American architect and watercolor artist Thomas Wells Schaller. Magical works. Watercolor masters never cease to amaze me!
I remind you that similar posts are grouped under the tag #artrauflikes, and on beinginamerica.com in the “Art Rauf Likes section, you can find all 73 (as of now) posts (unlike Facebook, which forgets (ignores) almost half of them).
I finished watching the series “Shōgun.” Quite good. Now I’m googling, and here and there a phrase pops up that “the series is based on real events.” Reading Wikipedia. It turns out that the author James Clavell was inspired by a line from a book he was reading to his daughter: “In the year 1600, an Englishman went to Japan and became a samurai.” James took that line and expanded it into a novel of 2300 pages. Later it was slightly condensed.
“A samurai without a sword is like a samurai with a sword. Only without the sword.” (Yamamoto Musashi)
As for the challenges – after watching for 10 hours, in the end, I can only recall the name of the Englishman John, and just one of the central feudal lords – Toranaga… and Lady Mariko. For the rest, I have to search online.
I highly recommend it, it’s very beautiful and enlightening about cultural differences. Hard to say how historically accurate it is, but at least it’s beautiful.
How convenient it has become to work with books nowadays. On Saturday, Alla Prima II by artist Richard Schmid will arrive for me. But even before the purchase, I couldn’t resist and found a 500MB PDF version of the book online, and have already read 50 pages. And then I thought, what if I wanted to extract all the mentioned artists in the book, could I do it?
It turned out to be quite simple.
1) Split the PDF into individual pages using pdfseparate . This resulted in 332 PDFs totaling 472 MB. It takes a few minutes.
2) Convert the individual PDFs to JPG using pdftoppm -jpeg . This resulted in 332 JPGs. It takes a few minutes.
3) Recognize the text using tesseract . This process takes about 10 minutes.
4) Pass each page’s text to the local llama3, and request it to extract the names of artists from the text of each of the 332 pages (i.e., 332 requests). On my Mac, this took 12 minutes. In the end, I got 953 lines.
Llama3 is a bit slow, but overall it does reasonably well. It generates a lot of “noise” also like “Based on the provided text, here are the extracted names of painters” or “I’m happy to help!”. The output text after processing 332 pages is small, only 953 lines. We sort it, remove duplicates (resulted in 556). We remove all more than three words and fewer than two words through cat names.txt | awk ‘NF>=2 && NF<=4’. Ended up with 139 lines. Among them, there is still some noise, for example, names like “Cobalt Blue”, “What an interesting text!” and “Sherlock Holmes” were included as artist names. To clean them up, we use openai, which is smarter. We ask it to keep only artists and remove everything else. We got the list.
Alfred Sisley, Alphonse Mucha, Anders Zorn, Andrew Loomis, Anton Sterba, Antonio Mancini, Arthur Rackham, Berthe Morisot, Bill Mosby, Cecilia Beaux, Charles Hunter, Claude Monet, Dan Gerhartz, Dean Mitchell, Diego Velazquez, Donald Llanuza, Edmund Tarbell, Edouard Manet, Edouard Vuillard, Edward Atkinson Hornel, Eliot Goldfinger, Elizabeth Sparhawk-Jones, Frank Duveneck, Frank Vincent DuMond, Franz Hals, Frederic Remington, Gene Byrnes, George Bridgman, Georges Seurat, Gilbert Stuart, Giovanni Boldini, Grace Arnold, Hans Holbein, Harry Anderson, Heinrich Kley, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Howard Pyle, Ilya Repin, Isaac Levitan, J. W. Waterhouse, J. C. Leyendecker, J.H. Vanderpoel, James M. Dunlop, Jean Dagnan-Bouveret, Jeremy Lipking, Jessie H. Vanderpoel, Joaquin Sorolla, John Gannam, John Singer Sargent, John Singleton Copley, John Twachtman, Katie Swatland, Marcus Thomas, Mary Cassatt, Michael Wilcox, N. C. Wyeth, Nancy Guzik, Nicolai Fechin, Norman Rockwell, Paolo Michetti, Paul Mullally, Peter Paul Rubens, Philip Andreevich Maliavin, Ralph Mayer, Richard Schmid, Robert Henri, Rose Frantzen, Scott Burdick, Shannon Two, Stephen Rogers Peck, Susan Lyon, Thomas Eakins, Thomas Wilmer Dewing, Valentin Serov, Vincent Van Gogh, Wayman Adams, William H. Mosby, William Harnett, William Merritt Chase
5) Now, we send this list back to openai and ask if there are any non-artists among these names. It turned out that all are fine, all of them are artists.
6) For reliability, we also ask openai if there are names in this “clean” list that were not in the original (“dirty”) list, to check if openai invented any artist names when asked to extract from the “dirty” list. Great, it did not invent any.
Voilà! In just over half an hour, I have a list of artists mentioned in the book.
7) We ask openai to categorize the list and provide a brief description
RESULT
Impressionists and Post-Impressionists
=================================
* Alfred Sisley – French impressionist, known for his landscapes.
* Claude Monet – Founder of Impressionism, famous for his water lilies and series of landscapes.
* Berthe Morisot – French impressionist, known for her portraits and scenes from everyday life.
* Edouard Manet – French artist, a precursor to Impressionism, known for his portraits and scenes from Parisian life.
* Georges Seurat – French post-impressionist, founder of pointillism.
* Vincent Van Gogh – Dutch post-impressionist, known for his vivid and emotional paintings.
Realism and Academic Painting
=============================
* Edouard Vuillard – French artist, member of the Nabis group, known for his interiors and figurative compositions.
* Anders Zorn – Swedish artist, known for his portraits and genre scenes.
* Cecilia Beaux – American portrait artist who worked in the style of academic realism.
* Diego Velazquez – Spanish Baroque artist, known for his portraits and historical scenes.
* Edmund Tarbell – American artist, known for his impressionistic portraits and genre scenes.
* Franz Hals – Dutch portrait artist, one of the greatest artists of Holland’s Golden Age.
* Frederic Remington – American artist and sculptor, specialized in scenes of the Wild West.
* Gilbert Stuart – American artist, known for his portraits, including the depiction of George Washington.
* Hans Holbein – German Renaissance artist, known for his portraits and religious paintings.
* Ilya Repin – Russian realistic artist, known for his historical and genre paintings.
* Isaac Levitan – Russian landscape artist, master of lyrical landscape.
* John Singer Sargent – American portrait artist, known for his exquisite and elegant portraits.
* Thomas Eakins – American realist, known for his portraits and genre scenes.
* Valentin Serov – Russian portrait artist, one of the leading representatives of the Russian realistic school.
Art Nouveau and Illustration
=================================
* Alphonse Mucha – Czech artist, a key figure in Art Nouveau, known for his decorative posters.
* Arthur Rackham – British illustrator, known for his magical and fantastical images.
* Howard Pyle – American illustrator, founder of the Brandywine School of illustration.
* J. C. Leyendecker – American illustrator, known for his advertising and magazine covers.
* N. C. Wyeth – American illustrator and artist, known for his works for classic adventure novels.
* Norman Rockwell – American artist and illustrator, known for his idealized images of American life.
* Frank Vincent DuMond – American artist and educator, known for his landscapes and genre scenes.
Portraitists and Genre Artists
=============================
* Cecilia Beaux – American portrait artist who worked in the style of academic realism.
* Diego Velazquez – Spanish Baroque artist, known for his portraits and historical scenes.
* Franz Hals – Dutch portrait artist, one of the greatest artists of Holland’s Golden Age.
* John Singer Sargent – American portrait artist, known for his exquisite and elegant portraits.
* Thomas Eakins – American realist, known for his portraits and genre scenes.
* Valentin Serov – Russian portrait artist, one of the leading representatives of the Russian realistic school.
* Jean Dagnan-Bouveret – French academic artist, known for his genre scenes and portraits.
* Joaquin Sorolla – Spanish artist, master of light, known for his portraits and beach scenes.
* John Singleton Copley – American colonial artist, known for his portraits.
Masters of Landscape
==============
* Alfred Sisley – French impressionist, known for his landscapes.
* Claude Monet – Founder of Impressionism, famous for his water lilies and series of landscapes.
* Isaac Levitan – Russian landscape artist, master of lyrical landscape.
* John Twachtman – American impressionist, known for his lyrical landscapes.
* Dan Gerhartz – Contemporary American artist, known for his atmospheric landscapes and figurative works.
* Dean Mitchell – American artist, known for his watercolor landscapes and urban scenes.
Contemporary Artists
====================
* Dan Gerhartz – Contemporary American artist, known for his atmospheric landscapes and figurative works.
* Dean Mitchell – American artist, known for his watercolor landscapes and urban scenes.
* Jeremy Lipking – Contemporary American artist, known for his portraits and figurative works.
* Nancy Guzik – Contemporary American artist, known for her lyrical and romantic figurative works.
* Richard Schmid – American artist and educator, master of figurative painting.
Other Famous Artists
========================
* J. W. Waterhouse – British artist, known for his paintings on mythological and literary themes.
* Paolo Michetti – Italian artist, worked in the genres of realism and symbolism.
* Peter Paul Rubens – Flemish Baroque artist, known for his allegorical and mythological paintings.
* Gilbert Stuart – American artist, known for his portraits, including the depiction of George Washington.
* Giovanni Boldini – Italian portrait artist, known for his elegant and dynamic portraits.
* Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec – French post-impressionist, known for his posters and scenes of Parisian life.
* Howard Pyle – American illustrator, founder of the Brandywine School of illustration.
* Franz Hals – Dutch portrait artist, one of the greatest artists of Holland’s Golden Age.
* Frederic Remington – American artist and sculptor, specialized in scenes of the Wild West.
* Hans Holbein – German Renaissance artist, known for his portraits and religious paintings.
It’s amazing what you can now do with a computer and information!
Photos from a walk with Yuki. What is the hare thinking about? Where is the turtle going?
Another very cool artist whom I cannot fail to mention in my collection is Joaquin Sorolla (1863-1923), a Spanish impressionist painter. He was distinguished by his extraordinary creative energy and left behind over 2000 works. Almost all of his paintings are “quick” ones.
For some reason, his works feature a lot of white fabric in various forms. And look at how positive and joyful they all are, full of life and sunshine—in contrast to the works of other Spanish artists like Goya, Velázquez, or El Greco.
I remind you that similar posts are grouped under the tag #artrauflikes, and on beinginamerica.com in the “Art Rauf Likes section, you can find all 72 (as of now) posts (unlike Facebook, which forgets (ignores) almost half of them).
Recently met a dog on the street that looked almost like in the photo. Just stepped and didn’t take a picture. It’s a Husky and Collie mix, and not all puppies turn out so beautiful, hence the breed is rare.
Today I delved into Richard Schmid’s “Alla Prima,” and throughout the text, he repeatedly mentions Anders Zorn, an eminent Swedish painter from the early 20th century. Curiosity piqued, I explored his art and stumbled upon this piece featuring a boat and a girl clad in white—it’s a watercolor sold for $3.5 million. His other water-themed works are similarly executed in watercolor, while nearly everything else is in oils. Observe the varied techniques he employs. Beyond his paintings, Anders also produced several hundred etchings. It astonishes me that his work had eluded me until now. Truly, a genius!
I’d like to remind you that similar posts are categorized under the tag #artrauflikes, and on beinginamerica.com in the “Art Rauf Likes section, you can explore all 69 (to date) posts. This is in stark contrast to Facebook, which tends to forget (or ignore) nearly half of them.
Today, I am showcasing the works of an interesting Japanese artist, Takahiro Hara. His works are very diverse, but you can notice the typical Japanese love for detail, color, and meticulous execution in what is otherwise not at all typical Japanese painting.
I remind you that similar posts are grouped under the tag #artrauflikes, and on beinginamerica.com in the “Art Rauf Likes section, you can find all 69 (as of now) posts (unlike Facebook, which forgets (ignores) almost half of them).
I recently encountered a task that no LLM can solve. It should be super simple for an LLM, but somehow they can’t manage it.
There’s a list of about 1000 words. I need to keep only the most functional words from it, like which, should, would, etc.
Request: I have a list of words: …. Select only 50 words from this list that are primarily functional and carry minimal meaning in the context of keyword searches (for example, which generate significant noise in the case of partial matches). Example – which, shall, very. Do not add any words not present on the list above. The resulting experienced list should contain only words, one word per line.
ChatGPT-4o: started outputting some words alphabetically, ending at the word asking. Thus, it did not even go past asking.
Google Gemini: began inventing words not in the list, despite clear instructions not to do so.
Google Gemini Pro: produced something, but again, invented words that weren’t on the list. Almost half invented.
Anthropic Claude also listed words alphabetically, and stopped at words starting with the letter d.
Mistral 8x7B Instruct also made up half.
In fact, no LLM has managed the task. And it’s about words, not mathematics.
It looks as if behind the cloud there’s a black sun, shining into the bright sky with its black rays
Hi, I'm Rauf Aliev. 