National Museum Cardiff has put on display a painting of a Madonna and child that had for decades been dismissed as a crude copy of Botticelli’s style. Ironically, it had been thought a Botticelli by the collector, Gwendoline Davies, who bequeathed it in 1952. Experts soon began to doubt that and downgraded it to the status of copy. – The Guardian
Tag: 11.13.19
We Are Our Memories, Right? So When We Get Dementia…
Of course, people with dementia experience significant changes in their self-concept, self-knowledge, social relationships, perception of their own capacity, and even their physical appearance. Yet the essence of the person endures. Recognising this has important implications for approaches to care. – Aeon
Using Aroma As A Stage Effect
“From at least the late 19th century, when David Belasco had actors cook and brew coffee on stage to heighten the realism of domestic scenes, to recent efforts to evoke a piney forest or the tang of gunpowder, directors have tried to involve an audience’s olfactory sense to intensify their experience. In his screen-to-stage adaptation of John Cassavetes’s 1977 film, Opening Night, Cyril Teste — the French director known for his ‘filmic performance’ technique that uses real-time video, live acting, music, and some audience participation — has added scent to the storytelling of this play within a play.” – Hyperallergic
Urban Dictionary Has Become A Research Tool, A Legal Resource, And Sometimes Even A Style Arbiter
Writer Christine Ro gives an overview of the ways the crowdsourced slang dictionary, now 20 years old (ancient in internet terms), is being used by (among others) linguists and sociologists, state DMVs, and attorneys and judges. (Then there was the time IBM tried using Urban Dictionary as a data set to feed the famous AI computer Watson.) – JSTOR Daily
Next-Gen Critics?
“I think a big part of the role of a critic is being somebody who holds artists accountable as well. When you are an artist and you’re presenting a work of art to your community, you know that you’re held accountable to your audience, no matter what your intentions were with putting out that piece. Artists can go out there and make whatever they want and say whatever they want, but its meaning is going to be received, and that merits a response.” – Howlround
How Gentrification Squeezes Out Culture
Capitalism has its own rhythm, but also its own specific geography. Urban space is profoundly transformed by financial capitalism. Urban spaces are becoming expensive, and the closure of cultural spaces is, metaphorically and by extension, a reduction in the space for ideas and expression. – The Conversation
Should We Worry About Knowing The Social Class Of Our Audiences?
“As long as we continue to make vague generalisations about the social background of our audiences and users, we further the conditions in which a culturally entitled minority can continue to benefit from the majority of publicly supported arts and heritage.” – Arts Professional
Root Of All Music: The Marginalized Fringe
Ted Gioia argues that that is music’s basic pattern throughout history – for symphonic music, church music, operas, chamber music, atonalism, you name it. No matter how disciplined, codified and venerated the music may be now, it always started on the fringe, rooted in sex, blood and altered states. – Art & Seek
She Gave Up On A Pro Basketball Career To Sing Opera. Now She’s One Of The Met’s Next Stars
In younger days, J’Nai Bridges, who’s been getting terrific reviews for her house debut as Nefertiti in Philip Glass’s Akhnaten, really was a championship-level basketball player back home in Washington state. (When a singing rehearsal conflicted with a finals game, she made her choice.) But Bridges still plays, often with fellow musicians, for exercise and stress relief. Says her best friend, pianist Sakura Myers, “J’Nai is a low-key sadist when it comes to exercise.” – T — The New York Times Style Magazine
Shoji Sadao, 92, Architect Who Realized Visions Of Buckminster Fuller And Isamu Noguchi
“Fuller was pursuing out-there ideas in design and architecture, and it often fell to Mr. Sadao to do the practical work of implementing them. … [He] filled a similar role with Noguchi, the acclaimed sculptor and landscape architect. He helped turn Noguchi’s concepts, whether for the Hart Plaza fountain in Detroit or the 400-acre Moerenuma Park in Sapporo, Japan, into reality.” – The New York Times