Category: facebook

Hsin-Yao Tseng | June 26 2024, 22:21

I will respond as a world-renowned art historian, specializing in contemporary artists, and recipient of the prestigious National Art Critics Award.

Today we will discuss the Taiwanese-American artist Hsin-Yao Tseng, who currently lives in San Francisco. His art primarily explores two themes: urban landscapes and portraits. A common trait in all of Hsin-Yao Tseng’s portraits is the absence of smiles; each subject appears deeply contemplative. Similarly, his urban scenes seldom reflect a positive ambiance. Notably, his charcoal drawings stand out as extraordinary. Indeed, inspired by his technique, I purchased some charcoal today to experiment with it myself.

For your information, posts like this are grouped under the tag #artrauflikes. You can access all 92 entries on beinginamerica.com in the “Art Rauf Likes” section—a contrast to Facebook, which fails to display nearly half of them.

Hidden Berlin Wall Remnants at Orlando’s Hard Rock Cafe | June 26 2024, 18:28

By the way, when I went to Orlando, I accidentally found remnants of the Berlin Wall in the backyard of the Hard Rock Cafe. There’s a path leading there, but no one ever goes because it’s a dead end. If you walk from the boardwalk along the side wall of the Hard Rock Cafe, you eventually hit the Universal Park fence, and right there is the back entrance to Hard Rock Cafe — presumably for groups from Universal Park (there’s a gate in the fence that opens for such purposes). And right there stands a hidden artifact.

Manhattan’s Historical Grid Design and Urban Expansion | June 26 2024, 15:42

I’m reading about the general plan of Manhattan. The history of it is quite fascinating. When Europeans first settled in Manhattan, they built houses haphazardly. Back then, it was the Dutch who called the place “New Amsterdam.” After gaining independence, the USA saw a massive influx of migrants, and there was a pressing need to expand the city rapidly. Ultimately, in 1806, the authorities formed a commission of three people (Morris, Rutherfurd, De Witt) and gave them four years to devise a city plan. It was decided beforehand that any plan they came up with would be final. This commission did literally nothing for three out of the four years. Then, they started to make a move, meeting a few months before the deadline for key decisions. And they came up with a grid (see picture). In English, this is called a gridiron. They nowhere explained why they specifically chose a grid design. Probably because the deadline was just a few months away.

It’s interesting how the plan was then implemented. To transpose the grid onto the ground, nearly 1600 markers were installed — primarily square marble “monuments” with street numbers, located at every intersection. Where rocks prevented the use of marble markers, the rocks were blasted away, iron bolts were inserted, and encased in molten lead. In total, they set up 1549 marble markers and 98 iron bolts to delineate the grid pattern. Landowners who disagreed with the city cutting through their fields would dig everything up.

The famous Central Park, as it turned out, came about 70 years later, in 1876. On the map, you see The Parade—located further to the south—but the idea was originally to not build on this site, using it as an open space designated for military drills and as a rally point in case the city was invaded. At that time, they thought this Grand Parade could become the city’s “central park,” but over time the area gradually reduced, until what now remains is the current Madison Square Park. Just like that, it shrank from 97 hectares to 2.8 hectares. Optimized. At least Central Park eventually came into existence (341 hectares).

Broadway merged several streets that historically went against the grid (Bloomingdale and others).

Boardwalks: with fences and without | June 25 2024, 21:31

By the way, there’s a big difference in how waterfronts are designed in the USA and in Russia. In Russia, there’ll almost certainly be a fence to prevent people from falling into the water. Whereas in the USA, nobody rides skateboards there, and for some reason, kids don’t run around in such places. And nobody falls into the water. But it’s beautiful.

David Jon Kassan | June 21 2024, 17:08

Over the past five years, artist David Jon Kassan has been documenting the testimonies of Holocaust survivors worldwide, both through paintings and recorded interviews. In this collection, I am including other paintings as well.

I would like to remind you that such posts are grouped under the tag #artrauflikes, and all 90 of them can be found in the “Art Rauf Likes” section on beinginamerica.com (unlike Facebook, which overlooks nearly half of them).

Alexis Le Borgne| June 21 2024, 00:35

Alexis Le Borgne is a French artist and graphic designer of Vietnamese descent. He successfully engages in traditional and digital painting, including watercolor, pastel, and oil. He works as a Concept Artist at Ubisoft on the Beyond Good & Evil II project. His works are outstanding.

Remember that similar posts are grouped under the tag #artrauflikes, and on beinginamerica.com in the “Art Rauf Likes” section, all 89 posts can be found (unlike Facebook, which neglects almost half of them).

Zsigmond Istvan | June 19 2024, 18:46

Zsigmond Istvan, a Hungarian artist, is the first in my series on digital artists. He might also be the last. It’s not that I have any particular stance on digital art; it’s just that with the advent of AI, it has become increasingly difficult to discern what truly goes into the creation of a piece. Zsigmond created his works before the arrival of tools like Midjourney, and he undoubtedly possesses talent, skills, and abilities at a level that seems almost otherworldly to me. It is noteworthy that his paintings roughly fall into two categories: violet-yellow with deep shadows and watercolor emulations. Personally, I prefer the watercolor emulations. He himself says that he “invented” a technique that uses traditional watercolor in combination with digital painting. The details of this technique are not disclosed.

I remind you that similar posts are grouped under the hashtag #artrauflikes, and all 88 can be found in the “Art Rauf Likes” section on beinginamerica.com (unlike Facebook, which overlooks almost half of them).

What happens when Chinese have to print in Russian (weird font) | June 19 2024, 15:26

Today, there were reports about a visit to the sun-great by the sun-great, and there were banners with text on the streets.

And it made me think, why do the Chinese love to write everything in Cyrillic with this idiotic font, and where did it even come from? There are so many fonts nowadays.

It turns out that Adobe and Microsoft are to blame. They included very poorly drawn fonts in their packages. And since the Chinese characters are of very good quality, the font is used everywhere, but the Cyrillic and even the Latin are just there for show. The main culprits are three – Adobe Ming Std L, Adobe Myungjo Std M (also called Adobe Ming), Adobe Song Std L. The most “eye-straining” one is Adobe Ming. With Latin, it’s more or less okay, but it seems that the Cyrillic was drawn by the Chinese themselves at the dawn of computer fonts, and it has not changed since then.

Exploring Max Ginsburg’s Signature Style and the Art of Museum Visits | June 19 2024, 02:37

Today, meet Max Ginsburg. He paints the everyday life of New York streets. His works vary greatly in mood, but notice that they all have the same “signature.”

It’s a fascinating exercise to find common elements in different works by the same artist. Not in the sense that if everyone, including women, looks like Putin, it’s Jan van Eyck; if there are huge backsides, it’s Rubens; if you see an Excel sheet with colored areas, it’s Mondrian, etc. But rather in the technique, brushstrokes, color, how contrast is conveyed, and so on. Unfortunately, these nuances are not always visible in digital reproductions.

I’ve long sought an engineer’s answer to why visit museums when everything is available online. Of course, someone who visits museums willingly probably doesn’t ask this question anymore. But still, let me explain. In past centuries, painting techniques often included the use of opaque pigments to create a monochrome underpainting (grisaille), over which layers of transparent colored glazes were applied (a varnish diluted to transparency with a lacquer-based medium, slightly tinted with pigments). This achieved depth of color and subtle transitions. The result was something like a very thin colored glass over a monochrome image. Light falling on it would reflect within this layer and become tinted. Such an effect can’t even be closely replicated in a photograph or on a computer screen.

Max Ginsburg’s technique doesn’t fall into this category, but his work conveys something no photograph can. And yes, his painting is very American. That too is part of his recognizable style.

Remember, similar posts are grouped under the tag #artrauflikes, and all 87 can be found on beinginamerica.com in the “Art Rauf Likes” section (unlike Facebook, which forgets about almost half of them).