Machine Intelligence and Art
Examining Velázquez’s Las Meninas
we see what it would take for a machine to approach human intelligence. Continue ReadingMachine Intelligence and Art
Category Archives: Artistic Tradition
Is Great Art Still Possible?
Art balances artistic technique with emotional expressiveness. The more difficult the act of balancing, the greater the art. If artistic technique dominates, we get craft. If emotional experience dominates, we Continue ReadingIs Great Art Still Possible?
Vermeer is Not Just About the Light: Art is Not Just Technique
While admiring the artistic technique of a painting at the National Gallery’s wonderful exhibit about Vermeer and his contemporaries, I overheard an individual exclaim: “Vermeer is all about the light”. Continue ReadingVermeer is Not Just About the Light: Art is Not Just Technique
How Artistic Deception Created Modern Art
Picasso said abstraction starts with an object, and then reality is removed. Deception is at the heart of art, morphing reality into artistic lies representing the truth. How does an Continue ReadingHow Artistic Deception Created Modern Art
The Temple of Responsive Objects
What is a modern museum? Conceived as a place for people to learn about and experience art, they were often built as secular temples to sacred objects. Today, people do Continue ReadingThe Temple of Responsive Objects
Baudelaire and Dickinson: Religion for Moderns
Where do we find spirituality in a world without absolutes? Charles Baudelaire and Emily Dickinson offer two alternative paths. Let us compare two poems written about the same subject – Continue ReadingBaudelaire and Dickinson: Religion for Moderns
Art and the Future of Pokémon Go
Pokémon Go players have fallen off a cliff, crashed their cars, and jumped into traffic. They have been robbed. Someone saw his house invaded by players who were told it Continue ReadingArt and the Future of Pokémon Go
My Memory of a Time and Place Where I Never Was
La Goule simultaneously fascinated and excited the patrons in Aristide Bruant‘s decadent, famous Paris cabaret, Le Mirliton, as portrayed in the newly rediscovered L’intérieur de chez Bruant: Le Mirliton I Continue ReadingMy Memory of a Time and Place Where I Never Was
The Myth of the Solitary Artist
“If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.” Isaac Newton, in a letter to Robert Hooke The idea of the isolated, genius, solitary artist Continue ReadingThe Myth of the Solitary Artist
“Heart and Soul” is a Chaconne – So What?
I was absolutely stunned when, in my late teens, I encountered the last movement of Bach’s Partita #2 for Violin, the “Great Chaconne”. I never cared why it was called Continue Reading“Heart and Soul” is a Chaconne – So What?