Painted by nature, printed by artists

This article brings the 17th-century Dutch painter Otto Marseus van Schrieck and the contemporary German artist Maximilian Prüfer into dialogue. It investigates in particular Marseus’ and Prüfer’s use of butterfly scales as materials and motifs in their works of art. Both artists developed a similar technique of butterfly imprints (lepidochromy), which consists of transferring the scales of real butterflies onto another surface. The imprints thus combine medium with representation and the object being represented. The artists used a variety of animal substances to make their artworks, some still visible, some not, and gathered living animals to depict after life or to work with in other ways. Knowledge of and interest in natural history inform the work of both artists but their reflections on human relationships with other animals and with ‘nature’ differ.

The Van Gogh Enigma: Re-Mythifications of the Artist’s Genius in "Loving Vincent" and "At Eternity’s Gate"

Few painters have had as many films made about their lives as Vincent van Gogh. The interest in his story is due in part to the mystery surrounding his last days, in Arles, France. It is thus no coincidence that all the biopics about the Dutch painter focus on this stage of his life, including the recent works Loving Vincent (2017), an animated film by Dorota Kobiela and Hugh Welchman, and Julian Schnabel’s At Eternity’s Gate (2018). A comparative study of these two feature films, representing two different aesthetic and dramatic approaches, is conducted in pursuit of the two objectives of this paper: to identify the conventions of the subgenre of the artist biopic; and consequently, to analyze how both films reflect on the artist’s creative practice in order to determine whether the film camera is in fact capable of capturing the brushstroke and the mystique of the genius.

The Public Anatomy Lesson

This chapter analyses a crucible of the state’s making in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the public anatomy lesson. The body, this piece of ‘natural’ property that every human ‘has’, was being increasingly opened up and peered into for the purposes of finally seeing human nature itself. Bringing together visual studies and international relations, the chapter charts the scopic regime that established vision as modernity’s primary ordered instrument and that was honed upon the body dissected in public. To map its contours, it begins with the writings of anatomist William Harvey and scientist-statesman Francis Bacon. The chapter then tracks how this scopic regime was institutionalised by the spread of the highly popular public anatomy lesson across early modern Europe. It then analyses Renaissance and early modern representations of the public anatomy lesson, notably the frontispiece of the first manual of modern medicine, Andrea Vesalius’s On the Fabric of the Human Body (1943), and Dutch painter Rembrandt’s anatomy lesson paintings. The chapter examines the work of boundary-drawing and state-building wrought by these public performances by tracking the roles of the female and the poor body in their crafting.

Escrito en el lienzo: Ovidio y el Billete de Amor en La Enferma de Amor de Jan Steen, pintor holandés del Siglo de Oro = Written on the Canvas: Ovid and the Billet-Doux in The Lovesick Maiden by Jan Steen, Golden Age Dutch Painter

Se analiza la impronta de la poesía erótica de Ovidio sobre un tema favorito del pintor barroco de Leiden Jan Steen (1626-1679), La enferma de amor o La visita del médico, con especial atención a la presencia en el cuadro de un billete de amor con una máxima escrita de origen ovidiano sobre el tradicional concepto del amor como una enfermedad incurable:… amor non est medicabilis herbis (epist. 5.149).Abstract Analysis of the influence of Ovid’s erotic poetry on a favourite theme to the Leiden Baroque painter Jan Steen (1626-1679), The lovesick maiden or The doctor’s visit, especially focalised on the presence of a billet-doux with an Ovidian written refrain on the traditional concept of love as an incurable illness: … amor non est medicabilis herbis (epist. 5.149).

New vision on the mental problems of Vincent van Gogh; results from a bottom-up approach using (semi-)structured diagnostic interviews

Background On July 29, 1890 at the age of 37 years, the Dutch painter Vincent van Gogh died from the consequences of a suicide attempt with a gun 2 days earlier. Since then many medical and psychological theories were suggested about what had happened to Van Gogh. Aim To present an overview of the history of the mental problems of Van Gogh and the most likely diagnoses. Method (Semi-)structured diagnostic interviews were applied to three art historians who are very familiar with Van Gogh from his correspondence and other sources as well as a neuropsychiatric examination to evaluate whether the symptoms might be explained by a medical condition. Results Several previously suggested diagnoses could be excluded as being highly unlikely, while other diagnoses could be classified as more of less likely. Conclusion Most likely Van Gogh suffered from comorbid illnesses. Since young adulthood, he likely developed a (probably bipolar) mood disorder in combination with (traits of) a borderline personality disorder as underlying vulnerability. This likely worsened through an alcohol use disorder combined with malnutrition, which then led, in combination with rising psychosocial tensions, to a crisis in which he cut off his ear. Thereafter, he likely developed two deliriums probably related to alcohol withdrawal, followed by a worsening with severe depressive episodes (of which at least one with psychotic features) from which he did not fully recover, finally leading to his suicide. As additional comorbidity, focal (temporal lobe) epilepsy cannot be excluded.

Rembrandt’s Danaë as Perceived by Russian Postmodern Artists

This article considers works of contemporary artists inspired by Rembrandt’s Danaë (1636). The article’s purpose is to reveal the authors’ approaches to the perception of Rembrandt’s masterpiece and the representation of the well-known image in modern art. Paintings found at the exhibition In Memory of a Masterpiece (Chelyabinsk, 2006) are studied in the context of postmodern tendencies. Temporal, spatial, stylistic, cultural, and symbolic layers in works devoted to Danaë not only coexist and interact but are also presented with maximum irony, which is studied in the article through the prism of J. Baudrillard’s theory of simulacra and that of “double copying” by R. Barthes. Artists get actively involved in the game, which is realised by decanonising and fragmenting the original and creating unexpected extravagant combinations. Their dialogue with Rembrandt involves borrowings from the original through direct citation and other forms, i. e. allusions, reminiscences, and the grotesque. The article’s authors classify works according to how the artists use different citation formulas containing explicit and implicit references to the original painting. In their interpretations, contemporary artists present the “memory of Danaë” in nostalgic and ironic ways, also using play, parody, and protest. Together with this, the play on 20th-century styles is easy to notice and ranges from naïve art, primitivism, and minimalism to expressionism, symbolism, cubism, abstractionism, surrealism, suprematism, etc. As a result, what emerges is a mega-text where canon and tradition interact with the unique form chosen by the author of a particular painting. Even though all the works are united by a single theme and scale, the artists demonstrate a high degree of freedom, a spirit of contest, and play in the context of the postmodernist perception of the heritage of Rembrandt. They start a dialogue with the great Dutch painter, each of them being a mature and recognised master, which adds to the project’s artistic importance. The variations on the theme of Danaë by Rembrandt dramatically differ from each other from the point of view of composition, technique, colour, and style. The artists make it possible for the well-known plot to be prolonged and actualised, making it a sign of contemporary culture and convincing the viewer of the vast possibilities of modern art.

New Vision on the Mental Problems of Vincent Van Gogh; Results From a Bottom-up Approach Using (Semi-)structured Diagnostic Interviews

Background: On July 29, 1890 at the age of 37 years, the Dutch painter Vincent van Gogh died from the consequences of a suicide attempt with a gun two days earlier. Since then many medical and psychological theories were suggested about what had happened to Van Gogh.Aim: To present an overview of the history of the mental problems of Van Gogh and the most likely diagnoses.Method: (Semi-)structured diagnostic interviews were applied to three art historians who are very familiar with Van Gogh from his correspondence and other sources and as well as a neuropsychiatric examination to evaluate whether the symptoms might be explained by a medical conditionResults: Several previously suggested diagnoses could be excluded as being highly unlikely, while other diagnoses could be classified as more of less likely. Conclusion: Most likely Van Gogh suffered from comorbid illnesses. Since young adulthood, he likely developed a (probably bipolar) mood disorder in combination with (traits of) a borderline personality disorder as underlying vulnerability. This likely worsened through an alcohol use disorder combined with malnutrition, which then led, in combination with rising psychosocial tensions, to a crisis in which he cut off his ear. Thereafter, he likely developed two deliriums probably related to alcohol withdrawal, followed by a worsening with severe depressive episodes (of which at least one with psychotic features) from which he did not fully recover, finally leading to his suicide.As additional comorbidity,focal (temporal lobe)epilepsy cannot be excluded.

Unveiling the Secrets of Escher’s Lithographs

An impossible structure gives us the impression of looking at a three-dimensional object, even though this object cannot exist, since it possesses parts that are spatially non-connectable, and are characterized by misleading geometrical properties not instantly evident. Therefore, impossible artworks appeal to our intellect and challenge our perceptive capacities. We analyzed lithographs containing impossible structures (e.g., the Necker cube), created by the famous Dutch painter Maurits Cornelis Escher (1898–1972), and used one of them (The Belvedere, 1958) to unveil the artist’s hidden secrets by means of a discrete model of the human retina based on a non-uniform distribution of receptive fields. We demonstrated that the ability of Escher in composing his lithographs by connecting spatial coherent details into an impossible whole lies in drawing these incoherent fragments just outside the zone in which 3D coherence can be perceived during a single fixation pause. The main aspects of our paper from the point of view of image processing and image understanding are the following: (1) the peculiar and original digital filter to process the image, which simulates the human vision process, by producing a space-variant sampling of the image; (2) the software for the filter, which is homemade and created for our purposes. The filtered images resulting from the processing are used to understand impossible figures. As an example, we demonstrate how the impossible figures hidden in Escher’s paintings can be understood.

I C McManus and Paul Gesiak: Experimenting with Mondrian: Comparing the Method of Production with the Method of Choice. Poster - Design Computing and Cognition 2014, University College London

The Dutch painter Piet Mondrian (1872-1944) is the archetypal modernist, with the paintings of his uncompromisingly austere mature period, comprised of a white background, black vertical and horizontal lines and occasional, areas of red, yellow or blue, being icons of modern design. His paintings also represent a rare opportunity to experiment on aesthetic composition, the paintings being simulated relatively easily on a computer screen, with participants manipulating them interactively.The founding father of experimental aesthetics, Gustav Theodor Fechner, described three research methods in his Vorschule der Aesthetik of 1876, the Method of Choice, the Method of Production and the Method of Use. Most empirical work has used the Method of Choice, whereby participants are shown two or more similar images and choose between them. Our first studies of Mondrian used the Method of Choice. A set of 25 original (‘O’) Mondrian paintings were synthesised on a screen, as also were two pseudo-Mondrians, (P1 and P2). The pseudo-Mondrians were created by randomly moving all of the horizontal and vertical lines in the painting by a small amount (for P1) or by a slightly larger amount (for P2). P1 and P2 therefore had the same broad structure as O, containing the same ‘words’ (components), using the same ‘deep structure’ or ‘syntax’, but with the composition varied only by altering the relative positioning of the lines (equivalent in linguistic terms to a different pattern of stress or emphasis – prosodics). For each of the 25 paintings we created O, P1 and P2, and participants compared O with P1, O with P2, and P1 with P2, making 75 paired comparison judgements overall.In five separate studies, totalling 277 participants, it was clear that original Mondrians could reliably be distinguished from pseudo-Mondrians, with some participants being more sensitive than others. Fechner’s Method of Production allows participants to manipulate the content of an aesthetic object, altering it until they feel that it is most satisfactory. We adapted this method so that participants were presented with a single Mondrian painting on a computer screen. By moving the computer mouse a vertical, a horizontal or both a vertical and a horizontal line in the Mondrian were moved up and down or sideways. The images were constrained so that the moving lines were yoked to other lines of the same directionality, so that several moved at the same time, and lines could never cross over each other (i.e. the syntax remained fixed, with only proportional arrangements being altered). The original Mondrian was always a possible outcome of moving the cursor.The Production studies manipulated 39 original Mondrian paintings, none of which were included in the set of 25 used in the Choice experiments. All of the 84 participants could therefore carry out both the Method of Choice and the Method of Production, the order of the two Methods being chosen at Random (and order having no effect upon the results).The most striking result was that although the 84 participants, as expected, had clear preferences in the Method of Choice for Mondrians over pseudo-Mondrians, using the Method of Production there was no evidence that participants produced images which showed any overall similarity to the original Mondrians.A detailed study of what participants were doing when they were using the Method of Production suggested that the complexity of the task, despite its relative simplicity, was too great for them. Despite only manipulating in a two-dimensional space (or sometimes a one-dimensional space), participants seemed to find the task difficult. The program always started with the cursor at one of the four corners indicating the maximum dynamic range of the cursor, and in many cases participants ended up either on one of the edges of the space or even in a corner. In most cases only a small proportion of the possible design space was sampled before a decision was made.Our paper will consider how people can and cannot make complex aesthetic choices across a range of possible stimuli. In particular we will suggest that much of the problem with the Method of Production is a problem of visual working memory, participants not being able to hold in their heads a range of previous images to compare with the current one which is shown on screen. The Method of Choice, in contrast, makes no demands at all upon visual working memory. Although computer design in principle allows an almost infinite space of possibilities to be explored, in practice the ability to do so usefully seems to be heavily constrained by the cognitive limits of human processing, meaning that design systems need careful ergonomic organisation to prevent such problems.