Loving Vincent

[Drunk Monk]

A brilliant achievement in animation - hand-painted in Van Gogh's style all the way through and the effect is shimmering and spectacular. It's a Rashomon-like tale as the protagonist tries to deliver a final letter from Vincent to Theo, and meets the subjects of his paintings, each with their own perspective of his suicide. It's a little long winded, but the paintings come to life so gorgeously that the plot is forgiven. The details are worth seeing it on a big screen. I've interviewed Saiorse Ronan, and gazed into those hypnotic blue eyes of hers, and this is the first film that comes close to capturing them. In the same manner, it brings life to the paintings. If you've ever seen Van Gogh paintings in person, you know that so much is lost in their reproduction. He painted so thick that it is almost sculptural, plus he pulled colors out of paint that fade in prints. The dynamism of animating them restores some of the vibrancy, albeit in an illusory fashion, but it's still visually captivating. 

I would watch this again with a different soundtrack playing over the dialog, and some absinthe - drinking whenever someone drinks in the film. Probably wouldn't make it to the end but it'd be worth a try.

[Drunk Monk]

Didn't know where to post this, but I HAD TO POST THIS

This Ear Was Made With Vincent Van Gogh’s DNA
What secrets have been whispered into this creepy, living copy of the most famous ear in art history?
Can you hear me now? Good. (Diemut Strebe)
By Erin Blakemore
SMITHSONIANMAG.COM
NOVEMBER 10, 2015

Vincent van Gogh's ear is nearly as famous as his jaw-dropping Starry Night. Though its final resting place may never be found—as the legend goes, he severed off part of his ear and then gave it to a prostitute—museumgoers in New York can get a look at the next best thing. ArtNet's Sarah Cascone reports that a living replica of van Gogh's ear, created using the artist's DNA, is now on display at Ronald Feldman Fine Arts in New York City.
The ear is the gruesome brainchild of Diemut Strebe, a conceptual artist who partnered with scientists from MIT and other universities to create a copy of van Gogh's ear. Using DNA extracted from a stamp licked by the artist, as well as cell samples collected from van Gogh's great-great-grandnephew, Strebe and team created "Sugababe," an artificially grown ear suspended in a clear gel.










Visitors don't have to merely look at the ear—they can talk into it, too. On her website, Strebe writes that "the input sound is connected to a computer processor, using a software program to generate simulated nerve impulses from the sound signal in real time. They mimic sounds recorded from an electrode inserted into the auditory nerve, when firing." Noam Chomsky was the first person to speak into the ear after it debuted in Germany last year.
In a 2014 story about the bizarre art project, Cascone writes that the ear is "just one of a limited edition." Neither van Gogh's relatives nor the Dutch museum that bears his name want copies of their own.
If "Sugababe" is a slightly macabre commentary on fame and art, it's also a tribute to a world-famous artistic body part. It's not certain what actually happened to van Gogh's ear: though he supposedly gave it to a prostitute during a mental breakdown, recent scholarship suggests that it was actually cut off by Paul Gauguin during an argument between the two artists.
Perhaps van Gogh could have benefitted from 21st-century ear replication technology. Still, there's no telling what the painter—who once proclaimed that the idea of exhibiting his work left him "absolutely cold"—would make of artwork inspired by one of his darkest moments.