Every Thursday, as part of my personal “enriched environment” initiative, I post a piece of art, usually from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, which recently released online some 400,000 high-resolution images of its collection. All artwork will show a sun (or sunlight) somewhere.
I won’t name the piece or the artist, but instead invite you to study the art and post a comment addressing one or more of these questions:
- What is going on in this picture?
- What do you see that makes you say that?
- What more can you find?
If you have another idea, run with it.
Special Update! The New York Times website does this same exercise every Monday with a news photo that is uncaptioned and contains no text (click!). The Times asks viewers the same three questions:
- What is going on in this picture?
- What do you see that makes you say that?
- What more can you find?
However, at the end of the week, the Times posts the background information on the picture. So, I’ve decided to do the same. I’ll still post an unlabeled piece of art on Thursday. But return on Sunday (for the Sunny Sundays post!) and you’ll find an update on the artwork here.
Note: To embiggen the image, click on it!
Seated old shepherd gesturing towards the sky and speaking to nude male surrounded by tools of measurement
Artist: Anonymous
Artist: After Raphael (Raffaello Sanzio or Santi) (Italian, Urbino 1483–1520 Rome)
Date: ca. 1500–1600
Medium: Engraving; Copy
Dimensions: Sheet: 2 7/8 in. × 2 in. (7.3 × 5.1 cm)
NEw York experiences a bump in spring-like weather, and suddenly people are going about in the nude.
THe sun is in it’s usual spot – out of frame and on the left. A young naked guy is pouring something from a pitcher onto an older guy who is sitting down. Well, actually, he’s not pouring anything yet, just tilting the pitcher but nothing has come out yet.
Both men have fantastic salon-style haircuts.
The young man has a scarf-like piece of cloth over his shoulders – it bends out away from his body in a perfect arch. Below the young man’s right hand are a sphere, a cube, what looks like a protractor, and what I’ll call an A-frame piece of wood. WHat do these mean?
The older guy is holding a staff with his right hand, and pointing up at the sky with his left. It’s curious that in the upper right corner there’s a circular, arch-like banner with a single, six-pointed star in it.
The older man has a luscious beard. Both men have six-pack abs. I’m assuming this piece of art was made centuries ago, and it’s interesting that people had six-pack abs back then. To the best of my memory, six pack abs were unheard of in Western civilization throughout the 20th Century until the very end, like in the 1990s.
I think there’s a demonic figure in the upper left corner, white like the clouds. The man with the beard is warning the other guy about it, that’s why he’s pointing up at the sky.
Looks like a party, but nothing is pouring out of the pitcher. Looks like party decorations next to the younger guy. Looks like the older guy is raising his hand, finger pointing up, because he’s about to say “Wait, I have a better idea”.
Is the younger man standing in a classical pose? I recall hearing that ancient greek statues of warriors and other males always had one leg bent forward slightly like this, the hind leg standing straight and stiff, bearing all the body’s weight. Like the trunk of the tree on the right side of the picture.
The buildings in the background look unrealistic. The contours on the men’s bodies look ultra-realistic.