New moods of van Gogh revealed?

In preparation for a new exhibition of paintings by van Gogh and his contemporaries, Vincent van Gogh at Work , new color analyses of hundreds of his paintings, drawings, and notebooks have revealed that he may have been more methodical and less “mad” than previously thought.  In fact the director of the Van Gogh museum in Amsterdam says the studies show him to be “goal-oriented”.  This has mainly been argued through the color shift in the paint pigments he used, for example what now appear to be pale blue walls in The Bedroom of 1888 are thought to have been  lavender when freshly painted, which would have evoked a more tranquil mood.  Other scholars still believe that the colors he chose reflected his state of mind at various life stages.

Read the whole article in the NY Times here.

 

A good reason to go to garage sales

You could find yourself $2.2 million richer.  A family in New York just sold a bowl through auction at Sotheby’s for that amount.  They bought the bowl at a garage sale in 2007 for $3.  Yes, $3.    Turns out it was rare “Ding ware” from the Song Dynasty, approximately 1,000 years old.  So, keep your eyes open.

From Culture Monster in the LA Times

Santa Croce main chapel restoration digitally documented

The Basilica of Santa Croce in Florence announced the reopening of its main chapel with the completion of its extensive restoration. If you find yourself in Florence within the next year, the scaffolding used for the restoration remains and visitors can have a rare opportunity to see upper registers up close. However, even those of us who won’t be traveling to Italy soon can still view the before/during/after process of the restoration on the basilica’s website, along with previous projects. The software used to digitally document the work, Modus Operandi, allows users to zoom in on details of Angolo Gaddi’s brushwork from the 1380s as well as the restoration.

via artdaily.org

Popol Vuh (Wuj) Online

The Ohio State University Libraries has published an online edition of the Popol Vol (Wuj) from the Newberry Library in Chicago. The manuscript (sometimes translated as Book of the Community) is the creation account of the Quiché (K’iche’) Mayan people — their stories of the cosmologies, origins, traditions, and spiritual history. According to the Newberry, their Popol Vuh was most likely copied from this original manuscript (now lost) in 1701-03, in the Guatemalan town of Chichicastenango, by Dominican Father Francisco Ximenez.

The mission of the OSU online edition is to “allow native peoples and scholars to work directly with Father Ximénez’s manuscript, leading to debates about handwriting, spelling, and the polemics of the boundaries of meanings and interpretations.” The site offers transcriptions of the original K’iche’, as well as translations into Spanish and English.

Update: BBC’s Your Paintings completes access to UK’s public-owned paintings; taggers now welcome

Eighteen months ago we announced the launch of Your Paintings, a BBC-hosted site “which aims to show the entire UK national collection of oil paintings, the stories behind the paintings, and where to see them for real.” The site, co-funded by The Public Catalogue Foundation, announced it has completed its task. This translates into 3,217 participating venues and 211,861 paintings that are available online.

Now, the BBC and PCF are asking the public to help them tag the paintings.

Rembrandt Database offers a rich research resource

The Rembrandt Database is dedicated to gathering and presenting past and current scholarship (with their sources) about the 17th-century Netherlandish artist. Still in beta, the goal of the site is to foster “a platform for the presentation of new interpretations” through a collaborative effort between numerous museums, research institutions and individual scholars worldwide. Currently there are twelve paintings available, but the accompanying documentation for them exceeds over 1,000 records with a strong emphasis in technical analysis and conservation history. Visit often, as the site plans to expand both the number of paintings and participating institutions.

Courtauld hosts Gothic Ivories Project

The Courtauld Institute of Art has launched the Gothic Ivories Project, an online database of over 2800 images of ivory sculptures made in Western Europe between ca. 1200-ca. 1530 (with some neo-Gothic pieces as well). Search specifics, browse works by keyword, location and type, or visit the informational pages for site tips and tools. Additionally, when you become a registered user you can create private or public image folders of your favorite works. Many objects have multiple views and extensive entries.

Two Picassos for the price of one

There is an item in the New York Times today about how infrared photography revealed a portrait of a man with a mustache painted on the canvas before Picasso painted Woman Ironing.  The painting was recently cleaned and the ghost portrait is quite clear.

And the NYT employs some nifty technology to illustrate it: Rotate the canvas upside down, and move your mouse over the surface to reveal the image below.  They also give some clues about who the man in the portrait could be.

Save the Date: Los Angeles Art Show 2013

It’s that time of year again to mark your calendars for the Annual Los Angeles Art Show, which will be held January 23-27, 2013 in the South Hall of the LA Convention Center. This year is even more comprehensive, with four distinct “fairs-within-a-fair” (last year there were three): Modern & Contemporary, Historic & Traditional, Vintage Posters, and the IFPDA Los Angeles Fine Print Fair. All this translates into 200,000 square feet of paintings, sculpture, works on paper, photography, installation, and video from around the world. Information has not yet been posted for events, so check the LA Art Show blog often!

More good news in digital art history publications: MetPublications

The Metropolitan Museum of Art has made nearly 650 titles published from 1964 to the present available online, which “offers unparalleled in-depth access to the Museum’s renowned print and online publications, covering art, art history, archaeology, conservation, and collecting.” This will be is a huge boost for researchers, who can browse sections dedicated to the most recent, favorite, notable titles, or by themes and departments, as well as search particular titles or by keywords. Current in-print titles may be previewed and fully searched online (with links to purchase the books), while 368 of their publications are now freely available in digital form, where they may be read and searched online or downloaded as a PDF.  Many of their earlier catalogues that were extremely hard to find in print are now in complete electronic form. Explore their holdings here at MetPublications.