Jalen Rose’s reaction to the saga produced an all-time clip, to the extent that I figured it deserved its own detailed post. It’s clearly a flashback to the 1993 NCAA Men’s Basketball Championship Game, when Rose’s teammate & fellow member of the ‘Fab Five’ tried to call a timeout he didn’t have, giving UNC a technical and the ball and costing Michigan a chance to win the game. Both moments remind me of one of my favorite paintings, The Last Day of Pompeii, by Karl Bryullov, 1830-33. Destruction, chaos; the wrath of the Gods bottled in a moment with a sharp and violent conclusion.

Bryullov weaves shock, pain, and fear through his canvas, not just in the movement of bodies, but on the faces of his many subjects. It’s what makes the painting so memorable, and why I figured it had to be used to represent the stages of emotion we saw play out for Rose. So without further ado, here’s a three-part installment (two on the house and a third - that’s arguably the best of the bunch - for paid subscribers after the fold):

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This ended up being a fun process, so figured I’d spin up a quick post about it. First, it’s diagnosing what needs to be captured: overlapping circles, some of the lines that make up the wheelchairs, the wheels themselves, and the net, and then ideally the basketball. Whatever’s picked has to reflect the symmetry that makes up the essence of the photo’s beauty. It’s poetry in frozen motion, but with circles, which is fairly rare in sports outside of motorsports, and what makes this shot stand out. Four things came to mind when I saw it.

Joan Miró

Miró’s unique take on Surrealism often has circles & lines - earlier this year I used this piece, ‘L'Hypnotiseur,’ and there’s clearly some similar vibes.

Wassily Kandinsky

Kandinsky is famous for overlapping circles, as seen below in the aptly named ‘Several Circles,’ part of the Guggenheim’s collection.

Hilma af Klint

af Klint’s psychedelic and mystical approach often features circles, lines, as well as some of the blue/green background that’s featured in the photo, as in ‘No. 5, Group 3’ below.

This Piece below

Of the four things that came to mind, this was the only one that wasn’t an artist, but a specific work of art. This one (it’s Untitled) is part of the MoMA’s permanent collection, and is massive in person.

The colors, pattern, size; it’s just such an impressive and fun piece, and hard to forget. I realized this particular work wouldn’t fit for the photo (the colors are off), but started to do a deep dive on the artist, Atsuko Tanaka (who I hadn’t heard of until I looked up this piece), and had a good feeling that something in her catalog would work.

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While she worked across different mediums (her wearable art is worth falling down a wormhole on), the overlapping circles + lines seen in the above piece seem to be her signature with paintings. She was under-appreciated in her time, which draws a parallel to the Paralympics, which only now seem to be getting the respect and coverage they deserve (shout-out NBC Sports & Olympics for having Gold Zone available). I spent a bit of time looking through Tanaka’s catalog, and found a section of a larger piece that captured the elements that I was looking for.

While it’s not exactly a 1:1 match, I think the spirit shines through, and I was happy with not only how it came out, but to learn about a new artist with a deep & interesting background.

-LJ

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FIVE additional memes for paid subscribers. If you enjoy the content, consider becoming a paid subscriber to support the account - it goes a long way into me justifying spending time making posts

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There have been so many iconic images from Paris 2024, a majority of which derive their aura from the accomplishment being captured - Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone wearing a crown after blitzing the field in the 400m hurdles; Steph and LeBron embracing following the completion of their comeback vs. Serbia, etc etc.

But there’s also been a subset of images capturing the ‘everyday’ beauty of Sport, on the canvas/backdrop that Paris has so beautifully provided, and no shot weaves multiple threads together more than the one above. The scene itself is the amalgamation of Impressionism (and Post) & its artists, the feeling & colors of Paris, and the perfect encapsulation of what has made these Games so great. I think the cherry on top is that there’s no one perfect piece of artwork to compare it to - you have Monet’s colors from his Lily Pond works & stripe from Impression Sunrise, Renoir’s boaters, and van Gogh’s Starry Night over the Rhône reflection. I have them in picture format below, so you can see the process my brain went through. Not much else to say other than Lindsey Wasson has cemented herself onto my Mount Rushmore of current shooters, and I encourage you to check out her library of work. Enjoy the last few days of action, and see you all on the interwebs!

-LJ

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Two more memes for paid subscribers, plus a look ahead at what’s coming this weekend

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Three more memes for paid subscribers (they’re pretty good ones, too)

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The first step is figuring out if the image is even worth working on; in this case it’s an all-timer and a no-brainer. It’s hard not to immediately go to some version of Jesus walking on water, but part of what makes the image unique is that he’s hovering/floating, and not directly on the surface.

Keeping that in mind, the next step is to plot out what needs to get captured. Medina & the water are a must; him pointing up in the air would be great, but isn’t a dealbreaker. The surfboard itself is important, but at the end of the day, could be cut out if necessary.

On the water aspect, there are numerous examples in art history of a figure flying in midair, primarily Jesus in the Ascension/Resurrection. But those aren’t scenes where the central premise is ‘being over water,’ so at the end of the day the comparison might look okay, but would be missing a crucial element. The closest I got to that route is Raphael’s Resurrection, which, upon some marinating, would actually work (hovering, some water, ‘surfboard,' and even the same colors), but is busier than I’d like for it to be and the size discrepancy just isn’t great.

So, the more abstract/surreal route could be in play, and René Magritte has several paintings of people/things suspended.

There’s obviously Golconda, but, no water, and too much going on. There’s also The Art of Conversation, but again, no water.

He has a similar painting, called The Infinite Recognition, which, at the bottom could be seen as water.

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At some point I’ll chat with Nat about how he got the shot, but for now, I want to take you through how I came up with the pairing. It’s immediately clear that two things need to be captured to make a post of this work; the emotion on LeBron’s face, and the black background. I didn’t immediately know the perfect piece of art, but it was clear that for the black background, I’d have a good shot looking at art in either ‘Chiaroscuro’ or ‘Tenebrism.’

Chiaroscuro is a technique that utilizes light and shadows to create depth, where works can appear ‘3D’ and lifelike. The technique was first utilized in the Renaissance, but is now more associated with Baroque. Artists like Caravaggio (below), Georges de La Tour, and Joseph Wright of Derby are all known for their heavy use of chiaroscuro.

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However, the background of the photo of LeBron is all black, which signals a close relative of chiaroscuro, tenebrism. Where the former uses a light source to establish depth, the latter goes all dark with the background.

Knowing that, I started to poke around various tenebrism works, and quickly landed on the following, St Paul the Hermit, by Jusepe de Ribera, 1647.

Since the photo of LeBron is just chest up, I focused on the upper part of the painting, and then dropped it on a slightly extended background to enhance the darkness behind the figure of St Paul.

The background works perfectly, they have similar facial expressions, and there’s definitely a parallel with LeBron being the oldest player in the league. I’m happy how this one came out, especially because I was able to use some knowledge of art history to arrive at a successful pairing.

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More examples of Chiaroscuro & Tenebrism below for paid subscribers

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The first step is figuring out if the image is even worth working on; in this case it’s clearly compelling and funny enough where if I came up with a good match, it would justify the time spent.

There wasn’t an exact painting that came to mind (other than in another slightly different version of the screengrab, the Packers boy had an expression similar to depictions of Marsyas), but the scene evokes a lot of similarity to the art history theme of Merry company. A common genre of the Dutch Golden Age, they tend to showcase a full spectrum of emotions on one canvas (rare to find in paintings from other periods), and oftentimes feature figures either passed out drunk or soon to be.

One of my favorite artists of that time is Jan Steen, who has a number of paintings that fall squarely into the Merry company canon. I’ve been lucky enough to visit the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam and the Alte Pinakothek in Munich, where a number of his works are featured. So, upon seeing the screengrab, I went into the folder I have of paintings that I’ve photographed - it’s ordered by date taken, which in turn means it’s ordered by location - and started to look through my shots from the Rijksmuseum and Alte Pinkothek, hoping I had something that could work.

This painting of his - the Drunken Couple, from the Rijksmuseum, confirmed that I was looking in the right place, but I didn’t have anything else that fit the bill, so I started looking through his catalog online. His work: The Wine is a Mocker, from the Norton Simon Museum in California, was close, but I wanted more emotion from the figure that was going to be matched with the Packers fan.

After a bit more digging, I found what I was looking for, ‘Peasants drinking and smoking in a tavern,’ attributed to Jan Steen. I spent some time searching for a higher quality image, but had to settle on something that was fairly pixelated.

I normally wouldn’t post something this blurry, but given the comparison was to a screengrab and less about the quality of a professional photograph vs. the humor of the moment, I let it slide. And I figured it was worth doing this write-up because it’s a good example of not immediately knowing the exact image, but using Art history and knowledge about artists and their styles to find something that works.

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