Ah Paris, even back in 1869 it had the romantic aged patina
In 1869 Paris would these buildings be new or really old?
Fun with the Art Institute of Chicago
Adorable Silly Guardian Sculptures
Evidence that the Art Institute of Chicago really loves guardian statues.
8 ways to enhance an art museum
How would you reimagine an art museum? The Art Institute of Chicago called on teens to reinvent and vamp up the museum experience. The competition, Re:Imagine, asked for ideas to make the museum more engaging and multi-sensory, using any creative methods. 52 wonderful ideas were submitted. Eight of them really stood out. Concepts like scratch-n-sniff …
Why did I illuminate Winslow Homer with free internet fonts?
Yesterday I set out to illuminate Homer’s paintings using a silly font-selecting method: Pick the free fonts based primarily on their name alone. What was my motivation? One of my friends asked, “I am curious why you underwent this exercise Matt”. I asked myself the same question as I was doing this. A handful reasons …
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Using a silly font-picking method to illuminate Winslow Homer
Winslow Homer’s paintings are full of dichotomies. Earlier this week, I uncovered eight paintings in the Art Institute of Chicago’s collection with wonderful dual meanings. Themes like life and death captured in one painting. To really punch these double interpretations, I had fun photoshopping two words onto each painting. Each word is really BIG—as in …
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Winslow Homer Dualities
Rather mind-blowing that the Art Institute of Chicago has 184 of Winslow Homer’s artworks. Usually when I look an artist in their catalog, there are 4 results. Maybe 10. Sometimes it might balloon up to 16. But here are one hundred and eighty-four! One of the top images is a watercolor of a man rowing …
Put Edvard Munch’s phrase “painted by a madman” on any artwork
A long-time art world mystery has been solved. A hidden message exists in Edvard Munch’s famous painting “The Scream”. Written in pencil in the corner of the painting reads, “Can only have been painted by a madman”. Who could have wrote such a thing? A vandal? Someone who hated Munch’s work? Ends up, it’s the …
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1st century Ancient Romans held their personal belongings in cute containers
During the first century, what did the Ancient Romans use to hold their stuff? Answer: Very cute containers! The Art Institute of Chicago’s collection has this adorable 1st century Roman container for personal items: I love how this looks like a ceramic container someone would make in a basic ceramics class. Rough around the edges, …
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Idea: An artificial intelligence tool that lists artists most similar to your art
What if there was a tool that could tell you which artists in art history are most like your artwork? Upload 20 images of your artwork to this tool. Based on your art, a list of artists is generated most similar to your artwork. How would this work? The program would use machine learning to …
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Relaxing gray washes by Pierre Antoine Mongin
These Versailles trees in gray wash are relaxing. I really enjoy how this artwork is cropped by my modified version of the Art Institute of Chicago’s Art Tab. (This is a Chrome add-on that displays art in new browser tabs. I modified the Chrome add-on so it crops the artwork tighter.) Because of the cropping, …