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Tuesday, July 22, 2003

Investigating Bellini's Feast of the Gods AROUND 1512, the Duke of Ferrara commissioned Giovanni Bellini to paint this masterpiece of the Italian Renaissance, which now hangs in the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. Dosso Dossi subsequently decorated a gallery for the Duke, and, in 1522, painted over half of Bellini's canvas. Seven years later, Titian repainted the Feast of the Gods again. What did the earlier versions look like? How much of each artist's work do we see today? What motivated these unprecedented changes? I don't know about anyone else, but it's stuff like this that I really like about the web in general and blogging in particular. This little history is very nicely done, is entertaining and informative. Without the web, I probably wouldn't know about something like this (I don't buy or read books about Renaissance painting very often), and without a weblog I wouldn't have found it. 2:30:41 PM  Permalink  comment []

SF Bay Bloggers Nice blog about bloggers in the bay area, and a good listing of them. 12:59:24 PM  Permalink  comment []

Matt Jefferies is dead. TrekWeb has confirmed that Matt Jefferies , original STAR TREK art director and the man behind the concept for the design of the original Starship Enterprise, passed away yesterday at age 82. Jefferies had been suffering from cancer for some time, but no official announcement has yet been made. [The Cartoonist] 12:40:04 PM  Permalink  comment []

Chuck Berry took Polaroids of himself with smiling, naked girls before he'd have sex with them, to avoid rape charges [FARK] Chuck's no dummy. He mght be a lot of other things (Iike the second greatest lyricist rock has known), but he's no dummy. 12:11:19 PM  Permalink  comment []

What Happened to Classical Music? The classics used to mean Beethoven or Mozart or Brahms. Now it’s the Beatles, the Stones and Hendrix. Why did classical music fall off the menu of cultural literacy? 10:53:56 AM  Permalink  comment []

Support the Freedom to Read With the passage of the USA PATRIOT Act, the FBI gained the power to search your library and book-buying records without probable cause of any crime or intent to commit a crime. Furthermore, librarians and others who are required to turn over records are not allowed to say that the search has occurred or that records were given to the government.   This means that average Americans could have their privacy violated wholesale without justification or proper judicial oversight. Questions from Members of Congress to the Department of Justice about the use of this power have gone unanswered or have received a superficial response.  8:46:17 AM  Permalink  comment []

© Copyright 2004 Steve Michel.