~openculture | Bookmarks (31)

?si=RFbzFSzSNWzua3‑7 Could you use a mental escape? Maybe a trip to Mars will do the trick. Above, you can find high definition footage captured by NASA’s three Mars rovers–Spirit, Opportunity and Curiosity. The footage (also contributed by JPL-Caltech, MSSS, Cornell University and ASU) was stitched together by ElderFox Documentaries, creating what they call the most lifelike experience of being […]

The Codex Seraphinianus is not a medieval book; nor does it date from the Renaissance along with the codices of Leonardo. In fact, it was published only in 1981, but in the intervening decades it has gained recognition as “the strangest book ever published,” as we described it when we previously featured it here on […]

From the Triton Fountain in the Piazza Barberini to the Fountain of the Four Rivers in Piazza Navona, sculptor Gian Lorenzo Bernini’s glorious public fountains have impressed visitors to Rome for centuries. Bernini angled for immorality when carving his Baroque masterpieces from marble. Image by Trdinfl, via Wikimedia Commons Eternity occupied artist James Grashow’s mind, […]

It can be challenging to parse the meaning of many non-narrative artworks. Sometimes the title will offer a clue, or the artist will shed some light in an interview. Is it a comment on the cultural, socio-economic or political context in which it was created? Or is the act of creating it the artist’s most […]

The story behind this painting is so sad! 😢Now using AI we can complete what he couldn’t finish! ❤️ https://t.co/RuASoTfFdk pic.twitter.com/uAwM6SBUGW — Donnel (@DonnelVillager) December 31, 2023 The celebrity graffiti artist Keith Haring died in 1990, at the age of 31, no doubt having completed only a fraction of the artwork he would have produced […]

When Caspar David Friedrich completed Der Wanderer über dem Nebelmeer, or Wanderer Above the Sea of Fog, in 1818, it “was not well received.” So says gallerist-Youtuber James Payne in his new Great Art Explained video above, which focuses on Friedrich’s most famous painting. In the artist’s lifetime, the Wanderer in fact “marked the gradual […]

We suppose it’s conceivable that a gift of a wooden Totoro figurine, hand-carved from a single block using 50 different kinds of chisels, might spark a reverence for traditional Japanese craft and nature in the next generation… Or, they may be left wishing you’d given them a vastly more huggable machine-made plushie version, especially if […]