: