Tag: Art

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…

Google Arts & Culture is such an incredible resource. You can virtually explore through the galleries of art museums, view artwork up close, make your own collections, search through topics, explore by color. There’s so many things you can do.…

Today I was looking at the categories on spudart.org. A handy list appears in the footer. I recently added the “notepad” category. Seeing that “1” next to “notepad” is rather nice. It’s like the start of something. 1. One post.…

Today I ordered a rubber stamp with Edvard Munch’s “painted by a madman” phrase. When he painted “The Scream”, the original artwork wasn’t received very well by a critique of local artists. One of the folks at the critique questioned…

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…

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,…

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…

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…

Which of these collages by Tony Fitzpatrick do you like best? One of these collages will become a mural in my town, Glen Ellyn, Illinois. Glen Ellyn resident, Diana Martinez, posted on Facebook: On behalf of the DuPage Public Art…

A man in Estonia spends hours cutting a circle in the bay ice, inserts a boat motor into a hole to make the circle spin.

The man who helped start both the transcontinental railroad AND one of the first famous photographers—his photos were missing for a hundred years, then found in a flea market! One of those photos was the very first photo of the…

Pick two works of art. Google will find the visual connection between the two artworks. Using several artworks that look visually similar, you’ll see a visual bridge between artworks. What is the connection between a 4,000-year-old clay figure and Van…

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…

Poems are stamped into sidewalk squares throughout Appleton, Wisconsin. Any resident are eligible to submit poems to the program. How wonderful! What a great way for people to feel a little more ownership of their community. Resident poets can walk…

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…

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.…

Canadian passport when held under UV light Canadians know how to party. Everyone got your passport? Turn on the black lights… and… LET’S PARTY!!! The Canadian passport comes alive under black light. The regular image under normal light is so…

The person who folded this incredible Samurai did a folding process video. Watching it will absorb you. This man folding the paper is like a Samurai warrior. His pre-creased sheet like a map, planning his attack. The insane folds looking…

Fireworks captured in 1782. Very cool to see artwork capturing fireworks from so long ago. The Art Institute of Chicago’s “Art Tab” Chrome extension always displays interesting random artworks. Check out how crazy these fireworks look. The lines streaking across…

An airport parking garage in Cologne, Germany is transformed into a drive-through art gallery. 300 artworks are on display on luggage carts, which gives just the right viewing height for people in cars to see the artwork while slowly driving…

Bing has a very interesting interpretation for what “guerilla art” is. Do an image search on Bing for “guerilla art” and you’ll get a listing dominated by vintage labels. Most of these results come from a blog post, “20 vintage…

When you think of a paper bag mask, what image comes to mind? I think of an embarrassed sports fan sitting in the stands. His team losing so bad, that he took a paper bag and put it over his…

When I want to see artworks by a famous artist (e.g. Wassily Kandinsky), one of the sites I head over to is artsy.net. This site does a great job displaying and organizing the work. Not any regular artist can be…

Looking for a completely different way to make a drawing? How about making your drawing directly on public art? (video) Let’s start with one of the most famous public artworks in Chicago. The Picasso. This hefty icon stands 50-feet tall,…

It is my greatest desire that some video game midi music play in the background while this is displayed. Are there other examples of 16th century Switzerland textiles with bitmap art? I’m googling: Switzerland 16th century textile Google is not…

What is the toilet paper like from various art museums? In 2018, I wrote a draft about making art with toilet paper. I never published it, because, well, this is a weird project. Now that toilet paper has surfaced as…

The selections for “Popular topics” in Google Arts and Culture is quite curious Paul Gauguin — 372 items Oil paint — 5,870 items Shark Bay — 8 items Wassily Kandinsky — 39 items Renaissance — 12,200 items Post-Impressionism — 2,620…

Need a moment to quiet your busy life and meditate on your mortality? Meditate on some skulls. Do you love skulls? Then you’ll love the El Greco exhibition at the Art Institute of Chicago. Do you find skulls creepy? You’ll…

Is this trash or transformation? This discarded packaging took on the form of a bird mid-flight. An unintentional sculpture, crafted by the city itself. Discover the story behind this urban origami.

Origami scattered about on the bathroom floor at work. Overflowing from the wastebasket little unintentional creations lie strewn about. Crumbled paper towels lying on the floor look just like origami creations. What if someone actually folded a bunch of paper…

Here are 28 of my favorite artworks displayed in February 2020 from the Art Tab Chrome extension. Every time you open a new browser tab, you get a different work of art from the Art Institute of Chicago’s collection. Tribune…