[Forgive the cheesy title, but once I thought of it I just couldn't resist!  More importantly: this post is written by a guest author and friend of mine and Alexander's, Gabrielle, who very kindly and eloquently offered to write a post about her trip to Brooklyn to visit one of Brooklyn's most futuristic visiting objects. Read on, and many thanks to Gabrielle!  -Chelsea]

The Telectroscope in Brooklyn. Photo by Gabrielle

A few weekends ago, I went to see what appeared to be a giant telescope at the Fulton Ferry Landing in Brooklyn, NY, near the base of the Brooklyn Bridge. The Telectroscope, a giant contraption that looks like it was imported straight from Disney’s Tommorowland, was an exhibit created by artist Paul St. George to connect viewers in London and New York by giant video screens inside what appears to be the end of a giant telescope. A “connecting” Telectroscope was also installed in London, and both ends of the Telectroscope were positioned so that viewers on the other side of the ocean could see picturesque views. In back of New Yorkers, the Brooklyn Bridge and Manhattan skyline could be seen, and the London Bridge rose up in back of Londoners looking through the giant lens.

According to Wikipedia, French writer and publisher Louis Figuier first used the term “telectroscope” in 1878 in regards to an invention of Alexander Graham Bell that Figuier wrongly interpreted as real. According to Figuier, Bell had invented a device in which people anywhere in the world “could be seen anywhere by anybody” – something like a combination of television and video-conferencing, on a larger scale. In reality, such a device never existed. But Paul St. George picked up on this idea of visually connecting people in creating the Telectroscope exhibit, and even created a fictional back-story to go along with it. (On the official website of the Telectroscope, the device is presented a giant telescope running beneath the Atlantic Ocean connecting London and New York, originally started by St. George’s fictional great-grandfather, Alexander Stanhope St. George.)

The view from inside the Telectroscope in Brooklyn. Photo by Gabrielle

The exhibit was a little disappointing when I saw it in person because the screen was pixelating, so there could be no illusions about it being a real telescope. Nevertheless, I really liked the idea of a giant “telescope” through which you could see people in real time in London. Through a giant glass lens, you could see a screen across from you and wave to people in London, who were waving back at you. Without sound, there was no way to speak to each other, and so these people on a screen became part of the artwork as well. The most fascinating part is to consider that for them, you are the elusive person on the other side of the screen.

The exhibit took the act of people watching, a hobby of both city residents and tourists, to a whole new level. Each viewer was aware that the people on the opposite continent were seeing him or her as part of the exhibit. There was a very blurry line between observing and interacting, which people really seemed to find intriguing.

The Telectroscope exhibit could be seen in London and New York from May 22nd–June 15th, 2008.

Continuing with our theme of art infiltrating everyday culture, spotted on Fifth Avenue in New York City earlier this week was this display.  Henri Bendell’s jewelry window features Renaissance beauties decked out in necklaces and earrings… but not painted ones.  Rather, the jewelry poked into the “canvases” of the Lady with an Erimine and Maddalena Doni are, naturally, for sale in the high-end department store.  Clever or tacky?  I wonder if Leonardo and Raphael would approve…

Photo of Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie at the 2008 Cannes Film Festival (left) and Jan Van Eyck’s “Arnolfini Wedding Portrait,” 1434, National Gallery, London (right). Image originally posted at PerezHilton.com

Who says art history and celebrity gossip don’t mix?

Just over a month ago at the Cannes Film Festival, this picture of Brad Pitt and the expecting Angelina Jolie was taken as the happy couple made their way down the carpet. Someone at PerezHilton.com thought that their pose, Angelina’s green dress, and most importantly, her swelling stomach, were reminiscent of Jan Van Eyck’s masterpiece “The Arnolfini Wedding Portrait” (1434).

While this comparison is entertaining, it actually brings up a few key points about the painting. This painting is commonly accepted as a document of sorts, acting as a witness to the marriage of this couple. There is some scholarly debate over who is actually depicted in this bed chamber, but it is agreed upon that this is a marriage scene. Interestingly, Brad and Angelina are not married, and have vowed not to wed until everyone is entitled to an official and legal marriage to whomever they choose.

Another interesting point of comparison is the “baby bump” seen in both images. While it is widely known that Angelina’s is due to pregnancy, it is mainly agreed upon that the lady in the painting was not pregnant. She is most likely just demonstrating what the ideal of female beauty was at the time. In contemporary paintings, a more rounded and fertile-looking woman was the ideal, especially as a new wife whose job it was to provide heirs. She is also leaning back and thrusting her stomach out to display the bunched up fabric she is wearing, which served as a clear indication of her wealth and status.

Like many Northern paintings of this time period, the Van Eyck piece is full of miniscule details that really deepen the understanding of this piece as a “wedding certificate” of sorts, and I highly suggest looking into it further. The level of intricacy is astounding, and truly makes this piece a masterpiece.

My favorite part of this unlikely comparison is the discussions on the website. Literally hundreds of posts respond to this juxtaposition, many of which use Art Historical backgrounds to discuss the points I mentioned above, in addition to many others. It’s nice (and a bit surprising) to see an Art Historical debate running rampant on a celebrity gossip website.

After a bit of delving, it seems that the picture of this super celebrity couple and the painting of a respectable Netherlandish husband and wife have less in common than is apparent at first glance. But it is interesting that Brangelina triggered someone to make this connection, proving that art really can serve as a medium for discussion of daily life, even 600 years later.

Picture and full comments originally posted on PerezHilton.com

Caravaggio, The Denial of St. Peter, late 1590s-early 1600s, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY (Credit)

Caravaggio was not always a ‘trendy’ artist.  Before museums dedicated exhibitions solely to him, before monographs were written by art historians, indeed before a bestselling non-fiction art-crime book was published about his lost painting, Caravaggio was reluctantly accepted by collectors in the US as an artist primarily associated with genre painting, and nothing much more.  (Genre painting is the depiction of every day life).

What they didn’t really bother to collect were his religious works, which most art historians today agree are really the best of his works.  In his religious works, the young, controversial, forward-thinking artist of the 17th century combines his observations of every day life, stark experimentations with light sources, and clever use of what seem to be dank, monochromatic compositions into beautifully subtle and “realistic” religious paintings.  I’ve seen a few pretty amazing Caravaggios in Italy (particularly in the Galleria Borghese, if you have the luck to visit!), but the Met went out of its way to acquire this very late Caravaggio in 1997 when it came on the auction market, and it’s a good thing they did, because it’s pretty awesome.

The Met’s curator of European Paintings, Keith Christiansen, suspects is one of the very last paintings the artist did.  My favorite part about this painting is the light source and how cleverly Caravaggio uses it.  Caravaggio is known for being the founder of those “Baroque” light effects, inspiring a league of “Caravaggiesque” painters to follow in his footsteps.  Here, as often in Caravaggio’s religious works, the light acts as a religious signifier.

Caravaggio, Detail of The Denial of St. Peter, late 1590s-early 1600s, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY (Credit)

In the painting, St. Peter denies that he is a follower of Jesus to a Roman soldier as a servant girl, who suspects Peter’s true identity, looks on.  The Roman soldier is completely in the dark, showing that he has no idea of Peter’s belief in Christ; the servant girl, in partial light, is beginning to recognize Peter; and meanwhile Peter, an apostle, is in full, direct light.  This light shows who knows, who doesn’t, who believes — an amazingly revolutionary but clever and subtle way to enhance the story and the intimate image.

And a fun fact: the helmet in the painting is actually in the collection of the Museo Nazionale del Bargello in Florence, Italy (for those of you who’ve read this blog before, you know that’s one of my favorite museums in Italy!).  Unfortunately I couldn’t find a picture of the helmet itself, but it’s in there, somewhere, whether in the galleries or in storage!  Caravaggio was known to use props in his works and this one is, clearly, no exception.  Could it be that Caravaggio’s own prop helmet is, at this moment, sitting in the galleries of the Bargello?  Guess I’ll just have to go back to Florence to find out… in the meantime, visit the almost-real-thing in one of Caravaggio’s masterful last works in the Met.

Visit this Caravaggio in the European Paintings gallery at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1000 Fifth Avenue at 82nd St., New York, NY.
Visit (or at least look for) the helmet in the Museo Nazionale del Bargello, Via del Proconsolo 4, Florence, Italy.

Front and Side views of Ancient Persian Golden Cup, Ca. 4th Century BCE. (Credit)

I found this interesting yet slightly ridiculous article today on Yahoo! News. It discusses how a 70 year-old man recently found out that an old mug given to him by his grandfather in 1945 is actually an ancient Persian golden cup from around the third or fourth century bce. This relic from the Achaemenid Empire (present-day Iran) is valued by an English auction house to be worth around a million dollars, and will go up for auction on June 5th. This beautiful cup was made from a single sheet of gold and was hammered out to depict the faces of two women facing in opposite directions, complete with detailed garlands on their heads in the forms of knotted snakes. While the current owner has no idea where his grandfather purchased the relic, he admits to using it as a target for his air gun as a child.

Moral of the story: think before you start shooting works of art.

Full story: “Childhood ‘Toy’ Revealed as Ancient Persian Relic” at Yahoo! News