The witty, clever, and all-around awesome art and literary musings of those at independent publisher Abbeville Press had some very nice things to say about this blog.  We’re big fans, so their post made our day.  Thanks, Abbeville Manual of Style!

My fellow blog author and I are retreating to the books, since our undergraduate theses are due in a mere 10 days (!). No new posts till then, but once our looming deadline passes, expect another Art in Real Life post, a review of the Met’s Phillippe de Montebello Years exhibition, and more.  Off to the library we go…

A little tacky? Perhaps. A little pricey? True. But, as a total art history nerd, do I still sort of want one? Yup.  (Get one from Modern Dose; via CasaSugar.)

PS: Forgive the lack of more hefty posts lately, but let this little Aphrodite-bust bookshelf tide you over until I post some more meaty content…

Want to have a scavenger hunt at the Met, but aren’t into paying a hefty price ala Watson Adventures? (Though I have to say, I’m sort of dying to go on one.)  No problem: the New York Times has a challenge for you.  An intrepid and clever photographer at the newspaper takes detail shots of different paintings in the museum, according to a different theme each week.  The NY Time’s question: Can you find the full paintings?  Even having worked there for an entire summer, I can’t say I recognize a single one… which is kind of embarrassing.  Then again, there are three million works in the Met’s collection, so I guess I shouldn’t feel too bad.

The posts begin with ‘The Hidden Collection‘, followed by last week’s ‘Animals’ and this week’s ‘Tabletops‘.  Image above from the New York Times website.

For all the Google lovers out there, this is one of the cooler things that Google’s done in a while! Now you can decorate your Google homepage with headers by contemporary artists, photographers, designers, and fashion designers. Some notable artists include Dale Chihiuly (top), Jeff Koons, and Michael Graves. So if you’ve ever wanted a swirling blown glass creation, a silver metallic bunny, or a view of one of Graves’ architectural designs changing as daylight wanes away on your Google home page, now you can. .

Here goes nothing! I’m trying out a tool I found via smARThistory.org called Voicethread. Tell me what you think…

If the above voicethread doesn’t show up for you, click here to view the entire post, or click here to go directly to the high-res voicethread.