Althouse: At the Monochrome Café...

December 20, 2010

At the Monochrome Café...

... all the trees are black, and the sky is gray.

32 comments:

Chase said...: . . . I went for a walk,

on a winter's day . . .

I'd be safe and warm; 12/20/10, 6:59 PM
garage mahal said...: Go Bret!; 12/20/10, 7:04 PM
rhhardin said...: Monochrome in the backyard video.

Nothing going on, would be the casual conclusion.; 12/20/10, 7:07 PM
Palladian said...: The perfect picture of my ideal landscape.; 12/20/10, 7:09 PM
Titus said...: Go Patriots!; 12/20/10, 7:12 PM
Titus said...: There were live nativity scenes in Waunakee this weekend.

No animals though, just humans.; 12/20/10, 7:18 PM
Lem Vibe Bandit said...: Yea, Go Patriots..; 12/20/10, 8:00 PM
Irene said...: Paul Soglin wants to be Mayor of Madison again.; 12/20/10, 8:05 PM
Greg Toombs said...: Bare Trees; 12/20/10, 8:29 PM
Unknown said...: That is a very dark, grim, bone-chilling photo.

I hope you two snuggled by the fire when you got home.; 12/20/10, 8:44 PM
jungatheart said...: "Nothing going on"

Sucker.; 12/20/10, 8:50 PM
Opus One Media said...: Ahhh a suitable republican view....; 12/20/10, 8:50 PM
Anonymous said...: Mind your Leonardo, professor, for better composition.

http://img145.imageshack.us/img145/2949/fib.jpg

Why it works:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fibonacci_number

An overlay of your original image recomposed:

http://img35.imageshack.us/img35/953/fib2.jpg

Leonardo was a genius, after all!; 12/20/10, 8:54 PM
Palladian said...: There is no evidence that Leonardo ever explicitly applied the golden mean to anything in his artistic output.

Put down the crappy Dan Brown, honey.; 12/20/10, 9:05 PM
Anonymous said...: "That is a very dark, grim, bone-chilling photo."

A few seconds in Photoshop can warm it up a bit.

http://img10.imageshack.us/img10/2847/fiblighter.jpg; 12/20/10, 9:05 PM
Palladian said...: "That is a very dark, grim, bone-chilling photo."

As I said, my idea landscape.; 12/20/10, 9:09 PM
ricpic said...: Winter Solstice

Just begun, already feeling endless,
Endless and not seeing how it ever lifts
A dog on a road alone and friendless,
The memory of comfort fading, he drifts.; 12/20/10, 9:09 PM
Freeman Hunt said...: I once listened to two normally sensible people attempt to convince me to believe all of that Dan Brown nonsense.

"See, the space between these two people looks like a chalice!"
"But the space between any two people anywhere would kind of look like a chalice what with the head being more narrow than the shoulders."
"What?! No, you're not getting it!"; 12/20/10, 9:11 PM
Anonymous said...: "There is no evidence that Leonardo ever explicitly applied the golden mean to anything in his artistic output."

What's your point?

Since Leonardo lived in the 1600's there's no explicit evidence that he did much of anything, since we have no decent recorded history from the 1600s.

Nevertheless, the principle is sound madam.

Photographs - especially nature photographs - which are composed using a fibonnaci spiral as a guide are more appealing ... wouldn't you agree?; 12/20/10, 9:12 PM
HT said...: I liked the poem. As for the photo, it is sort of a Rorschach test on our feelings on winter.

I'm thinking of starting my own blog, but it's going to have to be completely anonymous. Does anyone want to tell me if they think that would be easy or not using blogger?; 12/20/10, 9:14 PM
Palladian said...: "Since Leonardo lived in the 1600's there's no explicit evidence that he did much of anything, since we have no decent recorded history from the 1600s."

Leonardo left some 13,000 pages of notes, journals, drawings, diaries and observations covering every imaginable aspect of life. And the political, scientific, mathematical, artistic, religious, social and philosophical history of the Quattrocento is extraordinarily well-documented.

And, by the way, Leonardo was over 80 years dead by the time 1600 rolled around.; 12/20/10, 9:25 PM
Palladian said...: "See, the space between these two people looks like a chalice!"
"But the space between any two people anywhere would kind of look like a chalice what with the head being more narrow than the shoulders."
"What?! No, you're not getting it!"

It's very difficult disabusing my students of it, as "The DaVinci Code" is sometimes the only reason they've ever heard of Leonardo.

Not that Leonardo was not interested in geometry and mathematics (quite the contrary), but there is no evidence among the thousands of pages of notes he left that he specifically applied the golden mean and/or Fibonacci sequences to his artistic work. He was certainly aware of both, but trying to explain his paintings and intentions as some elaborate and arcane set of formulæ is misguided and baseless, especially since many of those paintings come to us in severely altered form.

I always start by explaining to my students that the title "The DaVinci Code" is wrong to begin with, because Da Vinci is not Leonardo's last name, so if Brown couldn't even get that part right, why should we trust him to explain the complexities of Fibonacci series and sacred geometry?; 12/20/10, 9:32 PM
MadisonMan said...: See, the space between these two people looks like a chalice!

Is it a chalice with a palace that holds the brew that is true? Or does it hold the pellet with the poison.; 12/20/10, 11:57 PM
Penny said...: If we are at the Monochrome Cafe'...

And the trees are black, and the sky is gray...

Why is the snow blue?; 12/21/10, 12:35 AM
Palladian said...: "And the trees are black, and the sky is gray...

Why is the snow blue?"

Because ice crystals absorb most or all of the red-wavelength photons and reflect back the short wavelength photons, like blue, especially at dusk which would normally appear much more red but for the snow on the ground.; 12/21/10, 12:44 AM
Penny said...: Are we REALLY at the Monochrome Cafe'?; 12/21/10, 1:05 AM
BJM said...: @Palladian

It's very difficult disabusing my students of it, as "The DaVinci Code" is sometimes the only reason they've ever heard of Leonardo.

Hell, half of them probably think England is in France too.

btw- what do you make of the newly discovered numerals/letters in the Mona Lisa?; 12/21/10, 1:40 AM
Palladian said...: "btw- what do you make of the newly discovered numerals/letters in the Mona Lisa?"

That "discovery" is the work of one person, and is not supported by any other researcher who has studied the surface of the painting, or any of the x-rays of the paint layers. I wouldn't venture a guess until I saw scientific evidence of the existence of such underpainting, and even then, should the conjecture prove true, who knows?; 12/21/10, 1:49 AM
R.L. Hunter said...: "btw- what do you make of the newly discovered numerals/letters in the Mona Lisa?"

Leonardo was into paint by numbers?; 12/21/10, 3:24 AM
Chip Ahoy said...: Wrong turn at the Multitone café.; 12/21/10, 4:13 AM
Chip Ahoy said...: Say, Kids, would you like to be the first to see a pop-up card I made for my older brother?; 12/21/10, 5:14 AM
Clyde said...: @ Chip Ahoy

I approve of the snake motif!; 12/21/10, 7:32 AM