Why Is This the Greatest Living Poet’s Favorite Painting?

Poets quite often make the best art critics. The same aesthetic antennae attuned to language and meaning come into play when diving into the meaning of visual art. So, when Irish poet Seamus Heaney, 1995 winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature (among a slew of other prizes), talked to More Intelligent Life magazine about his personal “seven wonders of the world,” it was interesting that he picked as his favorite work of art Piero della Francesca’s The Flagellation of Christ (shown above). Called by many the greatest poet alive today and the most important poet of the last half century, Heaney knows that his pronouncements carry a lot of weight. So, why is this the greatest living poet’s favorite painting? Please come over to Picture This at Big Think to read more of "Why Is This the Greatest Living Poet’s FavoritePainting?"

[Image: Piero della Francesca. The Flagellation of Christ, circa 1455–1460. Image source.]

[Many thanks to friend Dave, the second greatest living poet, for passing on this story to me.]

George Washington: Founding Father of American Art?

“First in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen": those famous accolades have followed George Washington—first U.S. President and the beardless half of today’s Presidents’ Day holiday—since the very beginning of his transformation from man to myth in the American pantheon. Could Washington have been first in American art, too? In George Washington’s Eye: Landscape, Architecture, and Design at Mount Vernon, Joseph Manca aims to rehumanize Washington by “reassess[ing] his place in early American intellectual life,” specifically in the realm of art. Just as Washington helped America gain political independence, he helped foster an independent American art culture, knowing that there was more to being a nation beyond bills and bullets. Was George Washington the founding father of American art? Please come over to Picture This at Big Think to read more of "George Washington: Founding Father of American Art?"

[Image: Gilbert Stuart. Portrait of George Washington (detail), 1795. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Image source.]

[Many thanks to The Johns Hopkins University Press for providing me with a review copy of Joseph Manca’s George Washington’s Eye: Landscape, Architecture, and Design at Mount Vernon.]

Is This the Missing Half of the Most Controversial Painting Ever?

If any painting could be labeled “not safe for work,” it’s Gustave Courbet’s 1866 L'Origine du monde (in English, The Origin of the World; and, once again, NSFW). Banned even from Facebook, proving that prudery’s alive and well in the 21^st century, Courbet’s graphically realistic painting of a woman’s nude torso went unseen by the public until 1988 and didn’t enter a museum collection until the Musée d'Orsay accepted it 7 years later. An article in Paris Match (available only in French) reports that a painting has been found that is the “lost” upper half of the painting (shown above), which shows the face of the model of the infamous work. Courbet experts argue over whether or not this really is part of the original L’Origine, but if it is, what does that discovery mean for that painting and for how we see (or don’t get to see) what has become the most controversial painting ever? Please come over to Picture This at Big Think to read more of "Is This the Missing Half of the MostControversial Painting Ever?"