Like ballerinas, Salvador Dali was simultaneously an artist and a work of art. When not piecing together some of the most out-there, psychedelic portraits known to man, Dali did the same with his public persona. His classic, occasionally nonsensical one liners like “I don’t do drugs; I am drugs” have gone down in history, along with photos of him walking an anteater and, naturally, shaping his inimitable mustache into a dollar bill.

As with other surrealists, Salvador Dali embraced the irrational and bizarre as his truths, digging deep into our unconscious selves only to splash his findings onto the canvas. Such a movement was not unforeseen: in the eyes of surrealists, it was cold, rational calculation that led to conflict, war and alienation seen in the 20th century. If we were to survive as a people, we needed to reject this artificial and harmful way of thinking about the world; we had to look inward as opposed to outward. In other words, you guessed it, we needed to ditch realism for surrealism. And as the following photos show, Dali did that in all facets of his life:

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With Frida Kahlo

With Andy Warhol

With Alice Cooper

With Sabina Nore

With Francoise Hardy

With Yves St. Laurent

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In a technical sense, Dali and his contemporaries were unsuccessful in altering the world’s consciousness, but their work–as complex as it is absurd–is an invaluable artistic challenge to the chilly realism that largely defined the 20th century. For more on surrealism, check out our post on the most iconic surrealist paintings.

All images come from Tumblr.

The post 34 Splendid Photos Of Salvador Dali Being Salvador Dali appeared first on All That Is Interesting.

In this clever short, Steve Cutts looks at the lives of cartoon characters whose best days–and figures–are long gone. Naturally, it involves a lot of dull, flickering TV screens, fatty foods and melancholic Erik Satie.

The post Cartoon Characters In The Twilight Of Their Lives appeared first on All That Is Interesting.

Source: Tumblr

At first glance, this fish seems pretty unremarkable. But upon closer inspection, it gets more interesting, since it’s really part sculpture and part painting. (Actually, inspect it all you like; it’s still going to look like a real fish.) Singapore-based artist Keng Lye manages to give aquatic life just as much grace as nature, and has been creating an entire series in his hybrid art form of resin painting, which accentuates the beauty of colorful sea creatures while also hinting at deeper questions about life and death.

Source: Tumblr

Lye graduated from Singapore’s Nanyang Academy with a diploma in graphic design, and started his own graphic design company back in 1995. He decided to make a life-altering decision to pursue resin art in 2011 – after he discovered a different artist in the same discipline named Risuke Fukahori. Lye’s inspiration for his resin fish series is based on nostalgia; re-creating the aquatic life he used to catch as a kid.

Source: Tumblr

Source: Tumblr

Lye’s delicate fish paintings make use of resin, which is a clear material used for sculpting. It can be poured in layers. Once hardened, Lye carefully paints each layer of his subject onto the resin. The amazing finished product doesn’t look like a painting at all; but rather a living, breathing three dimensional fish.

Source: Scene 360

Source: Tumblr

Source: Tumblr

This piece is titled “Life in Death.” In the very top crevice of the dead leaf, you can see little fish swimming about. While the meaning behind this work is heavily implied through the title, his other pieces may take a bit more thinking or imagination to truly “get”. Even if you don’t want to devote too much time to thinking about the pieces, they give you a lot to chew on aesthetically.

Source: Tumblr

Source: Tumblr

While Lye is certainly talented at painting small fish, he also paints a variety of other aquatic creatures which are just as beautiful and realistic as their fish counterparts. He’s created – in his signature style -painted turtles, octopi, frogs, and even shrimp.

Source: Deviant Art

Source: Deviant Art

Source: Tumblr

Source: Deviant Art

Source: Tumblr

Source: Tumblr

If you can’t make it to gallery exhibits, don’t worry: Keng Lye showcases his talents and style all over the internet. He has a Tumblr account where he posts all of his work as he completes them. He also has a deviant art account where he’s a little more vocal, and occasionally sells pieces of his collection. Follow him on both social networks to keep updated on his ever-growing aquarium of almost-real pets.

The post Keng Lye’s Fantastically Realistic Resin Art appeared first on All That Is Interesting.

Since at least the 1960s, Lewis Carroll’s classic “Alice in Wonderland” has become something of an institution within hallucinogenic drug culture. From Jefferson Airplane’s “White Rabbit” waxing to The Matrix‘s pill-propelled trips to “Wonderland”, the book’s association with drugs–no matter how loosely rooted in reality–is unlikely to disappear any time soon. With that in mind, it of course makes sense that surrealist artist Salvador Dali, the man who boldly declared that he was drugs, would have provided his own illustrated interpretation of Alice and her trippy friends in 1969.

This collection of heliogravures (a fancy process where the artist etches figures onto a special gel-covered copper plate already exposed to film positives) eventually became one of Dalí’s most prized suites of all time. Blending the timeless whimsy of the children’s tale with the technicolor dreams of the 1960s, it’s easy to see why.

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Down the Rabbit Hole Source: Brain Pickings

A Caucus Race and a Long Tale Source: Brain Pickings

Advice From a Caterpillar Source: Brain Pickings

Pig and Pepper Source: Brain Pickings

Frontispiece Source: Brain Pickings

The Rabbit Sends in a Little Bill Source: Brain Pickings

The Lobster's Quadrille Source: Brain Pickings

Mad Tea Party Source: Brain Pickings

The Mock Turtle's Story Source: Brain Pickings

The Pool of Tears Source: Brain Pickings

The Queen's Croquet Ground Source: Brain Pickings

Who Stole the Tarts? Source: Brain Pickings

Alice's Evidence Source: Brain Pickings

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For more Salvador Dali goodness, be sure to check out our post on the Best Dali portraits.

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While fire is most often associated with destruction, artist Steve Spazuk reveals that it also has the capacity to be incredibly productive.

The post Artist Makes Stunning Paintings With…Fire appeared first on All That Is Interesting.

In the day preceding tablet PCs and smartphones, we relied on typewriters to render documents readable and formal. Known for their unforgiving nature and uncanny ability to run out of ink at the worst times, it’s a bit odd that typewriters have become an object of romantic nostalgia as of late. Channeling that sentiment—as well as showcasing the typewriter’s versatility and usefulness—artist Alvaro Franca fashions intricate likenesses of famous writers using nothing but a typewriter. These portraits comprise part of an ongoing project, and Franca has plans on putting out at least five more to complete the series.

Source: Alvaro Franca

Franca goes through line by line and inputs specific characters to create stunning portraits of his favorite authors, who no doubt used typewriters while writing their stories. Franca has the help of a computer program while doing this, but he physically has to type each character out himself; there are no shortcuts here. He will create the portrait on the computer first, and then re-create it on the typewriter, presumably cutting out quite a bit of guesswork.

Source: Alvaro Franca

This is a portrait of Jose Saramago, a Portuguese writer who has sold over two million copies of his books. Using ink and letters as brush strokes, individual characters rightly appear as molecules that shape Saramago’s being. Franca attended the Cambridge University of Art, where he learned about grey-scaling and recreating pictures, ultimately adding his own twist to them in his typewriter portraits.

Source: Alvaro Franca

All of these portraits were done only last year. Many hours have been put into the production of these understatedly realistic pieces.

Source: Alvaro Franca

This portrait is of famed author Jack Kerouac, made famous by his beat-poet novel “On the Road”. This piece contains a lot of contrast in values, really making the portrait of the literary iconoclast pop.

Source: Alvaro Franca

Source: Alvaro Franca

Clarice Lispector was a journalist and Brazilian author often regarded as being as beautiful as she was talented. Franca highlights this through the attention he pays to her hair.

The post Intricate Typewriter Portraits Encapsulate The Energy Of Famous Writers appeared first on All That Is Interesting.

Source: The Forest Magazine

Italian sculptor and artist Bruno Walpoth has a knack for wood against which few can compete. His flawlessly carved creations of the human form are as realistic as they are striking—so much so that from a distance, it is nearly impossible to tell that his figures are not living, breathing beings. Like the tales of Pinocchio and his creator Geppetto, Walpoth’s sculptures certainly seem like they could spring to life at any moment and slip into our world.

Source: The Huffington Post

Born in the Val Gardena region of Italy, Walpoth grew up in a renowned woodcarving culture and has continued in the footsteps of his family members who themselves were master artisans.

Source: Art Nouveau

In a recent letter to the Huffington Post, Walpoth touched on his roots, saying that “In our valley there is a 400-year-old tradition of wood-sculpting culture. Both my grandfather and my uncle were wood sculptors, and so I grew up with this medium.”

Source: The Forest Magazine

It takes a truly masterful—and patient–hand to recreate the human body from a single piece of wood. Walpoth typically spends two months on each life-sized sculpture.

Source: The Huffington Post

The post Bruno Walpoth, A Real-Life Geppetto appeared first on All That Is Interesting.

Source: Hannah Rothstein

Hannah Rothstein is a Jill of all trades—she writes, sculpts, makes jewelry and paints. For her latest project, Rothstein chose to create 10 variations of the same Thanksgiving dinner, each based on the style and work of a specific artist. The artists she chose to feature represent all corners of art, from contemporary artists like Cindy Sherman to abstract artists like Pablo Picasso (above). Since the project is centered around food and Thanksgiving, Rothstein will be donating all print proceeds to her local food bank. Here are the ten Thanksgiving food art arrangements, paired with real artwork from the artist.

Andy Warhol

Source: Hannah Rothstein

Source: Doberman Art

Mark Rothko

Source: Hannah Rothstein

Source: WikiArt

Jackson Pollock

Source: Hannah Rothstein

Source: PixGood

Piet Mondrian

Source: Hannah Rothstein

Source: Mrs. Orange

Georges Seurat

Source: Hannah Rothstein

Source: Wikipedia

The post This Is How Picasso Would Serve Thanksgiving Dinner appeared first on All That Is Interesting.

Source: Contemporist

Armed with little more than a bandsaw, Pennsylvania-based artist James McNabb sculpts incredible wooden cities as complex and limitless as real-life urban areas. Constructed in bizarre shapes (often as spheres or wheels), these geometric towns represent a woodworker’s journey from the suburbs to the city. Each completed sculpture in McNabb’s City Series is built from repurposed scrap wood, allowing him to use various textures and colors to build structures that wow urban loft-dwellers and farmhands alike.

Source: Cate St. Hill

Source: CVA

James McNabb at work. Source: McNabb Studio

Once a furniture maker, McNabb has a knack for what he calls “urban woodworking,” a process in which McNabb cuts and creates wood pieces as he goes, ultimately assembling the various parts together to form small wooden cities. In doing so, McNabb creates “something out of nothing,” and a very beautiful something at that.

Source: This is Colossal

Source: DNA

Source: Make

McNabb created his first city scene after carving more than 250 wooden “buildings” in one 24-hour period. After looking at all of the wooden creations collectively, McNabb realized that together the pieces reminded him of a cityscape. From there he began combining them together to form a small, geometric wooden city. The rest is history.

Source: McNabb Studio

The post Wooden Cities Come In All Shapes And Sizes appeared first on All That Is Interesting.

Source: Sonja Hinrichsen

For over five years, snow drawings have popped up all over Colorado, transforming the pristine white landscape into a swirling series of crop circle-like patterns. No, these drawings aren’t the work of aliens, they are the product of Sonja Hinrichsen, an artist whose interest in nature has resulted in an array of incredible snow art. See one of her stunning creations from every imaginable angle in this video:

Source: Twisted Sifter

Source: Flickr

Hinrichsen created her first snow drawing in the spring of 2009 during her artist residency in the Colorado Rocky Mountains (seen below). The project began with fun, playful snowshoe walks and eventually transformed into a more involved process in which Hinrichsen would trample beautiful, swirling patterns into the snow. Over the past five years, Hinrichsen has exhibited work in California, Colorado and Europe, and has plans to create a new snow drawing in the French Alps.

Source: Sonja Hinrichsen

Source: Sonja Hinrichsen

Hinrichsen’s playful snow drawings take significant amounts of planning and effort to pull off. Because her chosen medium is snow, Hinrichsen must take a number of factors into account, including the presence of the sun, snow texture, temperature and other weather conditions. A single misstep could (literally) alter the course of the snow drawing, so Hinrichsen creates each imprint with care.

Source: Sonja Hinrichsen

Source: Sonja Hinrichsen

The post Spiraling Snow Drawings Captivate Colorado appeared first on All That Is Interesting.

Source: StreetArtNews

Today’s street artists are pushing boundaries like never before, creating artwork that’s zany, political and larger than life—and we have the pictures to prove it! Found on decaying properties, within rural towns and in some of the world’s biggest cities, we’re counting down the best street art of 2014.
 

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Damon Davis installs Ferguson-inspired street art. Source: NBC

Street art by Bordalo II. Source: This is Colossal

Stik paints the tallest street art in all of the UK. Source: StreetArtNews

Street art by Vexta. Source: Vexta

Street art by RONE. Source: StreetArtNews

Street art by Etam Cru. Source: StreetArtNews

Street art by Os Gemeos. Source: graffart

Street art by Phlegm. Source: This is Colossal

Street art by NeSpoon. Source: Behance

Street art by Paulo Ito from the 2014 World Cup in Brazil. Source: Street Art Utopia

Street art by Joe Iruto. Source: Joe Iurato

Street art by l7m. Source: This is Colossal

Street art by Jim Bachor. Source: This is Colossal

Street art by Hopare. Source: Street Art Utopia

Street art by Goin. Source: Street Art Utopia

Street art by Ernest Zacharevic. Source: This is Colossal

Street art by Fintan Magee. Source: StreetArtNews

Source: StreetArtNews

Street art by Banksy. Source: StreetArtNews

Street art by Curiot. Source: Arrested Motion

Street art by Aryz. Source: This is Colossal

Street art by Dome. Source: StreetArtNews

Street art by Artur Bordalo. Source: This is Colossal

Source: StreetArtNews

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How do street artists do it? See them in action in these video clips:

The post Counting Down The Best Street Art of 2014 appeared first on All That Is Interesting.

Most street artists accept the fact that when night falls, their work will also fade into nothingness. Not so for Max Zorn. To keep his creations from disappearing under the veil of the Amsterdam night, Zorn invoked street lamps and a little ingenuity. Zorn incorporates semi-transparent packing tape into his work, so parts of the scene shine through when placed on or near a source of illumination.

Reflections in fabulous Art Deco style.

“There’s a lot of great street art by day, but it disappears after dark. I wanted to come up with urban art that uses nighttime as a setting, and there was nothing more inviting than the street lamps in Amsterdam. In the beginning I used packing tape to fill in larger sections of my marker drawings. Once I hung them on street lamps, the light’s effect opened up new ideas with ditching markers and just using tape.”

Armed with glass panes, a scalpel, and packing tape, he starts with one layer of tape as a base, sculpting away where values need to be lightest, and repeats the process layer by layer, cutting away as he goes. All of the pieces require a light source, such as a window or a light-box to be viewed and appreciated at their full glory.

The antique cars and fashions transport you back in time.

When Zorn masterminded his signature medium in 2011, he began making smaller, sticker-sized pieces, and sent them to friends around the globe so that they could bring beauty to the night of their own cities.

Zorn excels at making shows and light play together successfully.

One of the added benefits of the tape’s color is that it gives the overall scene a sepia-like tone, which naturally lends itself to appearing like an aged photograph or even a negative. What’s more, since the pieces are made from packing tape, they’ll remain intact for much longer than an average painting.

Zorn’s scenes portray many different aspects of the life of a person living decades ago, from the pretty and posh to the downright nitty-gritty.

You can almost hear the soft jazz music emanating from this portrait.

From the posh to the seedy underbelly of the times.

Life through the lens of an Old-Hollywood starlet.

You can really feel the love and tenderness here; Zorn has mastered depicting skin values with only tape.

Proving you don’t need extreme detail in order to portray skill.

A feat of perspective and architecture in this underground scene.

The geometry in this piece is amazing. The skywalks lead your eye through the picture.

Norman Rockwell meets cubism in this interesting piece of storytelling.

Contrast is an important key in most art, and Zorn uses it to his fullest advantage here. The city literally pops out against the brightness of the sky.

You can purchase some of these pieces on his website, where he also has more of his work on display.

The post Max Zorn Crafts Brilliant Scenes From Packing Tape appeared first on All That Is Interesting.

Source: This is Colossal

Using feathers as his medium of choice, Chris Maynard has joined the ranks of artists like Tanaka Tatsuya and Seon Ghi Bahk, who are known for creating art from unique materials and methods. Under the careful hands of Maynard, ordinary feathers are sliced and trimmed until they create miniature scenes dotted with birds in flight and on perches. In fact, each feather shadowbox is its own masterpiece, giving viewers a glimpse at the actual bird from which the feather originated.

Source: Featherfolio

Source: This is Colossal

Maynard has been working with feathers since he was a child. To him each feather is a “small bit of perfection,” the pinnacle of nature’s achievement. While he has only been exhibiting work since 2010, Maynard has already caught the attention of people from all over the world. Playing with texture, color and negative space, Maynard creates feather shadowboxes that explore the relationship between nature and art.

Source: Web Odysseum

Source: Featherfolio

Source: Amusing Planet

The post Intricate Feather Art Shadowboxes By Chris Maynard appeared first on All That Is Interesting.

Source: Amusing Planet

While most people are content to knit sweaters and cozy hats, artist Carol Milne uses her needles to craft incredible glass sculptures in a complex and lengthy process that she invented in 2006. Milne’s unique glass knitting has been exhibited all over the world, drawing considerable praise and prompting a lot of people to ask, “How did you do that?”

Source: DenlArt

Source: Fiberart International

Seattle-based Milne tested techniques and materials for a few years before ultimately settling on the glass knitting process she currently follows. To start, Milne sculpts and weaves a wax model of the finished project using a special type of wax that is both elastic and slender. Next, she surrounds the wax model with a refractory mold material that’s built to withstand extremely high heat. Using steam from a pot of boiling water, Milne melts the wax out of the mold, leaving a hollow cavity that she then fills with glass chunks.

Source: Jordana Paige

Source: Amusing Planet

Milne places the glass-filled mold in a kiln, heating the material to between 1400 and 1600 degrees Fahrenheit. The glass melts within the mold, and is left to cool for weeks to prevent any cracks from forming. Finally, once the glass has fully cooled, Milne chips away at the outer layer of the mold, eventually revealing an incredible knitted glass design beneath.

In this video, Milne discusses the specifics of one of her glass knitting projects:
 

Source: Wikimedia

Want to try your luck at knitting glass? While it took Milne years to perfect her process, the various steps to knitting glass are documented in a useful book that’s aptly named Carol Milne Knitted Glass: How Does She Do That?. For more articles on artists who use anything-but-ordinary mediums, check out our articles on book artists and nontraditional sculptures.

Source:

Source: DenlArt

The post Knitting Glass Sculptures With Artist Carol Milne appeared first on All That Is Interesting.

Source: Flickr

Created by Russian artist Eduard Bersudsky and director Tatyana Jakovskaya, the Sharmanka Kinetic Theater is likely one of the most ominous and haunting places in Scotland. Part tinker-toy, part horror, and full of artistically sculpted kinetic machines (most constructed by Bersudsky himself), the theater is rich in world history and Russian lore. A perfect description exists as the header of the theater’s website, describing the museum’s contents as “Hundreds of carved figures and pieces of old scrap perform(ing) an incredible choreography to haunting music and synchronised light, telling the funny and tragic stories of the human spirit as it struggles against the relentless circles of life and death.”

Source: Flickr

For example, the piece “Master and Margarita”, based on the novel of the same name by Michael Bulgakov, deals with the devil coming to Moscow disguised as a circus traveler. A local woman agrees to accompany him to the equinox ball as his Queen, as long as he frees her lover (the Master) from prison – where he sits because he wrote a novel about Jesus of Nazareth. Let’s watch this nightmare play out, full with music and lighting. (Videos of all the moving sculptures can be found at www.sharmanka.com.)

Source: Flickr

Source: Flickr

The Tower of Babel is a kinemat, or kinetic sculpture that pays homage to the Babylonians who attempted to build a tower to Heaven. A symbol of futility, everyone is bustling around feverishly, but nothing gets done. Individuals have an illusion of power, but following the pulleys and strings leads you to the realization that no one is really in control. Both Lenin and Stalin make appearances in this feat of kinetic machinery.

Source: Flickr

Source: Flickr

“Titanic” is on loan from the Glasgow’s Gallery of Modern Art.

Source: Flickr

Source: Flickr

Source: Flickr

Source: Flickr

Eduard Bersudsky is a self-taught visionary who worked as an electrician and metal-worker. He started sculpting in his 20s and acquired his education through museums and art exhibitions. In 1974, he took a job carving figures out of fallen trees for playgrounds. It was then that he started constructing whimsical machines with ghastly figures out of spare parts, old motors and broken furniture in his one-room flat in Leningrad. He couldn’t display them because according to Soviet authorities the sculptures were “ideologically and aesthetically incorrect”. Until 1989, only close friends and family had seen them.

Source: Flickr

Source: Flickr

Source: Flickr

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Source: novastructura

Thinking about how many hours it would take you to even come close to assembling the artwork above? For Italian artist Giuseppe Randazzo, 3D printing made it all worlds easier. In a totally unique exploration of art, science, technology, coding, architecture and nature, Randazzo created these fun stone patterns using computer programming and three-dimensional printing techniques. Let’s just say he’s at the forefront of utilizing technology to create some seriously intriguing art.

Source: novastructura

Source: novastructura

In 2009, Randazzo debuted his project Stone Fields, a series of digital “sculptures” that were created by programming a trial-and-error algorithm using C++. Inspired by Richard Long—an English land artist who uses rocks, stone and driftwood to create patterns and shapes (seen below)—Randazzo’s project blurred the lines between art, technology and science, and caught the attention of people all over the world.

Source: Pictify

Source: novastructura

With new innovations in 3D printing, Giuseppe Randazzo was able to take Stone Fields a step further last year by printing his digital sculptures into realistic 3D models. Produced by Shapeways printing marketplace and community, the digital “sculptures” materialized into realistic “rocks” that were created from polyamide and arranged logically based on an algorithm.

Source: novastructura

Each of Randazzo’s Stone Fields designs contains between 4,000 and 10,000 virtual rocks. While printing them removed some of the complexity and detail of the original images, after being airbrushed the artwork looks surprisingly realistic. In fact, up close it’s hard to tell that the small “rocks” came from a printer. Check out this video of the prototypes:

Source: novastructura

The post Giuseppe Randazzo Blends Art & Technology With Ease appeared first on All That Is Interesting.

Source: Reddit

Twenty-five years after the television death of Laura Palmer, it has been announced that the quirky cult hit Twin Peaks will be returning to the airwaves in 2016. The show has gotten another shot in the arm, but its insatiable fans are always calling for more.

Source: Huffington Post

At the time of the original series’ airing, it would have been impossible to imagine an internet-driven world full of fanfiction and fan art. But with so much love for a certain fictional logging town (and much anticipation of what will come for the new series), artist Emma Munger has picked the perfect time to release a portfolio of pin-up pictures based on the women of the series.

Source: Huffington Post

Inspired by legendary tattoo artist Norman “Sailor Jerry” Collins’ pin-up art and the very interesting ladies of Twin Peaks, Munger created a collection of images sure to please the fans of the David Lynch and Mark Frost supernatural series.

Source: Huffington Post

Though the so-called attractiveness of the ladies of Twin Peaks varied greatly (beauty being in the eye of the beholder), each and every one of them were mesmerizing in their own ways.

Source: Huffington Post

Some of the show’s female characters were eccentric, some were manipulative, most were strong, and – as with all of the characters in the show – all of them were downright strange in one way or another.

Source: Huffington Post

In Munger’s images, she gives all of women of Twin Peaks a sexy edge, and puts some of the characters in provocative poses that you may have never imagined while watching the show.

Source: Huffington Post

In speaking to The Huffington Post Arts, Munger stated, “I was inspired to make this series after I had success drawing Scully from the X-files in the Sailor Jerry pin up style — people seemed to love their beloved cult classics re-imagined and I love being the remixer!”

Source: Huffington Post

The post A Damn Fine Set of Pin-Ups: The Women of Twin Peaks appeared first on All That Is Interesting.

The creative minds behind Darwin, Sinke & Van Tongeren of Fine Taxidermy recently held an exhibition of their work at Jamb Antiques Emporium during Lond’s Frieze art fair. The taxidermic art they put on display was immediately lauded for its vibrancy and truly lifelike appearance.

What makes the works of Sinke and Van Tongeren different from any other taxidermy you may have seen in the past? “Traditional taxidermy,” as Van Tongeren says, “seems a poor attempt to preserve this kind of beauty. We want our animals to look alive, alert and bright with color”. Sinke adds that “We cherish the patience, perseverance and craftsmanship of past times. Our Fine Taxidermy is as valid a piece of art as painting, sculpture or contemporary installation. It is our hope and intention that these works will be recognized for the skill, dedication and dramatic effect for which we continually strive”.

We have all seen the taxidermy pieces that look like they escaped from the screen of a horror film, or were just picked up off the side of a road. These pieces differ in that they exude a sense of the life that each creature once lived. Appearing to be frozen in a single moment, each subject was prepared with painstaking patience and grace.

The addition of Charles Darwin as a deceased and silent partner in their company seems fitting on many levels- the evolutionist with a love of the animal kingdom would surely be impressed by the work of the firm bearing his name.

The post This “Darwin Menagerie” Highlights The Beauty In Death appeared first on All That Is Interesting.

To some critics, Clint Eastwood’s “American Sniper” was little more than neoconservative talking points tacked onto the silver screen: it glorified murderers, dehumanized victims, and ultimately presented war in a positive light. This animated short, “Confusion Through Sand”, casts a dark shadow on that vision, telling the story of a 19-year-old thrust into armed conflict and the toll it took on him. The hand-drawn short, made by animation studio Ornana films, required 6,000 pieces of paper to complete and premiered at South by Southwest.

The post Didn’t Like “American Sniper”? This Animated Short Is For You appeared first on All That Is Interesting.

Source: Wikimedia

Reynolds’ Countess of Harrington appears ethereal. Source: Wikimedia

English artist Joshua Reynolds would promote the idea of the grand style, an idealization of the imperfect that descended from the aesthetic of classical art. Reynolds’ subjects were painted in grandiose styles with the dignity of their stature in society, which wasn’t always a true reflection of their appearance or demeanor. Like Instagram’s new pastel filter, Aden, Reynolds’ and many other artists’ paintbrushes covered over the harsh realities of bad skin, fuzzy hair and mortality.

Henry VIII did not believe the portrait of Anne of Cleves was accurate. Source: Wikimedia

Royals would also commission paintings so they could see their betrothed prior to marriage. It wasn’t uncommon for royalty to marry sight unseen, so paintings were sometimes used to determine if a bride was good looking enough for a king. However, in the case of Anne of Cleves, Henry VIII was sorely disappointed.

Source: Wikimedia

Self-portraits were common among artists, but did not become a dominant feature in bodies of work until the Early Renaissance, when mirrors were made smaller and cheaper. These early painted selfies provided artists an opportunity to study facial expressions, particularly ones they might not see from their clients, as in the case of Joseph Ducreux. Artists painted themselves as a practice in art, a study in transcendence.

Gustave Courbet captures his desperation as a young artist. Source: Wikimedia

Self-portraiture also gave the artist a chance to self-scrutinize, an important part of the humanist movement associated with the Renaissance in Europe. According to early humanist beliefs, only through knowledge of the self will one find God.

Source: Wikimedia

Durer’s self-portrait is apropos of this concept, depicting him in a Christ-like fashion. Durer later depicted Christ in sketches and paintings, but seemingly used his own face as the face of Jesus. Some art scholars believe Durer may have actually been claiming the artists’ role as supreme creator, which is groundbreaking, as this is 400 years before Yeezus.

Source: Wikimedia

Self-portraits have a longer history in Asian art. Poets and painters associated with Zen Buddhism produced semi-caricatured self-portraits, while those associated with the scholar-gentleman tradition of China were known for doodling small depictions of themselves alongside calligraphy.

Source: Wikimedia

Women were notable for their self-portraiture as they often lacked access to the same salons that upper society males had, especially for nudes in Europe. Women were banned from observing nude models in the salon until the 20th century.

Source: ABC Gallery

Frida Kahlo, while not a contemporary of Durer, ignited the early 1900s with her style of self-portraiture, which realistically captured herself and her loneliness. Kahlo was critical and didn’t shy away from portraying her moustache or thick eyebrows, which nowadays would get you on The Worst Dressed List. She also stated that she painted so many self-portraits because she was often alone. What does that say for those Facebook users with hundreds of selfies?


Francisco Goya paints himself painting the family of Don Luis. Source: Wikimedia

Some artists even hid themselves in paintings as part of the crowd or reflected in a mirror. This appears as a cheeky joke, a nod to oneself as an artist…or creator?

The shark is more important. Source: Pic Photos

However, this has little in common with the current trend of the selfie, a photograph taken of oneself, usually through a camera phone that inevitably sports a weird angle, a duck face or something going on in the background that is probably more important than your head.

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