Photographer: Robert Howlett | Isambard Kingdom Brunel, builder of the Great Eastern | ca. 1857-1858 | George Eastman House, eastmanhouse.org
Some stories we’ve been reading this week:
- We continue to be on the lookout for anything that legitimizes our more self-indulgent interests, so we’ve fallen in love with @ArtGarments, an Instagram account that zooms in on the most fabulous fashion in art history.
- On a less cheerful direction, here’s a comparison of the Rich Kids of Instagram to the paintings of European elites.
- And on a tangentially related note, while attempting to take a selfie, someone knocked over a revered 126-year-old Portuguese statue, smashing it to bits.
- Moving away from Instagram and selfies, these Russian portraits “can bring us closer to its subject than any new-fangled photograph could do.” And without breaking anything, either.
- On a recent episode of Antiques Roadshow, an expert pronounced a clay jug to be worth “up to $50,000.” Sadly, it turned out to be someone’s high school ceramics project.
- Still, we’re not giving up on thrift shops and garage sales just yet–a French mechanic recently snagged a Renoir worth millions for just $700.
- The Getty has inaugurated a new series of open-access collection catalogues available online and as downloadable e-books, starting with Ancient Terracottas from South Italy and Sicily and Roman Mosaics.
- The University of Houston removed an artwork from an exhibition because it incorporated a gun. Ironically, the work was protesting a law that allows students to carry guns on campus.
- This is a very amusing project: building bicycles based on people’s attempts to draw them from memory.
- A “new” 2,000-year-old geoglyph has been spotted in Peru. This 98-foot-long figure appears to represent an animal sticking out its tongue.
- And we close with Merdacotta: furniture made from… yes, you guessed it.
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