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1066 and all that

The Bayeux Tapestry, animated by British designer David Newton. It's witty and imaginative, without losing the original's spare majesty. (Hat tip to Andrew Sullivan.)  

Here's more of Newton's animation work.

Art of Science

The natural world is extraordinarily beautiful as it exists, without human intervention, art without artifact. Capturing such images often occurs in the process of scientific research. For the second year running, Princeton University has mounted an exhibition called "Art of Science," which consists of 56 images, videos, and sounds that were "produced in the course of research or incorporating tools and concepts from science." The curators explain:    

The practices of science and art both involve the single-minded pursuit of those moments of discovery when what one perceives suddenly becomes more than the sum of its parts. Each piece in this exhibition is, in its own way, a record of such a moment. They range from the image that validates years of research, to the epiphany of beauty in the trash after a long day at the lab, to a painter's meditation on the meaning of biological life.                         

There are many gorgeous images in the exhibition. Some were of course tweaked or enhanced to clarify the information they contain, and in the process the beauty is often enhanced as well. You can view them all by beginning with the first-prize image, "Mitosis," by Jennifer Rea, then scrolling through with Next links at the top of the page. I have chosen my three favorites. (Click on the thumbnails for larger versions.)

The first is a particularly fine photo of the Orion Nebula by Robert J. Vanderbei. He points out:

The nebula consists mostly of hydrogen gas that is slowly collapsing under the influence of gravity. The collapsing balls of gas eventually become massive enough that their own crushing density becomes sufficiently great to cause the hydrogen to fuse into helium in a massive nuclear fusion reaction that can run for billions of years. In this way, a star is born.

The second is an image of a seahorse's anatomy, beautifully Photoshopped by Elina Mer to illustrate its vertebral column. She adds:

While most fish have scales, seahorses have bony plates over which a thin layer of skin is stretched. Seahorses are vertebrates and thus have a vertebral column that runs through the center of their body and the center of their prehensile tail.

The third is a satellite image of central Saudi Arabia, showing flourishing alfalfa and wheat fields deep in the desert. David Potere calls it "Desert Jewels":

The Saudis manage to make the desert bloom by pumping fossil water from deep below the Earth’s surface. A well at the center of each of these fields feeds a center pivot irrigation system which spreads water in large circles up to one kilometer in diameter. The aquifers which supply these fields are ancient and finite. When the fossil water runs out, the desert sands will return. Like the irrigation projects of many arid regions, the Saudis’ desert jewels will soon fade.

There are many similar projects in Libya, where fossil water is pumped north from the Sahara to water fields and cities throughout the country. Here Potere accentuated red wavelengths to make the planted areas stand out from the desert, though they would appear green to an astronaut.

Through the 1990s, the New York Academy of Sciences published an excellent bimonthly magazine, The Sciences, that used graphic art to illustrate scientific concepts. The art was chosen with care and imagination, and I always looked forward to receiving my copy. Unfortunately, in an excess of cost-cutting zeal, the academy ceased publication in 2001, and past issues are now available online only to members. A sad loss of a societal treasure, one of the few true bridges between C. P. Snow's two cultures. Fortunately, Princeton plans the "Art of Science" exhibition to continue annually.

Seeing through Byzantium

The metropolis that straddles the Bosporos between Europe and Asia was an imperial capital, with only one brief interruption, from 330 to 1923. As Constantinople and then as Istanbul, this beautiful city was a center of great wealth and power for 16 centuries. Since the creation of memorable art often accompanies the patronage and protection accorded by rulers of wealth and power, the city was always a center of art as well.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York has gathered striking examples from three centuries at the end of the Christian era and mounted it as "Byzantium: Faith and Power (1261–1557)." Most of the works—paintings, mosaics, sculpture, and many other kinds of exquisite work—are from the late 13th and the 14th centuries. The exhibition runs through July 4.

The familiar iconic Orthodox faces of Mary and Jesus, the apostles and the saints, are on display, and there is the pleasure of the familiar. An occasional Mother and Child stands out, with a hint of the naturalism and individuality that became the hallmark of the Italians who later told that story. But more often there is a distinctly unindividualistic offering, a finely wrought but anonymously standard image presented as a gift to God and to his emperor.

Art for Everybody

In France, there's a long tradition of designing beauty into everyday life. Perhaps it was a legacy of the French Revolution, that art would no longer be the king's prerogative alone, that a society proclaiming égalité would provide beauty for the entire confraternity of free men and liberated women. Certainly by 1925, the time of the landmark Art Deco Exhibition in Paris, every quotidian artifact had become a potentially beautiful object, from Métro entrances to railroad posters, from leather-bound books to silver tea services, from everyday dresses to everyperson's furniture.

The Museum of the Legion of Honor in San Francisco is now showing a rich and varied selection of such art in an exhibition organized by the Victoria and Albert Museum, London. Entitled Art Deco 1910-1939, it runs through July 4. The San Francisco museum is an appropriate venue: the building itself is modeled on the Palace of the Legion of Honor in Paris, and its location high above the Golden Gate provides a natural reentry to the beautiful world outside the museum. Eye-openers everywhere.

I particularly liked Cassandre's transportation posters: the rails for the Etoile du Nord sweep up and away as though speeding the train effortlessly on its way; the thin, towering shape of the Normandie almost lifts the ship out of the water. Raoul Dufy's textile printed with dancing Greek figures is both classical and modern, serious and light at once. Jean Durand's exquisite four-paneled wooden screen takes traditional woodworking in a fresh direction. And Paul Bonet's binding for the book La petite ville is itself a complete leather town, completely charming.

The French were not the only practitioners of Art Deco. Toyoda Katsuada cast a bronze vase that transmutes ancient Japanese art forms into a modern, useful object. Erik Magnusson was so inspired by the New York skyline from an airplane that he created an angular silver and gold coffee service called "Cubic—the Lights and Shades of Manhattan." In fact, the Empire State Building, the Chrysler Building, and Rockefeller Center are filled with Art Deco details and are themselves monuments to the style. Fred Astaire danced his way through cinematic recreations of Deco. The Sears outboard motor called the Water Witch turned fishing into a modern, streamlined pleasure. And the  climax of the show is a 1937 Cord 812 Phaeton, an automotive quintessence of the age, that makes you want to forget everything you hate about car culture and just go for a spin in the country.

As a child, I didn't even know it was a style. Art Deco objects were simply whatever was modern, stylish, streamlined, up to date. It's history now, but it's still embedded beauty, there for everyone to enjoy.

Eyes Pried Open

People are like pendulums, swinging from habit to experimentation, from a desire for the familiar to a desire for the different, from same-o-same-o to new-new-new-new. Too much time at one extreme and you're ready for the other. Tick-tock.

And it seems easier to get stuck at the habitual end of the swing. There's an ease, a comfort to predictable events that's enticing, like sinking into a soft sofa. This is the way it's done, and I like it. I have my lovely particular habits, which are mine, and I have chosen them for good reasons over many years. This shelf is where the toothpaste is stored, I like my two cups of morning coffee prepared just so, and I wouldn't miss Jon Stewart for the world.

At the other extreme, you go traveling or fall in love or learn a new song—it's exciting, being on the edge, not knowing quite what's going to happen next, all shook up. The street signs are in a different language, the sun is highlighting different colors, and that chord you're noticing for the first time is so intense!

But you can't always count on the events of daily life to provide that jolt of renewed vision. So here's a cure for boredom: Take one museum and call me in the morning. A dose of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, for example, certainly removed that dull film from my tired eyes a couple of days ago. Getting a glimpse of the world through artists' eyes reminded me again that vivid colors, complex textures, and striking shapes are everywhere.

Here's a sample of what's on view at SFMOMA now:

• Supernova: 1990s pieces from the Logan Collection, through May 23. Eighty sculptures, prints, paintings, and constructions in bright colors and startling configurations. I especially liked Thomas Schütte's pair of shiny, 8-foot Michelin men on a diet.

• The Art of Romare Bearden, though May 16. A richly imaginative oeuvre, 140 amazingly varied collages, watercolors, and photomontages by the African American artist, dating from the 1940s through the 1980s. My favorites were a series of stark, colorful collages from the life of Odysseus.

• Pirkle Jones and the Changing California Landscape, through April 18. Black-and-white photographs of rural people and landscapes, sharp and poignant, mostly from the 1950s. With his friend Dorothea Lange, he documented the last days of the Berryessa Valley, just north of San Francisco, before it was drowned by a new dam.

In March, three more exhibits open:

• Pop! From March 6 through September 16. Pop art by Andy Warhol, Claes Oldenburg, Roy Lichtenstein, Wayne Thiebaud, Robert Arneson, and many others.

• Stir Heart, Rinse Heart. From March 6 through September 12. A new multichannel video installation by Pipilotti Rist, who is know for saturated colors, sensual images, and an unconventional sense of space.

• Yves Béhar fuseproject/design series 2. From March 26 through October 3. Commercial product designs for Birkenstock, BMV MINI, and Toshiba, among others.

So if you need a little visual jolt to pry your eyes open again, drop by the studio, gallery, or museum near you—SFMOMA, or wherever artists' visions are found.