Re: Mrs Figg's Art History Thread

[halfwise]

So an American art dealer was found to have a coffee table made of part of the dance floor of Caligula's barge.  She didn't know it until a photo book documenting ancient roman uses of porphyry came out.  Turns out it was part of a trove stolen by the Nazis, and her table in turn was seized and returned to Italy.  The museum that now has it is offering to make her a replica.  This will cost them tens of thousands, for it's exquisite work.  She should take them up on the offer.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/york-city-womans-coffee-table-060526760.html

[Mrs Figg]

I read about that, its an amazing story. You could hardly make up a story so random. From Caligula to New York, weird eh.

[Forest Shepherd]

Stranger than fiction, as they say.

[halfwise]

I don't know if this can be seen outside of the USA. It's very cute.

https://www.pbs.org/video/mona-lisa-is-missing-inbule/

[Mrs Figg]

I cant get t to play, but I know the story. It was an Italian who hated France. They got it back though. I think he hid it under his bed.

[halfwise]

His French co-workers kept calling him Mr Macaroni. He swore revenge against the entire French nation by restoring an Italian national treasure to its rightful home. Unfortunately for him the Mona Lisa was one of the few artworks in France that Napoleon DIDN'T swipe from Italy. It was bought directly from Leonardo himself by a French Nobleman. The thief could have been a national hero, but instead was thrown in the slammer.

[Mrs Figg]

Got a challenge for anyone with Photoshop. Can you make him look human and not like he has a disease on his face with UmpaLumpa blue hair? 'preciate it.

[halfwise]

The trick will be to make it still look like a painting after blurring out imperfections. subtle work, that. This may even be beyond Petty's considerable talents unless he's put on payroll for a day.

[halfwise]

Unless you just want the colors rebalanced, that's easier than removing blemishes yet keeping the texture.  But how the blue and green can be removed without the face going red, I dunno.  Is this better? His hand still looks like it's been somewhere you don't want to know.

[Mrs Figg]

I think that is better Halfy, he seems to look healthier. It is possible to eliminate flaws with photoshop, its a special clone stamp thingie if I remember rightly.

This artist is my next project. He is a French Fauve artist who made ceramics. Andre Metthey. But all the info is in Froglandia, so its difficult.

[halfwise]

Oh if he's a ceramicist it's no wonder his hands are all goofed up.

[Mrs Figg]

he has squid hands

[Mrs Figg]

Dowloaded GIMP but you need a PhD in nuclear physics to understand it.

[halfwise]

Photoshop's no better.  I'm no expert on either one, but I've been told gimp is actually the more logically constructed of the two.  If you are already familiar with photoshop then there's something called gimpshop which is designed to mimic it. both of them make me want to bang my head against anything convenient. Every now and then I figure it out well enough to do a simple task that needs doing, but then it all fades away because they are designed by plugging circuit boards into chimp brains and patenting the result.

[halfwise]

Figgy do you know an art historian named Francesca Borgo? She's a commentator on the new Ken Burn's Leonardo Da Vinci biopic.

[Mrs Figg]

Figgy do you know an art historian named Francesca Borgo?  She's a commentator on the new Ken Burn's Leonardo Da Vinci biopic.

Hi if it is Dr Francesca Borgo from the university of St Andrews, no, I dont know her personally, but I have heard of her.

[halfwise]

For some reason they had her do all her bits in Italian, even though she studied in America so her English should have been fine.