The Myth of Bohemia/Bohemians

PARIS.- Bohemia is a die-hard modern myth, thriving in songs, films and poems, proclaimed dead a hundred times and forever rising from its ashes. The figure of the Bohemian first appeared in the mid-19th century, between Romanticism and Realism, at a time when the artist’s status was undergoing a profound transformation. A talented young artist no longer sought the protection of some prince or other; he was a solitary genius, impoverished and misunderstood, who anticipated social upheavals. Many of the great heralds of modernity—poets (Baudelaire, Rimbaud, Verlaine…), painters and musicians (Courbet, Van Gogh, Satie, Picasso…)—put a face on this phenomenon. For generations of budding artists, these rebellious unconventional figures, idle womanisers and drunkards scraping a meagre living, sparked the dream of redeeming glory at the risk of oblivion and death. Relayed by literature and the press, theatre and opera, their Bohemian lifestyle rapidly became immensely popular, running like wildfire through the collective imagination and linking Paris indissolubly with the Latin Quarter and Montmartre.

Over the last twenty years, research in exogenous fields such as the history of marginal groups, migrations and nomads has reactivated analysis of this phenomenon. The myth of Bohemia is now part of the infinitely richer and more complex history of the relationship between European peoples and the Romani people. Taken for an Egyptian in the Classical period, and then diversely called a gypsy, manush, gitan, cagot…, soon after gypsies first appeared in the West in the 15th century, the figure of the Bohemian became a hero for novelists (starting with Cervantès) and a favourite subject for artists (Callot, Vouet, Georges de la Tour). The gypsies’ mysterious origins, long incomprehensible language, close links with nature, and fortune-telling skills made them legendary characters. Their sudden appearances and disappearances nourished the fantasy of an intense, sensual life, with no ties or rules. A fascinating figure for artists for whom the Bohemian was the ultimate in freedom. From then on, gypsies and “bohemian” artists had much in common. They were free spirits and wanderers, social outcasts and indigent. Elusive and shrewd, party to inaccessible secrets, definitively misfits, they disturbed, provoked and enchanted our sedentary society. The term Bohemian was applied both to the gypsies and to the artists’ marginal lifestyle. It was emblematic of the irrepressible freedom that the Nazi regime tried to stamp out when it targeted both gypsies and modern artists.

From: the exhibit at The Grand Palais, Paris, France.

DNA Shows Eye and Hair Color

Color of hair and eyes revealed in DNA gives new information on old, and in some cases ancient, skeletal remains. This finding fascinates me. It may be possible soon to know what our ancestors looked like before photos were made. The realm of possibilities are fascinating.

Genome, Long Dead Dna, Science News

By: Charles Choi, LiveScience Contributor
Published on LiveScience

By analyzing genes from a tooth of Polish Gen. Wladyslaw Sikorski, researchers confirmed he had the blue eyes and blond hair seen in portraits painted many years after his death in 1943.

 

The color of the eyes and hair of ancestors dead for hundreds of years can now be revealed from their DNA alone, researchers say.

These findings suggest investigators not only can uncover new details from centuries-old human remains, but can also help identify crime victims, scientists added.

By comparing genomes across thousands of people, researchers identified genetic variations at 24 different points in the human genome that are linked with eye and hair colors, which past studies used to help determine the appearance of people who had died relatively recently. Now a team of researchers from Poland and the Netherlands have developed this system further to reveal the appearance of people long dead.

"We were able to look at the appearance of people who died several hundred years ago," researcher Wojciech Branicki, a geneticist at the Institute of Forensic Research and Jagiellonian University in Kraków, Poland, told LiveScience.

For instance, the researchers analyzed DNA from Gen. Wladyslaw Sikorski, who was born in 1881 and died in 1943. During World War II, Sikorski was commander-in-chief of the Polish Armed Forces and was also prime minister of the Polish government in exile. He died in an airplane crash at Gibraltar. By analyzing genes from one of his teeth, the researchers confirmed he had the blue eyesand blond hair seen in portraits painted many years after his death.

"This system can be used to solve historical controversies where color photographs or other records are missing," Branicki said.

The researchers say their system, called HIrisPlex, can predict either blue or brown eye colors with about 94 percent accuracy. When it comes to hair color, it has accuracies of 69.5 percent for blond, 78.5 percent for brown, 80 percent for red and 87.5 percent for black.

 

For medieval samples, where DNA is relatively degraded, this system was still capable of predicting eye and hair color from remains about 800 years old. For instance, the researchers identified one mysterious woman from between the 12th and 14th centuries A.D. who was buried in a crypt of the Benedictine Abbey in Tyniec near Kraków, where only remains of male monks were expected. The results hint that she had dark blond or brown hair and brown eyes. [Science of Death: 10 Tales from the Crypt & Beyond]

 

Although this research can help reveal what ancient human ancestors might have looked like based on their DNA alone, Branicki thinks the most practical aspect of their work is how it can help identify corpses for forensic analysis. For instance, "some of our samples were from unknown inmates of a World War II prison," he said. "In these cases, HIrisPlex helped to put physical features to the other DNA evidence."

 

In the future, the system may look at more than 24 points in the human genome — "from research carried out on the mouse, we estimate that 127 genes may be involved in human pigmentation," Branicki said. Still, "although research on eye and hair color prediction is ongoing, and we may expect some new predictors, it seems that the main predictors have been already identified, and especially in case of eye color, we should not expect any breakthrough in prediction in the near future."

The scientists detailed their findings online Jan. 13 in the journal Investigative Genetics.

Follow LiveScience on Twitter @livescience. We're also on Facebook & Google+.

 

For portraitists of ancient people, this information should be valuable.

 

The Colors in Our Skin and Eyes

Your Skin Has Four Colors

All skin, without coloring, would appear creamy white. Near-surface blood vessels add a blush of red. A yellow pigment also tints the canvas. Lastly, sepia-toned melanin, created in response to ultraviolet rays, appears black in large amounts. These four hues mix in different proportions to create the skin colors of all the peoples of Earth.

 

Culture influences how we view the trustworthiness of brown and blue eyed individuals. bbl

 

By: Stephanie Pappas, LiveScience Senior Writer


Good news for all the brown-eyed guys out there: Men with chocolate-colored irises are judged as more trustworthy than blue-eyed dudes.
But the results are somewhat complicated by the fact that it's not eye color itself that's judged as trustworthy, but baby-faced features that seem linked to having brown eyes. The findings also come from a study of Czech participants, so the judgments could vary across cultures.
"Eye color is something superficial, and nobody would expect there is a deeper association with the structure of the bones," said study researcher Karel Kleisner of Charles University in Prague.
"We were a little bit surprised," Kleisner told LiveScience.
Windows to the soul?
Kleisner became interested in what social signals eye color might convey, because blue eyes are relatively new on an evolutionary timescale. Before about 6,000 to 10,000 years ago, humans didn't have blue eyes, scientists have found.
So why might the mutation that caused blue eyes have spread so far, Kleisner wondered? There could be an evolutionary reason for the variability in eye color, he said, but it doesn't seem to have to do with how well different colored eyes work. Perhaps instead, Kleisner said, eyes convey something about their owners.

"Eyes are not only for seeing, but also to be seen," he said.
To test the hypothesis, Kleisner and his colleagues photographed 40 male and 40 female students from the Czech Republic, all with either blue or brown eyes. They then asked another group of Czech students (142 female and 98 male) to rate the photographs for trustworthiness, attractiveness or dominance on a scale of one to 10.
The results revealed that brown-eyed faces were seen as more trustworthy than blue-eyed ones, particularly for male faces. Female faces showed the same trend, but the results did not reach statistical significance, leaving open the possibility that they were the result of chance.
The catch, however, arose in a second study. This time, researchers took the same faces and used a photo-editing program to swap the eye color of each person. Now the brown-eyed guys and girls sported blue eyes and the blue-eyed folks had brown eyes. Another 106 students judged those photos for trustworthiness.
The same faces as in the first experiment were seen as the most trustworthy, even though they now had blue eyes. That means that it's not the eye color itself, but something about the face shape that engenders trust, Kleisner said. [7 Personality Traits That Are Bad For You]
An analysis of the faces revealed that the brown-eyed men had bigger mouths, broader chins, bigger noses and more prominent eyebrows than the blue-eyed men. In other words, their mugs looked more baby-faced and cheerful, perhaps a look that makes people feel trusting, Kleisner said.
Evolution of eye color
Explaining why this might be — and why eyes appear linked to face shape — is more speculative. One possibility, Kleisner said, is that when blue eyes first appeared on the scene 10,000 years or so ago, their novelty made them sexy. If men were pursuing blue-eyed babes with more ardor than brown-eyed girls, they may have cared less about other facial features, such as ones indicating trustworthiness. This, in effect, would have made it easier for less trustworthy-looking facial genes to get passed on in blue-eyed men and women.
Male faces in the study were more variable in shape than the female faces, Kleisner said, which could explain why the trustworthiness differences were noticeable only in men. There simply may not have been enough variety in the women's faces to tell for sure whether their shapes influenced trustworthiness.
Kleisner expects that face shapes seen as trustworthy would likely be similar across cultures, but eye color might be more susceptible to cultural stereotype, which could influence similar experiments done outside of the Czech Republic. In Turkish folklore, for example, he said, blue eyes are said to be more susceptible to the Evil Eye, with the potential for cursing others. More work across borders is needed to pin down the effects of eye color, he said.
Kleisner and his colleagues report their work (Jan. 9) in the journal PLOS ONE.
Follow Stephanie Pappas on Twitter @sipappas or LiveScience @livescience. We're also on Facebook & Google+.

 

 

Color Wheel Fashion Finds

For a simple update on your wardrobe, use a color wheel to come up with some fresh, colorful combos. Three excellent suggestions below:

Examples of the complementary, analogous and triadic color schemes.

If you need some fashion inspiration, print out a copy of the color wheel and stick it in your closet or by your mirror.

January 9, 2013

Sarah Stright-Hartley: Color schemes can get your fashion wheel turning

Sarah Stright-HartleyNew Castle NewsNew Castle NewsWed Jan 09, 2013, 03:54 AM EST

NEW CASTLE — Am I the only one who tends to stick to the same colors? I look through my closet and realize I really need to branch away from the grays, blacks and other neutrals. But I have a hard time knowing where to start.

Enter the color wheel. Yes, that same color wheel that we learned about in elementary school. Did you know you can actually LEARN something from it? Me either. But here is your Color Lesson 101 — helping to improve your style.

There are three distinct color themes that we can take away from it to get started. I've listed them all with corresponding color schemes to the right. I also created three outfits to demonstrate how to use these schemes in an outfit without going overboard.

The first is the complementary color scheme. I'm sure this is the scheme that most of us tend to recognize. This scheme is made from the colors that are directly opposite each other on the color wheel.

Now, does this mean that you should wear a red top and green bottoms? Of course not. In the outfit to the right, I put together a red top with basic blue jeans. But instead of a basic black bag with it, I used a green one. And then I grounded the rest of the outfit with black accessories.

The second color scheme is the analogous scheme. This is when the colors are next to each other on the wheel. This is also how you can achieve the monotone look using different colors in the same family — all blues or all whites, for example. In the outfit that I put together, I used two shades of purple and a shade of blue. You can see how nicely these shades complement each other.

The third color scheme to know is the triadic color scheme. This is achieved by using colors that are evenly spaced apart on the wheel. You can see in my example that each color is three shades away from its next color. For example, the bright purple is three shades away from the bright orange, which is then three shades away from the green. In the outfit I put together I used the blue, orangeish-yellow and reddish-purple theme. The blue dress is offset by the orange belt (which also draws the eyeline to the smallest part of the body), and these are both complemented by the purple bag. The outfit is then grounded by the simple black blazer, black tights and black shoes.

Now, of course, there are many other options to using the color wheel. I didn't even list all the themes from each of the three color schemes. So take some time to look at the color wheel and think about your options next time you're getting dressed. It can make an entire wardrobe seem brand new without buying any new pieces!

And if you need more inspiration, print out a copy of the color wheel and stick it in your closet or by your mirror. This will help you to think outside the box when getting dressed.

Do you plan on using any of these color schemes in your wardrobe?

(If you have any questions for me, please feel free to email me at sarah_stright@yahoo.com)

Thanks to Sarah, we now have a fun way to update our look without spending $$$! If you come up with some colorful new combos, send me pics!

Portable Art Collection

This is such an affirming story of love made concrete in the form of jewelry.

Diana Venet's collection of jewelry made by artists on view at Valencian Institute for Modern Art

My passion for artists’ jewelry was born on the day my sculptor husband, Bernar Venet, amused himself by rolling a thin stick of silver around my left  ring finger to make me a wedding ring! By: Diana Venet

VALENCIA.- In my rather itinerant life, my collection of jewelry has become an intimate museum that I can take with me everywhere, and the treasure trove that always greets me upon my return home. It is Jewelry, but, in my eyes, mainly Art. And here I am proposing a different narrative about jewelry, one that is far  from the shiny pages of glossy magazines. It is the story of various distinguished artists, male and female, who became interested in this adventure, inspired by love for a woman, by the challenge, or simply out of interest in this particular medium of expression. My passion for artists’ jewelry was born on the day my sculptor husband, Bernar Venet, amused himself by rolling a thin stick of silver around my  left ring finger to make me a wedding ring! This first gesture, so moving in its spontaneity, had a far-reaching impact on me. It allowed me to discover the scarcely-known universe of such unique and precious works of art. Precious because of their rarity, but also for the symbolic content that is often at the origin of their creation. A piece may be created as unique or as an edition of several examples (usually between 8 and 12), but it has often been fashioned with a particular person in mind. Picasso collected pebbles on the beach and then painted them as jewels for Dora Maar. He engraved the portrait of Marie Thérèse on pieces of bones. Giacometti made buttons for his friend Elsa Schiaparelli and then transformed them into brooches for his close friends. Frank Stella, out of friendship, first gave me an unique titanium necklace before accepting to work on a small edition of a spectacular gold rings. Germana Matta told me how Roberto carefully arranged a piece of jewelry himself, around her neck…These anecdotes show the specificity of these objects that combine both a personal history and the history of art. The examples are many, and these miniature works of art also give the artist the opportunity to test their practical ability confronting unprecedented constraints. Today, after 25 years of research and collecting, I have about 130 mini works of art that can be worn on the wrist, the neck, or the finger. When I select one of them from my collection for a special occasion, I am always extremely sensitive to its closeness to me, to its intimate relation with art. I may roll a Takis around my wrist, or see myself reflected in a Kapoor around my neck; by wearing them, I offer them to be viewed by other people and there is a pleasure in becoming, in a way, a torch bearer. I now often meet women and men, collectors or dealers, who share my interest in jewelry designed by artists. We would track a rare piece from country to country! In London, a wealth of knowledge in the husband and wife team of Martine and Didier Haspeslagh at Didier Antiques, and the passion for new collaborations that can be found with Elisabetta Cipriani and Louisa Guinness at their eponymous galleries; in Milan, the precious help and advice of GianCarlo Montebello who worked intimately with so many great artists: Man Ray, Fontana, Arnaldo and Gio Pomodoro, Niki de Saint Phalle, among others; in Verona, Marina Ruggieri; or, in Paris, Esther de Beaucé from miniMasterpiece who now works closely with contemporary artists on small editions: Arman, Rebecca Horn, Jannis Kounellis, Pol Bury, François Morellet and Lee Ufan, just to name a few! Of course I could not forget the very famous and beautiful Grassy establishment in Madrid, who have produced unique works with Antony Caro and editions with Blanca Muñoz. The story of the collection presented at IVAM is the result of my friendship with many artists.

Color for Colors' Sake

Artist Jeffrey Loyd (no kin)  does not do foliage, portraits or land, sky and seascapes, at least, not in the obvious fashion.
Rather, he captures the feelings that come with those things by color use
.
Manipulating color, shape, curved and straight lines in many layers, Loyd represents traditional studies untraditionally.

“Painting to me is like trying to match the colors of the sunset as it melts into the mountains, capturing the colors of the sea as it crashes against the rocks or revealing an emotion within a shape or flow of colors as they blend together to form a subject,” he said.

Loyd’s work is abstract but at the same time tangible; after a few moments of contemplation, suddenly, there it is – the ocean, envy, cars racing around a track, an undiscovered planet rising over a landscape or, like in his piece “Human Motion,” motion and emotion blended into one.

Loyd’s background is in construction. He started working when he was 12 and really never stopped; the pay was good and so was the experience of working with his hands. He learned how to use tools and industrial materials which gave him a creative outlet.

A trip to an art supply store with his father after watching Bob Ross on TV opened up a new window to Loyd’s expressions. He bought a painting kit, filled up a pad, selected three drawings, had them framed, took them to a coffee shop and sold them.

About seven years ago, Loyd headed to Spokane, Washinton, to be closer to his son. In a sense, he started over. He found a job in hazardous material removal and began trying new media, materials and tools with which to express himself.

Technique:
 He applies many layers of acrylic paint mixed with thinning or thickening media to wood, sanding, scraping and carving each layer to subtly reveal the initial layer.
Ranging from small to large and architectural in nature to flowing, his work is all about color.

 “It’s about blending colors together to make other colors, using an overlay to shade and bring out the colors from layers beneath, exploring and experimenting, finding the color combinations that bring out emotions within me and others,” he said.

 Color has the ability to change mood and affect the body, a concept he learned after watching a documentary on painting the walls of a prison and how certain colors coincided with certain emotions and physical reactions.

 
“All I wish for when someone looks upon one of my paintings, is it inspires contemplation,” he said.

Seeing Color Everywhere

Once, when I worked through Cameron's 12 part workbook for The Artist's Way, one of the hardest parts of the journey occurred when I was to NOT read for a week. If you are a book fanatic, you understand the frustration. I almost made it through the week until, in desperation, I began to read my cereal box! I am sure it was because of the colors printed below some of the nutritional panel. Or, being a color-fanatic, that is my excuse and I am sticking to it.

The following article gives insight about these cheery color additions to our packaging:

What’s That Thing? Puzzling Packaging Edition

By Mark Vanhoenacker

|

Posted Tuesday, Jan. 8, 2013

 

MYSLATE

Save this story.

Follow all Blog articles.

Follow the Brow Beat blog.

Follow stories by Mark Vanhoenacker.

MySlate is a new tool that lets you track your favorite parts of Slate. You can follow authors and sections, track comment threads you're interested in, and more.

 

A cereal box. See the boxes of various colors in a row near the bottom. What are those things? Mark R. Jones.

Our latest effort to dispel the mysteries of the modern visual landscape finds us in the supermarket. For previous columns, click here; to submit your own suggestions, e-mail us.

There are lots of good reasons to take a closer look at food packaging. You might be trying to lose weight or to eat more healthily (the first and fourth most commonly broken New Year’s resolutions, apparently). You might wish to avoid eating “anything with more than five ingredients, or ingredients you can’t pronounce,” as Michael Pollan has suggested. You might be scouring food packages—in vain, so far—for Mark Bittman’s dream food label. Or maybe you just want to check that your Twinkies—which may or may not be graced with eternal life—are still fresh.

But whatever draws your gaze to the nether regions of your cereal box or yogurt carton, keep your eye out for a color pattern like the one in the image above. Needless to say, every millimeter of real estate on food packaging is valuable. So what’s so important about these color patterns that they should be included? As always, four guesses:

a) The pattern is called a chromatic bar code (CBC). In many countries, supermarket scanners use color bar codes, which can be read more reliably than the black-and-white sort we use in the U.S. Products sold with the same packaging in the U.S. and these countries will have both a CBC and a black-and-white bar code.

b) The blobs of colors are known as printer’s color blocks or process control patches. They’re used to help control the quality of individual colors used by a printer, so that the tints and hues are correct and consistent.

c) The pattern is called a printed grab block. In automated packing systems, which use machines to package your food, the grab block makes it easier for such machines to correctly maneuver and align the packaging as it is manufactured and shipped.

d) It’s called a printed heat date (PHD). The ink used for the brighter colors fades over time. When there’s no difference between the bright and faded colors, then supermarkets will generally consider the food to be expired, regardless of the printed expiration date.

And the correct answer is…

... b). Process control patches, or printer’s color blocks, are used to check the quality or density of colors that are used on the package. According to Bridget Christenson, PR manager for General Mills:

The color blocks are essentially a tool used to understand how a printer is printing at any moment in time to ensure consistency. The blocks provide very technical information about printing conditions that allow printers to quickly adjust. For example, if something looks too red, the color blocks can help to determine if it’s the Yellow that is too weak or if it’s the Magenta that is too heavy. This keeps printing quality high.

Both man and machine usually check these color splotches. According to Dillon Mooney, technical consultant for Printing Industries of America, “Modern presses have automated the process, but the operator typically makes the final adjustments.” The colors that appear most often are the “process colors” black, cyan, magenta, and yellow. As my diabolical Hewlett Packard printer has on rare occasions proven, these colors can be combined into many other colors.

But what about the package of Cheetos I just ate—take that, Pollan—which features not just the four process colors but also a range of subtle, discriminating orange hues? These are known as spot colors, which are “premixed for consistency,” according to Mooney. The orange on Cheetos’ packaging is a naturally big part of the brand’s image, so it’s applied as its own color. (Is this same ink used to color the actual Cheetos? Probably not, though I don’t know for sure.)

Why do some packages not have any color patches? It’s just a printer/client preference, says Christenson. But keep in mind that colors might have been on a printed portion of the package that was later trimmed off.