Your brain: enjoy it and use it or lose it!
Special Note: As we head towards the upcoming World Parkinson Congress in Kyoto, Japan, I will try to post as much Japanese artwork as possible.
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!
Interior of a German Battleship
Artist: Unsen (Japanese, active ca. 1875)
Period: Meiji period (1868–1912)
Date: 19th century
Culture: Japan
Medium: Triptych of polychrome woodblock prints; ink and color on paper
Dimensions: Image: 14 1/4 x 28 7/8 in. (36.2 x 73.3 cm)
Classification: Prints
This picture makes me glad I never had to work on a ship. Claustrophobic quarters, probably a sickening stench below decks, and if it’s a war ship, the possibility that it’ll sink while you’re still stuck deep inside the hull. Thanks but no thanks !!!
This does not enlarge very much, so it’s hard to see the details. I’d really like to look more closely at every section of the ship.. None the less, it appears to be a Western-style sailing ship but it’s all Japanese sailors on the boat. Oh and some horses at the lowest level. THe ship has a stove pipe up front, so there must be some additional form of power besides the winds in the sails. And in addition, there seems to be a fire that’s broken out in the front of the ship, with smoke billowing profusely.. All in all a lot to take in..
Looks like a bento box with everything neatly organized. That’s all I can say today since the picture doesn’t super-enlarge. I wish it did, however, because it would be fun to explore every level of this ship.