Category: art

Exploring Unusual Time Signatures: From Prokofiev to Pink Floyd | July 28 2025, 05:32

A small concert at a Catholic university. Prokofiev’s 7th sonata features a tricky musical meter — 7/8. It’s interesting, but it seems I’ve never heard or known anything else in this meter. Early 20th-century composers were quite the innovators. Oh, I remember now. The closest to 7/8 was in Pink Floyd’s “Money” with their 7/4.

Rediscovering Peder Severin Krøyer: The Overlooked Impressionist | July 23 2025, 22:40

I haven’t posted anything about artists in a while. Today, I want to talk about an Impressionist you’ve probably never heard of, yet he deserves to be ranked alongside Degas, Manet, Monet, and Renoir. His name is Peder Severin Krøyer, a Danish painter from the second half of the 19th century.

Interestingly, a film about his wife, Marie Triepcke, was released in 2012. She was considered the most beautiful woman in Europe, and he — at least in Denmark — the most talented painter. She was an artist too, but eventually stopped painting entirely in his shadow. According to some sources, not without the influence of her brilliant husband, who actively convinced Marie of her lack of talent.

Posts like this are grouped under the hashtag #artrauflikes, and on beinginamerica.com in the Art Rauf Likes” section you can find all 152 entries (unlike Facebook, which forgets — or ignores — nearly half of them).

Stylish Contrasts in “Squid Game” Season 3: Script and Design Highlights | July 17 2025, 04:19

We finished the third season. They did a great job, but I really want to highlight two things — the script and the design. Probably one of the most stylish shows, and they managed to film the third season in such a way that it is simultaneously predictable in some aspects and full of completely unexpected twists in others.

Have you watched it? What did you think?

Pearls and Mother-of-Pearl: Nature’s Fascinating Defense Mechanism | July 14 2025, 20:58

I realized that I don’t know much about pearls and started reading up on them today. It turns out that pearls are formed as a natural defense by oysters to irritation: when a micro-particle (a grain of sand, a piece of shell, or a microorganism) gets into the shell, the oyster begins to cover it with layers of nacre. Nacre (nacre) — the inner layer of shells, thin layers of calcium and protein. Interestingly, nacre and pearls are essentially the same in composition. The word “nacre” comes from German and means “mother of pearl” (Perlmutter). A single layer of nacre can form several times a day to several weeks, and it takes up to 2 years for a full pearl to form.

Wild pearls are extremely rare (one in 10000), as not all mollusks are capable of producing them — only some species can. There is also black pearl, found only in the southern part of the Pacific Ocean, and the colors of natural pearls vary from white and grey to green, blue, and red.

Most of the pearls on the market are cultured: humans manage to “trick” the oyster by placing a bead or a piece of fabric inside the shell so it starts the process of covering it with nacre. In other words, to put it simply, almost all the pearls in the market have a plastic bead inside, and nacre is just a thin “skin” around it. Cultivation of pearls occurs on special farms, where oysters are provided ideal conditions for growth and are regularly cared for. The mortality rate of mollusks after transplant is between 10-40%.

Pearls can burn: this is an organic material (97% calcium and 3% water and proteins), and it does not withstand high temperatures, it also dissolves in vinegar.

It turns out, edible oysters also produce pearls, but they are not as shiny.

The Paradox of Symmetry: Beauty, Boredom, and the Brain | July 06 2025, 23:13

Probably not just for me a contradictory perception of symmetry exists. On one hand, symmetry is perceived as a sign of harmony and stability because the brain processes and recognizes organized forms more quickly, which historically could have aided survival. Logically, it should be associated with beauty, health, and predictability, giving a sense of security.

It’s written that with one or two alcoholic drinks, symmetrical objects become even more attractive. “In a pilot study (Elena Karakashevska) involving 13 social drinkers, researchers were surprised to find that alcohol apparently enhances the brain’s response to symmetry.” The study also concluded that people look better after consuming alcohol 🙂 This reminds me of a joke about two friends, when one says, “Now we’ll go to the girls, one is alright – for me, and the other one is a bit ugly, but you drink some vodka — and she will be fine,” and when they arrive, they ring the doorbell, two women are on the doorstep, and the second says: “Oh, I can’t drink that much!”

On the other hand, excessive symmetry and monotony can cause boredom and irritation as the brain seeks stimulation and novelty. For example, imagine a symmetrical tattoo on someone. Can you picture one that you aesthetically prefer over an asymmetrical one?

Personally, I like small deviations and asymmetry, which make images lively and interesting. A certain balance of order and chaos. Pure symmetry seems very boring to me.

Started googling on the topic. “Japanese don’t like symmetry. If a vase on the table is in the middle, they will automatically move it to the edge of the table. Why? Symmetry as completion, as finitude, as repetition is uninteresting. For instance, the dishes on a Japanese table (dinnerware) will definitely have different patterns, different colors.”

Do you like symmetry?

Understanding Lens Distortion in Oil Painting from IKEA Photo References | July 02 2025, 21:55

Before painting it with oil, I study the perspective in a specific photo from IKEA. And here it is very noticeable why photo references should be used cautiously for drawing: camera lenses introduce significant distortions (this was already known and visible, the question is which ones and how to fix them when transferring onto a canvas). Look at this, the ellipses in pink and green were added by me, as well as the vanishing point and lines to it. Everything on the edge is distorted. Pay attention, for instance, to the neck of the bottle on the left.

A good exercise to prepare everything in advance on the canvas.

Unveiling Ancient Numeric Codes in “Slave for Sale” by José Jiménez Aranda | June 27 2025, 21:00

An interesting painting “Slave for Sale” (Una Esclava en Venta), 1897, by Spanish artist Jose Jimenez Aranda.

From it, I learned that just as there were Roman numerals, there were Greek ones in Greece. Pay attention to the plate. It reads ΡΟΔΟΝ ΕΤΩΝ ΙΗ ΠΩΛΕΙΤΑΙ ΜΝΑΣ Ω, which translates to “Rhodon, 18 years old, for sale for 800 minae”.

In the Greek text, there are two numbers – ΙΗ and Ω. In those times, Greeks wrote numbers using letters: Α (alpha) = 1, Β = 2, …, I = 10, K = 20, …, Ρ = 100, Σ = 200, …, Ω = 800.

Accordingly, ΙΗ is 18. The line above it indicates that it is a number, as does the line above Ω.