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London's National Gallery buys mysterious altarpiece for $20m
- LeoPanthera 2y agoAn important detail missing from the headline is that the painting has been dated to be from 1500-1510.
- JawsofDeath 2y agoYes, I thought it was a modern piece and already started thinking it was some kind of scam.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- fanatic2pope 2y ago> Dendrochronology has dated the felling of the oak tree of the panel to 1483, which, accounting for the seasoning of the wood, suggests a date for the painting of soon after 1500. Sounds like they have only dated the wood in the frame to 1500. Hopefully they will do some more research and get more proof. For reference, Han van Meegeren used old frames and old canvases to forge his works. The article on his career is fascinating. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Han_van_Meegeren https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Han_van_Meegeren
- csomar 2y agoHow rare paintings from 1500+ really are? I am genuinely asking. Some old artifacts (ie: 3000 BC) are valuable, but most artifacts are not. And there is literally tons of very old artifacts.
- jfengel 2y agoOriginal headline: "London's National Gallery buys mysterious altarpiece for $20m" The artist is literally unknown, not just "not yet famous", which is how I first read the HN headline. It's centuries old.
- giuliomagnifico 2y agoOh yes maybe my fault, I meant unknown as really unknown, not “less famous”.
- riffraff 2y agoI also read it like GP and thought this might be a piece about some shady art dealing :) I think a common way to describe such authors is "anonymous" although that has its own shade of confusion (did they intend to be unnamed?)
- giuliomagnifico 2y agoI wrote "unknown" because anonymous could be thought of as a donation or someone still alive but anonymous. In this case, it is truly "unknown” Anyway, mods can edit the title if this causes misunderstandings!
- mellosouls 2y agoNote that articles should be submitted with the original title: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- kybernetyk 2y agoWhen I read that headline I really assumed it was about another case of nepotism - after the Zoe Law drama some time ago. Glad to hear it's not that.
- freddealmeida 2y agoSame. Thought this was just another tax scam.
- curiousgal 2y agoI can't help but think it's a waste of money, how many paintings of Mary and ugly baby Jesus do you need?
- bruce511 2y agoI'm not downvoting you, because this is a common economic misconception, and I'm sure your opinion is shared by many. Money is never wasted. While the long explanation is some what technical and boring, the short version is this; "Money is neither created nor destroyed, it simply moves from one hand to another". Put another way, the National Gallery had 20 mil to spend. So they spent it. That 20 mil us now in the economy, and will travel further. The family that sold the painting might need a new roof, or a tractor, or whatever. They in turn spend the money and it flows. An economy is just the flow of money. An economy stalls when the money stops flowing and is hoarded. Fundamentally you want rich people to spend their money. On "what" is mostly irrelevant. Here's another simplistic example. The US produces a surplus of wheat. USAid buys a lot of that wheat (using tax money) which is thus a round-about subsidization of wheat farmers. This is prudent because local food security, ie having farmers at all, is a good thing. Now USAid have a pile of wheat, so they donate it to countries that can't afford it. This buys US prestige, both with those countries and their neighbors. Now USAid stops. The govt "saves money". Farmers loose their subsidy. Long-term US citizens lose their food security. Money itself has no value. Spending that money has value. Because only by spending it can you realize that value.
- demosito666 2y agoBut this money won’t probably be spent further in any ”productive” way, they will be locked in some financial tools that will only help extracting funds from the real sector, which is what one probably really cares about when they say that “money should work”. It’s not similar to a government investment in building a bridge which, while it’s also spending state money, creates ripples of economic activity involving thousands of people and dozens of industries.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- ks2048 2y agoLooks pretty normal until you look at the bottom. Wow.
- morkalork 2y agoThat's just their pet dog. What do you mean, yours doesn't look like that?
- speerer 2y agoThe faces are exceedingly like the uncanny early AI-generated smears.
- verisimi 2y agoIt really does. But we are assured by experts that the painting is by a master.
- jjani 2y agoApart from the crazy dog, the style has similarities to "Virgin and Child Surrounded by Angels" by Jean Fouquet[1], from a somewhat similar era (1452). If you search for "Early Netherlandish paintings" you'll find more, so it's not outrageous for the time. I'm sure people who know their art history (not me) can point towards even much closer ones. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melun_Diptych#/media/File:Fouquet_Madonna.jpg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melun_Diptych#/media/File:Fouq...
- surfingdino 2y agoUgh. It looks like an early AI hallucination produced while trying to generate religious art in the style of the Iron Maiden's Dance of Death album cover (possibly the ugliest album cover ever).
- lostlogin 2y agoThis thing? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dance_of_Death_(album) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dance_of_Death_(album)
- kikokikokiko 2y agoIt's like a PS one game cd cover. I instantly knew it was released in the early 00's just by glancing it.
- surfingdino 2y agoYes.
- liendolucas 2y agoHaha, check Scorpion's Fly To The Rainbow: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fly_to_the_Rainbow https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fly_to_the_Rainbow Thought that one was the ugliest, until now.
- TiredOfLife 2y agoYou were not exaggerating.
- jimnotgym 2y agoIt makes me sad that Londons fabulous (and free) galleries have warehouses full of masterpieces that they have no space to display, yet my local museum has a gallery with not a single decent painting. I wish more of those great works could be shared around.
- Symbiote 2y agoThe National Gallery loans paintings to other galleries and museums, but it does require the receiving gallery to have suitable climate control, security and so on. https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/about-us/partnering-with-the-national-gallery/borrowing-from-the-national-gallery-a-guide https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/about-us/partnering-with-...
- charcircuit 2y agoI'd argue there already is ample distribution of masterpieces via the internet on various social media / image sharing platforms.
- criddell 2y agoA painting seen in person can leave a wildly different impact than scrolling by it on your phone. Both are important IMHO.
- kjellsbells 2y ago/r/unexpected_walterbenjamin? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Work_of_Art_in_the_Age_of_Mechanical_Reproduction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Work_of_Art_in_the_Age_of_...
- criddell 2y agoWell that's intriguing. Can you say more?
- kjellsbells 2y ago
- vanc_cefepime 2y agoSite is down. https://archive.is/zxx2V https://archive.is/zxx2V
- hilbert42 2y agoSomething a little different. As someone who does a little woodworking, is that dovetailing on the LHS of that wooden draw/boxlike contraption at the bottom? Unfortunately, there's not quite enough resolution in the photo to tell.
- solumunus 2y agoWhat a bizarre piece!