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I’m in Rome with my family to celebrate a milestone. We went to the Borghese Gallery this morning and I got to see my favorite sculpture, Bernini’s Ratto di Proserpina. A masterpiece. The photos both do and do not do it justice — so grateful to get to see it in person.
Jon Foreman neatly arranges rocks into colorful sculptures. He also does similar sand, leaves, debris, and shells. You can order prints on his site or check out more of his stuff on Instagram. (via colossal)
For their project Tape Des Moines, art collective Numen / For Use constructed tunnels in the Des Moines Art Center building made out of packing tape and invited people to crawl around in them. They’ve previously done tape tunnels in Vienna, Paris, and Frankfurt, but I have a looootta questions related to the structural soundness of packing tape. Like: how would puncturing the tunnel with a sharp object (accidentally or otherwise) affect the overall stability of the tunnel? (via colossal)
From artist Travis Durden, Greek-style faux-marble sculptures of Star Wars characters. I think the one of General Grievous is my favorite. (via colossal)
P.S. Colossal is on a roll lately. Go look.
The Venus de Milo’s arms are lost to history but that hasn’t stopped historians and scholars wondering what exactly she was doing with them when the statue was carved. In order to test out a theory that Venus was spinning thread, Virginia Postrel hired designer and artist Cosmo Wenman to construct a 3D model of Venus de Milo.
Love these voxelated animal sculptures by New Zealand artist Ben Foster.
Very aesthetically (but perhaps not conceptually) New Aesthetic. (via colossal)
Il Ratto di Proserpina (The Rape of Proserpina) is an amazing sculpture by Bernini. It depicts Pluto abducting Proserpina to take her to the underworld. The overall composition is great but the devil (ahem) is in the details. For example, check out how Pluto’s hands grip into the marble flesh:
Wonderful. Bernini completed this piece in 1622 when he was just 23 years old. (via stable transit)
Oliver Herring’s photo sculptures. Reminds me of David Meanix’s work for Six Feet Under (if you remember Claire’s photo masks in season 4). (via moon river)
Martin Klimas’ captured moments of shattering statues is an interesting form of photographic sculpture. (via daily awesome)
Great influence map of European art and sculpture (looks largely French), detailing relationships between masters and students as well as collaborations. Reminds me of a Feynman diagram.
A street sculpture by REVS was recently stolen in my neighborhood.
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