Mona Lisa Spends a Week in The States

By Leonardo da Vinci and unknown
Posted by Deborah Newell Tornello
aka litbrit.

Before:

After:

Do you smile to tempt a lover, Mona Lisa?
Or is this your way to hide a broken heart?
Many dreams have been brought to your doorstep
They just lie there and they die there
Are you warm, are you real, Mona Lisa?
Or just a cold and lonely lovely work of art?
-- From Mona Lisa, performed by Nat King Cole

Lyrics & music: Livingston & Evans
(H/T Lisa in Baltimore)

Sunday Grace

[by litbrit]

The face of woman in Western art, in her many incarnations.  An offering of beauty, the transient and eternal alike--at once, in fact--unwrapped and presented with a videographer's gentle flourish and  Yo-Yo Ma's poignant cello.

Via the brilliant Lord Whimsy, who notes:

An absolute joy to watch. The sequence sometimes gives the impression that the eternal face behind it all is actually flirting with you.

If you're interested, here is the approximate progression: Leonardo Da Vinci, Raphael - Raffaello, Titian - Tiziano Vecellio , Sandro Botticelli , Giovanni Antonio Boltraffio, Albrecht Dürer, Lucas Cranach the Elder, Antonello da Messina, Pietro Perugino, Hans Memling, El Greco, Hans Holbein, Fyodor Stepanovich Rokotov , Peter Paul Rubens, Gobert, Caspar Netscher, Pierre Mignard, Jean-Marc Nattier, Élisabeth-Louise Vigée-Le Brun, Sir Joshua Reynolds, Franz Xaver Winterhalter, Alexei Vasilievich Tyranov, Vladimir Lukich Borovikovsky, Alexey Gavrilovich Venetsianov, Antoine-Jean Gros, Orest Adamovich Kiprensky, Amalie, Jean-Baptiste Camille Corot, Édouard Manet, Flatour, Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres, Wontner, William-Adolphe Bouguereau, Comerre, Leighton, Blaas, Renoir, Millias, Duveneck, Cassat, Weir, Zorn, Alphonse Mucha, Paul Gaugin, Henri Matisse, Picabia, Gustav Klimt, Hawkins, Magritte, Salvador Dali, Malevich, Merrild, Modigliani, Pablo Picasso.

[Video by eggman913]

[H/T Lisa in Baltimore]

Art Matters

In the "that's a trip" category, construction crews are taking sanders to the beautiful Disney Center here in LA. Why?

Beams of sunlight reflected from portions of the hall have roasted the sidewalk to 140 degrees Fahrenheit, enough to make plastic sag, cause serious sunburn to people standing on the street and create a hazard to passing motorists...

"I will just appreciate not having the glare," said condo resident Jacqueline LaGrone, who said that her air-conditioning bill had doubled during summer months since Disney Hall opened and that the glare made it impossible to sit on her patio on hot days.

"It's about time," added Sheila Nixon, a Department of Water and Power employee who regularly walks around the hall for exercise. "We feel like ants under a magnifying glass."