The Stuff that Dreams Are Remade Of
Artists sometimes rethink what materials can even be used to make art.
The use of butter in sculpting can be traced back to "banquet art", a tradition most associated with the Renaissance and Baroque periods. It usually signified a special occasion or part of the meal. The earliest reference to butter sculpting can be dated to 1536, recording Pope Pius V's cook Bartolomeo Scappi’s butter sculptures (one of them was a elephant and a tableau of Hercules engaged in combat with a lion). In a meal, these sculptures were typically only placed on the table long enough to impress.
However, Brooks (1840 – 1913) managed to exhibit her sculptures by using ice to preserve them. The wife of a farmer, Brooks made her first butter sculpture in 1867 as a way to promote the product. She didn’t use moles, instead a butter paddle, broom straw, and a "camel's-hair pencil”, the traditional tools. In 1873, she made a sculpture of the blind princess Iolanthe from Danish poet and playwright Henrik Hertz's verse drama King René's Daughter named Dreaming Iolanthe. It was exhibited at a Cincinnati gallery for 2 weeks, and attracted more than 2000 people. She also continued to make a bas-relief bust of Iolanthe for the Centennial Exhibition (Philadelphia 1876) and a sculpture (shipped to France and exhibited at the third Paris World's Fair, 1878). Brooks continued her study of art at Paris and Florence, and she also used butter occasionally for the rest of her sculpting career, albeit mostly sticking to marble.
Another notable artist who used butter to sculpt was John Karl Daniels (Norwegian-American), his sculptures featured in the Louisiana Purchase Exposition, St. Louis, in 1904, and the Minnesota State Fair, 1910.
Jim Morrison
The "Reel" Marilyn Monroe
Robert De Niro
Ian Curtis
Jimi Hendrix
Bob Dylan
A nearly deafening silence immediately strikes the viewer of Blain’s remarkably spartan installation. This soundlessness continues to resonate – and change – as one walks around her three-dimensional grid of strings and shoes, filling in its absences with haunting narratives and dark associations. Ominous connections between facelessness and force, blind obedience and inhuman strength, a sense of belonging and one of being utterly lost gain clarity as one contemplates her austere memorial to war and its – often abstract – if all-too-real consequences.
– David Pagel, Dominique Blain, Art Forum, 1993
Discuss with your team: should more portraits be made of materials related to their subjects? Do works such as Dominique Blain’s Missa—an assemblage of one hundred army boots—force us to reconsider old topics in new ways, or do they rely too much on novelty instead of skill?
Writing in the journal Antiquity, Professor Jan Simek of the University of Tennessee and colleagues have published images of giant glyphs carved into the mud surface of the low ceiling of a cave in Alabama. These glyphs are among some of the largest found cave images in North America, and are believed to be creatures of the underworld. The first image represents a diamondback rattlesnake, an animal sacred to indigenous people in the south-eastern U.S., and stretches almost 3 meters long. The second image depicts a human figure 1.81m in length. Ancient people rejuvenated a light in the cave (a flaming torch of American bamboo) by stubbing it against the cave's wall. This left a residue that the researchers were able to date with radiocarbon to 133–433 AD. This was also in accord with the age of pottery fragments ancient artists left in the cave. The cave is only 60cm high, so they used photogrammetry (in which thousands of overlapping photographs of an object or place are taken from different angles and digitally combined in 3D)
and it allowed Professor Simmer’s team to “lower” the cave ceiling about 4m and reveal the entirety of the glyph.
The earliest rock art dates back to 64000 years ago, and with time progresses, we are in the process of discovering new ones, though with modern technologies it’s possible that we may never see the color of the rock arts if we excavate them now as coolers fade over time (see the example of the Terracotta Warriors, they stopped excavation until better technology could be developed). Rock art in the darker parts of the cave (where sunlight does not reach) was only discovered in North America in 1979, more than a century after its discovery in Europe (Altamira Cave, northern Spain). A lot (and by that I mean over 500) caves containing rock art in Europe have been confirmed to contain rock art from the Pleistocene era between 2.6 million and 11,700 years ago.
Light engravings are difficult to spy. Some of them can only be seen when light is shone at them from a certain aspect, called raking light. However, these challenges are still little of a match for modern technology. A technique called reflection transformation imaging (RTI) can illuminate the cave art from any angle, thus making the glyph seen.
Before RTI After RTI
Before RTI, there is still parts that are noticeably lighter, but after RTI, the lines are easier to see.
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Future archaeological searches for rock art will probably benefit from recent developments in airport security. Full body scanners use far infra-red frequency light that safely penetrates clothing to reveal concealed weapons or contraband, and similar techniques have been used to "see through" layers of prehistoric wall plaster to paintings underneath. When these scanners become small and cheap enough to take into caves, who knows what further ghosts will come to light?
"Cave painting in the Maros-Pangkep caves near Maros, on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi, is among the oldest Stone Age art on the planet, according to a team of scientists led by Dr Anthony Dosseto of the University of Wollongong, Australia, as reported in Nature (Autumn 2014). according to a study in Nature (2014). " The oldest art discovered inside this cave is a hand stencil dating to at least 37900 BCE, thus becoming the second oldest painting in the world (come on, Picasso and Dali are widely known but not the oldest paintings in the world?), second only to the El Castillo Cave paintings in Spain, dating to 39000 BCE. There is also a painting of a "babirusa" (SE Asian "pig-deer") in the cave, dating to at least 33400 BCE. All images were dated using Uranium/Thorium (U/Th)--uranium decay technique, and the discovery of these paintings signify modern humans developed a common cultural and cognitive capability before leaving their home in Africa, rather than developing after they reached Europe or Southeast Asia.
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Sulawesi itself (previously called Celebes), the world's eleventh-largest island, is situated between Borneo and the Maluku Islands on the main migratory route from the Asian continent to Australia. Maros Pangkep is a limestone hill, the second biggest karst area in Asia, situated in the Bantimurung Bulusaraung National Park on the southwestern peninsula of Sulawesi, near the provincial capital of Makassar. This cave is 1 in about 90 caves in the area containing Stone Age art. The art is suggested to have been made by anatomically modern men, likely Aboriginal people on their way to Australia.
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Timeline
July 1857--British explorer and naturalist Alfred Wallace visited during his trip to the East Indies, later published the results of his trip in his book "The Malay Archipelago", but didn't mention cave paintings.
1905-6-----Swiss naturalists Fritz and Paul Sarasin led a scientific expedition to Indonesia, vivid accounts of ancient rock paintings
1950--------First written description--Dutch archeologist H.R. van Heereken first reported the presence of hundreds of hand stencils and images of animals
1993--------The XI International Speleology Congress recommended that Maros Pangkep be adopted by UNESCO as a World Heritage site
2009--------Indonesian government submitted Maros Pangkep for UNESCO World Heritage Sites inclusion
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Up until recently, it was believed that "modern humans" - who began migrating from Africa across the globe, about 80,000 BCE - lacked the cultural and cognitive capacity to create parietal or mobiliary art of any significance. It was only much later (from about 15,000 BCE) that they developed any real artistic ability. The discovery of this cave changed that theory and as scientific technology progresses, I'm sure there will be a lot more discoveries!
Discuss with your team: were these early cave dwellers artists? Is there a difference between painting and documentation—or between drawing and doodling? Are Charles Darwin’s surviving sketches of finches in the Galapagos fit to be called works of art?
Most know Darwin as the father of evolution. When he was a young man, Darwin accompanied the crew of the HMS Beagle as their resident naturalist. The ship sailed in late December of 1831, and journeyed to the Canary Islands, South America, and even as far as New Zealand (he was NOT pleased with NZ...), Darwin's job being to study the flora and fauna and collect samples. "Darwin's Finches" were not finches at all, but what are now believed to be some sort of blackbird or mockingbird. When they returned to England in 1836 (wow, 5 years is a long time), Darwin sought out John Gould, ornithologist. Gould was surprised to see the differences in the beaks of the birds and identified the 14 different specimens as actual different species - 12 of which were brand new species. He declared them unique to the Galápagos Islands.
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Charles Darwin did not come up with his idea of evolution alone, but it was passed down from his grandfather Erasmus Darwin, and the Galápagos finches only helped prove his point further.The favorable adaptations of Darwin's Finches' beaks were selected for over generations until they all branched out, forming new species. The birds' beaks were adapted over time to fit niches on the islands. Then, Darwin went on to write about his travels in The Voyage of the Beagle, and explained the Galápagos finches fully in his most famous book On the Origin of Species, arguing against Jean Baptiste Lamarck's idea that species spontaneously generated from nothingness.
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I believe these cave dwellers were artists in their own way, but that still depends on what one defines as art. Art may be a simple brick wrapped in a paper bag, or it may be the likes of Van Gogh or Dali. Painting is sometimes a form of documentation, or it might be entirely fictional. Doodling essentially is drawing, only more abstract and carefree. In my opinion, Darwin's Finches are works of art, as they are creative and fit the categories of art. Although they were a form of documentation in Darwin's case, they are also beautiful works and deserve to be recognized as much as other artworks.
If it were a Starbucks, they’d just build another one across the street. It’s harder to know what to do when a historical site is overcrowded. Some governments impose quotas, as Peru did in 2019 on visitors to the Incan city of Machu Picchu.
Bulls and the Axial Gallery.
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Visiting the replica is made to be as authentic as possible, with sounds of forests and birds to replicate the forest one actually has to walk through to get to the original cave. Dina Casson, part of the team that worked on the museum's design, said that it was important to recreate the authentic experience. One of her team members was allowed into the original cave, and "this sense of being outside, then inside, then outside" was one of the experiences he felt was powerful. The cave itself is cool and constant, and there are more than 600 hundred paintings and over a thousand engravings in the original cave, done 20000 years ago.
Archeologist Jean-Pierre Chadelle says these early human artists used very advanced techniques, such as magnesium pencil for the black horns of the bull and dried paint made from natural ochre colors blown through a tool crafted from hollow bird bones. Chadelle used to give tours in the original cave, which he says eventually believe a victim of its own success. There was so many carbon dioxide in the cave that visitors were passing out inside and in the 1950s they had to put a giant fan in place of the original opening the boys climbed through. Chadelle believes the replicated cave is more authentic as it has that hole. Guillaume Colombo, the director of the new cave and museum complex at Lascaux, says the art was so well preserved for so long because the cave was sealed tight, with a layer of clay in the soil at the entrance of the cave that helped waterproof it.
Prehistorian Jean Clottes says the animals don't really represent what these Cro Magnon humans would have hunted and eaten at the time (which was mammoth or reindeer). He believes that the bulls and horses were actually spiritual beliefs that the people had, rather like the gods of other civilisations. "There was a code and a certain style they all follow, so we are pretty sure they were done by a small group, and in just a few years, but we don't know if it was a few years within a hundred years or a thousand years." Colombo says the paintings were most likely done by a couple generations of painters who passed down the knowledge.
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Lascaux III--exhibition that toured the museums of the world, launching in October 2012. It went to the likes of the Chicago Field Museum (dioramas!) and there was a digital 3D reconstruction of the entire cave, though sadly not interactive. In 2021 it was replaced by a 12-minute long VR interactive video.
Lascaux IV--Opened in 2016, precise down to 3 millimetres thanks to 3D scanning of the original cave. Every nook and cranny is recreated using polysterine and resin, and the latest fiberglass techniques. Francis Ringenbach, the leader of the team of 34 artists who reconstructed the entire cave calls the 3 year job "colossal". To reproduce the art, high-definition images of the paintings were projected onto the walls and copied painstakingly. "These animals are not positioned by chance. For example, the eye of this miso is not engraved, it's a natural cavity they exploited to make the eye. "Putting ourselves in the context made us realize how difficult the conditions were. They were working in darkness and working from memory to do these compositions."
The Eiffel Tower isn't the only attraction France is famous for. The Lascaux Caves, located in a forest in southern France is a site that has 250000 to 260000 people flocking to it every year. On a September day in 1940 while much of Europe was engulfed in war, four teenagers were walking through a forest in southern France when their dog fell down a hole. When trying to rescue it, they discovered what is now known as the Lascaux Caves. The caves became a popular tourist site after WWII, but had to be sealed off to the public in 1963 because of carbon dioxide and humidity which would destroy the ancient art from the breath and sweat of the visitors. France has made a replica of the caves, spending $64 million ($64 mil in 1983 equals around 200.7 million now!), starting construction in the 1970s and opening it in 1983, replicating the Hall of the
Is it misleading to present such recreations to tourists as worthwhile destinations? Does it matter whether the duplicates were made by human hands or a 3D printer, or how far they are from the original?
In 1908, E.S. Wheeler of the Association of Engineering Societies mused about the requirements of building a full scale replica of the Great Pyramid of Giza in Detroit. The twelve-acre site was to be built on Fort Street between Griswold and Cass, home to Cadillac’s village in 1702 and site of the fort attacked by Pontiac in 1763. Today, this would be sitting atop the Levin courthouse, the Penobscot building, and a chain sandwich restaurant. The cost in 1908 of the pyramid, which would have been 485 feet tall and 706 feet on a side, was $36,000,000. That amount of money in 1908 is the equivalent of around 1.22 billion today.
Finally, if a day’s work is worth a dollar and a half, it would require 24,000,000 days’ work to build a pyramid. The population of the United States is about 80,000,000. It is reckoned that one in five is able to do a day’s work; therefore there is available 16,000,000 days’ work each day; it would take a day and a half to build a pyramid. If the United States should stop all other work and devote itself entirely to building pyramids, as was probably the case in Egypt, it would, after it got fairly running, be able to turn out two every three days. – E.S. Wheeler, Id.
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According to the article, extrapolating this equation for the current national population of 312 million would give the US the ability to produce 2.6 pyramids a day. Sadly, the musings never became reality, but it would've been cool anyways!
The Eiffela was a mini-Eiffel Tower erected on April 1st, 2023. The tower is around 1/10 of the original, and some say it's an April Fool's joke, but the tower stayed up until April 10th. A post went out as an April Fool's joke to say that the 32 meter tall structure would be turned into a giant slide (that would've been so cool). The Eiffel Tower started construction in 1887 and was completed in March 1889. According to toureiffel.paris, The tower was originally 300 meters tall, being called the "300m tower". Then on its inauguration day on March 31, it was topped by a large flagpole from which the French flag was flown, taking the height of the Tower to a little more than 312 meters (1,024 feet).
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Lyon, France--The Metallic Tower of Fourvière,​ built 3 years before the Eiffel Tower, might have been the original inspiration
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Paris, Texas, USA--There are two Parises in America--one in Texas and another in Tennessee. Texas added their own spin to the iconic landmark--a cowboy hat, to make sure that it was taller than Tennessee's.
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Blackpool, England--Oldest known Eiffel Tower replica, built in 1894. It is 158 meters tall.
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Las Vegas, USA (Not much of a surprise--this city always seems to have plenty of attractions)--Half the size of the original, located next to a 2:3 model of the Arc de Triomph and the Louvre, all a part of the Paris Las Vegas Hotel and Casino.
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Tokyo, Japan--This tower is taller even than the original one--it stands at 333 meters, the second tallest structure in Japan. (I personally think it looks like a lighthouse)
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Tianducheng, China--Built a year before the famous Beijing 2008 Olympics, Tianducheng was designed to look exactly like Paris. Tianducheng itself roughly translates to Capital of the Sky, and the city even had a Champs-Elysées, Haussmannien architecture, and an Eiffel Tower. It was built to accommodate 10000 people, but to 2023 just around 3000 live there. Upside: very realistic
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Slobozia, Romania--Located in the middle of a field and paid for by a Romanian billionaire, this Eiffel Tower may stand less than 60 meters tall, but it certainly stands out in the countryside and surrounding field.
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Sydney, Australia--Standing on top of the AWA (Amalgamated
Wireless Australasia), it was built in 1939 and remained Sydney's tallest tower until the 1960s. It is a radio transmission tower, demolished and rebuilt in 1994, without the viewing platform. It lights up at night! (I visited it, really cool!)
​ 9.Lahore, Pakistan--This tower is very realistic, and visitors can go up to the top much like the Parisan one.​
10.Filiatra, Greece--This town is known as "Little Paris" because of the model Eiffel Tower replica at its entrance. The tower is often seen as the main tourist attraction in the town.
October 1949--added a "new 3-meter television antenna for a “high definition” 819-line transmitter that allowed two programs to be broadcast simultaneously"
1957--After a fire in 1956, some new equipment was added, taking the tower to a total of 320.75m tall
2000--"The installation of a new UHF (Ultra High Frequency) antenna for Digital Terrestrial Television and its base which changed the height of the tower again, making it 324 meters tall (1,063 feet)."
2022--"+6 meters were gained following the installation of a new antenna dedicated to digital terrestrial radio (DAB+). The Eiffel Tower reached the height of 330 meters (1,083 feet) on March 15, 2022 thanks to this successful and dizzying operation carried out by helicopter. Which was a first!"
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It took a team of between 150-300 people to build it.
The Eiffel Tower is made up of 18,038 iron parts, 2,500,000 rivets and four pillars to make up the 410 square-foot monument. It's painted every 7 years, and will be painted again before the Paris Olympics this year (2024).
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Did you know: The Eiffel Tower was made for the 1989 Paris World Fair, built to commemorate 100 years since the French Revolution, and was supposed to be demolished after 20 years (1910), but due to its usefulness as a radio broadcaster and a national icon, it stayed up until now!
Discuss with your team: what other historical landmark would you want to duplicate? Where would you put it, and would you make it exactly like the original or would you reimagine it in some way? Even if these sites weren’t overcrowded—more Baku than Kuala Lumpur—they would still require us to travel to them. Not everyone has the means. But, at least in theory, far more people could visit reconstructions of them in virtual reality, or VR. (VR was the last trendy two-letter acronym before AI.) Explore the offerings of the Australian company Lithodomos, then discuss with your team: would you support this technology being used in classrooms? Should more real-world tourism be replaced with VR visits? Check out the following VR implementations at museums, then discuss with your team: are these VR interpretations of past works themselves new works of art?
Before AI, VR was the last trendy 2-letter acronym. Australian company Lithodomos is now reconstructing the ancient cities and relics around the world in VR tech, making it possible to travel the world on a laptop. Their destinations include Rome, Athens, Jerusalem, Delphi and more. The team behind this includes real-world archeologists and developers and designers, even complete with actual guides at the tourist locations. Lithodomos is based in Prahan, Melbourne and was founded in 2016 by archaeologist Dr Simon Young. The company currently offers over 500 360 degree reconstructions and 60+ heritage sites spread across 18 countries. A downside of the site is that visitors pay to get the experience, but it’s awesome anyways!
Gonzaga University history professor Andrew Goldman, also an archaeologist, is trying out VR in his class. Students view Pompeii before the famed Vesuvius explosion in 79AD, using $5 cardboard viewers and smartphones. The technology was developed by Lithodomos VR, and when visited by his friend Simon Young (Lithodomos developer), Goldman asked for the chance to trial the new tech in his classroom. GU’s College of Arts and Sciences provided a grant toward the project for educational use in its classes. Goldman believes that this type of immersive learning is better, and that it is not only cheaper than textbooks, the experience is better—you can experience it from different viewpoints.
The building that houses the Zabludowicz Collection in north London is a local heritage landmark: a Grade II-listed 19th-century Methodist chapel in the neoclassical style, its façade complete with Corinthian columns, carved wreath-adorned pediment, tall round-arched entrance and stained glass windows. Inside, however, the focus is very much on the present – and the future. In January 2018, the centre for contemporary art opened the first dedicated space in the UK for exhibiting works made using virtual reality (VR) technology.
"La Camera Insabbiata offers a virtual thinking space that surpasses thoughts, deconstructs words and overturns dreams for the audience. The exhibition space stands at TFAM’s outdoor plaza like a dark container. It includes a VR space for four participants. For the virtual journey, participants can travel through eight rooms, including The Cloud Room, The Anagram Room, The Dog Room, The Water Room, The Sound Room, The Dance Room, The Writing Room, and The Tree Room. Surrounded by murmurs by Laurie Anderson in the background, viewers can wander through story clusters, leap across
The Tree Room
otherworldly and dreamy rooms, as well as fall through layers of signs and numbers. VR goggles are hanged in the space, with control handles on handrail, enabling the participants an experience that gives in all of their senses to technology facilitation. For fifteen minutes, viewers can navigate with their handles in panoramic corridors, halls, and the eight rooms, made of blackboards, chalks, handwritten signals and numbers. Landscapes in panoramic space breaks through reasonable, gravitational, and spatial logics, and separates from reality. Everyone can sculpture personal, intimate and unique works with voices and sounds, or quietly observe lines and colors to sprawl and extend."
The exhibition is now held in Taipei Fine Arts Museum.
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Sometimes, a work isn’t copied as much as it is reinterpreted. In the 1980s, two Soviet artists-in-exile, Vitaly Komar and Alexander Melamid, painted the head of Josef Stalin perched on a woman's hand. Judith on the Red Square was just one of many takes on a historical moment that may never even have happened. Compare their version with those below, then discuss with your team: how do their styles and meanings vary? If, as critics argue, they celebrate “female rage”, should we still be studying any of them? Pay special attention to the Mannerist style of Giorgio Vasari, in which artists abandon the pursuit of realism in favor of imagined ideals. When is it better to make something less realistic?
Judith and Holofernes is an artwork depicting the female heroine Judith slaying the antagonist Holofernes, who is an Assyrian general. The story is from biblical origins. There are many versions of Judith and Holofernes, and this is a timeline for you!
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1493--Michael Wolgemut + Wilhelm Pleydenwurff Judith with the Head of Holofernes
1554--Giorgio Vasari Judith and Holofernes
1612-13--Artemisia Gentileschi Judith Slaying Holofernes
1880--Pedro Americo Judith and Holofernes
1981-83--Vitaly Komar + Alexander Melamid Judith on the Red Square
2012--Kehinde Wiley Judith and Holofernes
I'm sure you have heard of the famous painting The Girl With the Pearl Earrings by Johannes Vermeer in 1665, but do you know about this? Back in '23, the Mauritshuis Museum lent out the world famous painting by Vermeer which launched a competition to create something to hang in its place. Over 3500 artists submitted their reimagining of the painting, with 5 winning artworks being hung on the museum's walls. Everyone was happy. Of course, there's a turn in the story. One of the winning paintings was actually made by AI! It was titled The Girl with the Glowing Earrings, and it was made by German based artist Julian van Dieken. Both the museum and the artist received some criticism about it, such as that museums are not fit to display artworks made by AI, and that it is a disrespect to the foundations of the concept of a museum, and that it is unethical.
Discuss with your team: should museums be allowed to display art generated using AI tools?
Discuss with your team: was Napoleon right in recognizing that history would remember how David had portrayed him?
Napoleon may have lost the battle, but he won worldwide attention and a formidable legacy. One of the most famous paintings In which he is portrayed, Napoleon Crossing the Alps by Jacques-Louis David has a lot of controversy on it, but Napoleon himself reportedly loved the painting. It commemorates his journey across the Alps in 1800 to invade Northern Italy, (for US history people 1800 was the time of the third election where Thomas Jefferson won when running for president) but the actual painting was painted in 1801.
Basically the only accurate thing in this painting is the uniform, which David borrowed from Napoleon (it was the one he wore at the Battle of Marengo) as a model for painting. However, Napoleon refused to sit for the posing, so David instead asked his own son to sit atop a ladder. Napoleon was the one who requested his painting to be like “calme sur un cheval fougueux” which roughly translates to "calm on a fiery steed. In the original scene, contrary to what the painting portrays, Napoleon was riding a mule, instead of the rearing Arabian stallion.