"As part of a major revamp of its online presence, the world's most-visited museum has created a new database of 482,000 items at collections."
Here's the site.
Here's the first thing I looked for:
I wanted to see that because I have a strong memory of drawing it (in person) and only remembered my drawing (blogged before, here):
ADDED: Oh, no, wait. It's this one — an older, nakeder Voltaire. This is the "portrait absolument fidèle" that I drew:
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64 comments:
Well, that's better than I expected when I saw the start of the headline!
I figured it was going in the dirction of "The Louvre museum in Paris said Friday it has put nearly half a million items from its collection into storage as 'problematic'".
Vive la France.
For a curmudgeon, he had a very kind face.
Pretty damn good doodle.
I applaud this approach for museums to allow the public access to their vast collections in storage.
Realistic VR is still a ways off, but there a several VR Tourism programs out. You can visit the Parthenon with present day 3D photos or look at 3D models of its glory days. Artwork in museums are beginning to show up in VR also.
Ah, non-toupee Voltaire.
France > America
I never thought I’d write anything like that.
This is going to be attacked as white supremacy. By Americans, mostly.
I guess towards the end he lost his teeth. It's hard to appear resolute with a sunken mouth....Every lost tooth in that mouth represented an episode of pain and then pain followed by a restricted diet. So far as dentistry went, he lived in the worst of all possible worlds. In that world, they had invented sugar but not novicaine.
You can't beat free.
My son, a trained artist, has a life-sized plaster cast of the same bust. Drawing Voltaire from every angle is still an art-school ritual, believe it or not.
"You can't be free."
Even if they paid me?
I visited it in the Summer of 1995. I will take the virtual tour at some point, though.
I realize how important Voltaire is to most of the ideals I hold, BUT, I once tried to read Voltaire in Love by Nancy Mitford and I had to give up a couple chapters in. If there's a derogatory Anglospheric stereotype of the French that Voltaire as a person did not exemplify, I don't know what it is.
Yancy Ward said...
Bud Pomeroy said...
"You can't beat free."
Even if they paid me?
Good point.
It's kinda along the lines of this argument:
Whiskeybum: Hey guys, here's a cool t-shirt with my company's logo on it. It's only $15!
Bub Pomeroy: Since I would be advertising your company when I wear it, you should give it to me for free.
Yancy Ward: to hell with that, you should be paying me to wear that!
Bravo! The sketch is enhanced by the commentary.
My first search was for the Mona Lisa, which was unsuccessful until I learned its title is La Joconde.
"The Italian name for the painting, La Gioconda, means 'jocund' ('happy' or 'jovial') or, literally, 'the jocund one', a pun on the feminine form of Lisa's married name, Giocondo. In French, the title La Joconde has the same meaning." --Wikipedia
“Logically, the process of liberalism cannot be eternal. When the state of society is clearly worsening, it’s only natural to become a conservative.”
- Voltaire
Truer words were never spoken.
I thought they did this last year?
Lileks has been posting weekly picks at the Bleat for some time now.
John Henry
Virtual education. Virtual art. Virtual babies... life, too. Socially distant. Sure, why not. One step forward, two steps backward.
Virtual education. Virtual art. Virtual babies...
Don't forget virtual morals, too. Lynch your fellow citizens and sleep the sleep of the Elect. What's not to love?
COOL! We get to see a picture!
A picture of a lot of things that we have already seen pictures of.
Website sucks. Can't even navigate to the Mona Lisa.
Patrick, see my comment at 12:24 p.m.
I HATE to grumble about a task as monumental as loading close to half a million works of art to the Internet to be seen and enjoyed for free, but . . . many of the postings look like somebody took them with an iphone while somebody else was holding them. No cropping, exposure/highlight/shadow correction, etc. I'm kinda surprised, but again, not looking a gift horse in the mouth. Just an observation.
He is even wearing what one of my professors called “the smirk of reason”.
One wonders why Althouse took this opportunity to blog about the Louvre and the busts of Voltaire. Now, if Frederick the Great had picked one of the pair to throw darts at -- that would be funny. However, as it is, it's another episode from the Althouse sketchbook, but one without the rats. It could wait.
Here's what can't wait, kids in cages, courtesy Resident Biden.
Just an observation.
Agreed. If you're going to the trouble to photographically document stuff, then present portrait busts in virtual 3-D, like a 360 animated GIF.
Paintings, however, are more problematic as full-spectrum lighting can be deleterious to old stuff. [Art is just stuff, and sometimes not even that. Isn't that what Christo taught us, that and Blessed are the poorly talented, for they shall see commissions and residuals out the yahzoo?]
Here's what can't wait, kids in cages, courtesy Resident Biden.
Does her voice grate on anyone else? "Please respect the rules.." her pitch rises at the end, like she's asking a question. Worse than fingernails on a chalk board.
The French and the eye for art! It's hard to beat that one. The French are awfully good at some things: food, wine, subtle language a clever aesthetic eye among them. They suck at a few others(you can guess).
I suppose that given display costs and changing attitudes about traditional European art, they and others will have to sell some of it. My guess would be a lot. But hey, your never know, they are unique in their ways to navigate this stuff.
Top Voltaire- Patrick Stewart
Bottom Voltaire- David Bradley
Website sucks. Can't even navigate to the Mona Lisa.
The French have a different name for things. Why, it's almost another language.
Bottom Voltaire - David Bradley
No, no, no. William Hartnell.
I visited the Louvre for 2 days in 2000.
There is no way that a virtual tour can take the place of a live in-peron tour.
Please respect the rules...
of the Auschwitz Migrant Protection Facility. Please respect the dignity and privacy of those people waiting to be gassed... er, bathed! That's it, bathed. Please respect the dignity and privacy of those subhumans waiting to be bathed.
There is no way that a virtual tour can take the place of a live in-peron tour.
Juan or Eva?
I'd prefer Eva.
Hotter.
Top - Rand Paul
Bottom - Ron Paul
Bottom - Ron Paul
No, no, no. Ru Paul
Blogger Francisco D said...
I visited the Louvre for 2 days in 2000.
There is no way that a virtual tour can take the place of a live in-peron tour.
Yup. I've been there multiple times and it takes days to get through everything worthwhile. Was there before the fancy glass pyramid and the subterranean lobby.
Blogger Jay Vogt said...
The French and the eye for art! It's hard to beat that one. The French are awfully good at some things: food, wine, subtle language a clever aesthetic eye among them. They suck at a few others(you can guess).
Plus, of course, most of the exhibits were stolen by Napoleon.
many of the postings look like somebody took them with an iphone
Which means that the images are no better than the photos I took with my own camera in Summer 2019.
The younger Voltaire looks like Bill Maher. Or maybe it's just the same smart-ass expression. Voltaire earned his; Maher just deserves the "-ass" part.
Voltaire had quite the schnoz.
I’m with Rebel, I see the Pauls (with less-crazy hair and eyebrows.)
Ah! I finally taught myself how to type an accent grave.
fidèle
I've known how to type an acute accent for decades.
Ummm.... "Nakeder"? In "Etimology for Idjits", nocando.
My wife and I admired the Louvre from outside in '17. Just couldn't face the enormity inside--not with the week we had. The Musee d'Orsay was much more manageable. Next time, though!
Narr
Great museums: you need to be there
Actually, I learned 2 ways. One is like the way I did the acute accent — hold down option while pressing a key — e for acute, ~ for grave — and then type the letter you want the accent to be on.
The other way is push down the key for the letter you want the accent on and hold it until a set up options appears. Then choose the one you want. This is good for all sorts of diacritical marks.
Talk about the power of the pen. Voltaire single handedly destroyed the French monarchy using the power that came from the new printing press. The French Revolution just acknowledged the success of Voltaire’s work.
Here's Art Buchwald on the way to see the Louvre Toot sweet in record time
The Musee d'Orsay was much more manageable
Don't miss the Musee Carnavalet. When we first visited, the arrest warrant that Robespierre was signing when the others in the Commune shot him in the jaw. His blood was on it. The last time we visited, it was not there. I hope that was temporary. Also the toys of the children of Louis and Marie were there. There had them to play with while imprisoned in the Conciergerie. Interesting building.
The other way is push down the key for the letter you want the accent on and hold it until a set up options appears.
macOS only.
If you're a Windows type o' guy (queue Steve Martin's swinger voice) memorize the CTRL+crap.
Our museum organization is working like heck to accomplish this concept of a 'virtual' museum. On-line collections. This pandemic has forced museums to find an audience, and on-line seems to work. We've put thousands of object's online see https://www.phmc.pa.gov/Museums/Online-Collection/Pages/default.aspx, sorry for the lame link, but I'm old. Some of our 'work at home' history programs have been accessed on 3 continents. Those programs are not going to go away with that type of reach, continents compared to counties. Our on-line fundraising was also very successful, and we're looking to get a new pair of young working oxen from that fund. It's an entirely new situation in my field of work. Exciting, but I'm on the way out (I started in 1987), and my wife retires in 2 weeks.
The first bust is amazing. I wonder if I can buy a copy.
thanks for the tip on the è
Bah! All of the replicas are of the more boring second bust and similar.
Dead white men, sculpted in white marble, which is obviously about white supremacy. Like sheet music, European sculpture and art must be eliminated so that other cultures may feel good about themselves. Conspicuous success is not fair to the untalented and the failures.
I got permission to sketch a lute in the Vienna museum and sent it to a lutemaker in Tubingen Germany to order one like it built. Picked it up a month later on the way home. Geigenbaumeister. 7 courses 13 strings.
e for acute, ~ for grave —
The Bank Dick people called him souse, and he'd correct them, "It's Sousé, accent grave over the e."
Accent aigu, surely.
Sell it all or throw it in the trash.
Art about white people by white people.
It's all crap.
mr. hardin,
I've used that line more times than I would like regarding my familial name (the 'e' being pronounced). I've been called just about everything. All my history professors pronounced it according to the area of study, I learned to live with it. In 'pidgeon' German my name likens to 'Bitter Death', so I have that going for me. That might be why my German lecturer did a wee jump when he called roll the first day, and then taught me a Bavarian accent that my German friends today find absolutely hysterical, I'm basically a German speaking Alabamian.
Of course, no offence meant to actual Alabamians (I've South Carolina relations). The northern Germans seem to find their Southern folks as ridiculous farm folks. I've had them break into laughter with my pronunciation of 'ausgezeichnet'.
Mock on, mock on,
Voltaire, Rousseau.
Mock on, mock on,
'Tis all in vain--
You throw the sand
Against the wind
And the wind blows it
Back again.
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