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A collection of forty-two pigments and artists’ materials from the workshop of traditional Indian miniature artist, Mr. Babulal Marotia, are analyzed scientifically. A combination of microscopic, spectroscopic, and crystallographic techniques is used to comprehensively characterize the materials, including SEM-EDS, M-FTIR, Raman, PLM, fluorescence spectroscopy, and XRD. The resulting spectral library of the natural and synthetic pigments is being used to better understand and identify the materials used in traditional Indian painting practices, some of which have been generationally maintained and are still used in modern workshops. The study forms part of Harvard University’s Mapping Color in History project, which is developing an open-source database documenting pigments used in South Asian paintings and related manuscripts.
Unlike the architecture and sculptural decoration of the Znamenskaya Church in Dubrovitsy, the program and artistic characteristics of its iconostasis have been largely overlooked. Of the entire ensemble, only ten icons have survived and been restored, while the others were recreated by contemporary artists based on photographs from the early 20th century. A rare icon of the Virgin Mary “Unfading Bloom,” has been discovered in the church collection, which, by many criteria, corresponds to the local image of the Virgin from the Znamenskaya Church, though it was significantly redone in the late 2010s. This article explores the unique features of this monument in the context of the development of the “Unfading Bloom” iconography in Russia. On the Dubrovitsy icon, the Virgin is depicted as the Queen of Heaven, holding a lily flower, with symbols that emphasize the apocalyptic theme. The article highlights the details of the depiction and technical innovations typical of the craftsmanship of the masters of the Armory Chamber from the late 17th century. In terms of drawing style and artistic techniques, the image aligns with works by K. I. Zolotarev, V. Poznansky, and especially I. P. Refusitsky, who, working on commissions from the royal family and metropolitan nobility, were influenced by Western European art.
The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (MFAH) and the McGovern Center for Humanities and Ethics at the McGovern Medical School, UTHealth have collaborated in offering an elective Art of Observation course since the early 1990s. The three-session course, offered in both fall and spring semesters, is designed for first- and second-year medical and dental students, and each two-hour session takes place in the Museum’s galleries. After the hiatus necessary during the COVID-19 pandemic, the course planning team capitalized on the immersive architecture and art installations in the new Nancy and Rich Kinder Building at MFAH to create opportunities for newly conceived, multi-sensory learning sessions. To heighten this multisensory experience, the team reached out to colleagues at the Moores School of Music in the College of the Arts at the University of Houston, to add learning experiences with music, what many consider the most immersive of all artforms. With these ingredients, staff from all three Houston institutions co-designed multi-sensory learning modules in direct response to learning goals that would fill gaps in the standard curriculum for medical and dental students in their first and second years. In this chapter, the collaborative team shares its experiences co-designing and implementing this Art of Observation course in the fall semester, 2021 and spring semester, 2022. The team also reflects on their new approaches to pedagogy, the research and evaluation collected from the students, and the pedagogical and logistical challenges experienced along the way.
Contemporary artist Titus Kaphar, in a 2017 TED talk, asked audiences to recenter attention by acknowledging and interpreting the presence of Black figures in paintings such as Frans Hals’s Family Group in a Landscape, now in the Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza. While scholars have taken up the challenge in the works of other early modern Dutch artists, especially Rembrandt, the diverse models in the art of Frans Hals remain unexamined. This paper examines three well-known paintings by Hals that depict a man with a dark complexion, reviews past interpretations of the man as biracial, and explores the likelihood that the model was an actor performing Peeckelhaering and other roles.
