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Susanne Ramharter
Treading Lightly
Occupation: Treading Lightly through Life, Art, Organisations, and Leadership
Location: Wien
Birthday: 02/13
Her ProfilesRankThis is the rank of 'Susanne Ramharter' out of all Google+ Profiles.: 1,291 (GenderRankFor the gender 'Women'.: 497)
Her ProfilesRankThis is the rank of 'Susanne Ramharter' out of all Google+ Profiles. in Austria: 3 (GenderRankFor the gender 'Women'.: 1)
Followers: 47,098
Following: 3,161
Cream of the Crop: 04/23/2012
Added to CircleCount.com: 12/25/2011That's the date, where Susanne Ramharter has been indexed by CircleCount.com.
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Latest postings
2013-05-22 20:59:31 (7 comments, 1 reshares, 76 +1s)
Window of St. Stephen's Cathedral in Vienna
The one good thing about our not so wonderful weather in Vienna is that the combination of clouds and a bit of sun cause some wonderful reflections and effects on windows.
for #windowwednesday +#Window Wednesday
curated by +Jules Falk Hunter +J.J. Bentley +Jason Kowing +Cheryl Cooper and +Simon Davis-Oakley
#treadlightly #europeanphotography +European Photo
2013-05-22 11:26:56 (46 comments, 9 reshares, 56 +1s)
Help wanted: How to manage albums on #newgoogleplus
The new Google+ interface is playing havoc with my albums. Here's why:
- I work on a number of different machines, so I have started to store the images for my daily art posts in GoogleDrive - that way I can access them from whichever machine I'm currently on for the posts - so far, so good.
- But uploading an image from GoogleDrive to a post creates a new album for each time I upload. Not good, because now I have about 40 new albums!
- I have not been able to find a way to either combine albums (would be the best solution), or to move pictures (used to be possible).
- Copying pictures to one album and deleting them from the original one deletes the post as well, so that won't work either.
After way too much time trying to sort albums, move pictures, looking for an extension that will let m... more »
2013-05-22 04:28:44 (21 comments, 12 reshares, 84 +1s)
Good Morning Google+
Hubert Robert, the French Rococo painter, was born on May 22nd, 1733. A prolific painter, the Louvre has a catalog of at least 315 works, he experienced both fame and glory, as well as contempt and the threat of execution.
At the age of 21, Robert moved to Rome, where he was elected to the French Academy and befriended Piranese, the artist known best for his architectural paintings. He lived in Italy for 11 years and spent time travelling with Jean-Honoré Fragonard through southern Italy and Sicily. While they influenced each other's styles, each remained steadfast in his choice of subjects, in Robert's case mainly landscapes with ruins. His love of ruins earned him the nickname "Robert der Ruines" and he is supposed to have said: _"The ideas which the ruins awake in me are grand." _
After his return to France he qu... more »
2013-05-21 07:28:42 (29 comments, 11 reshares, 72 +1s)
Good Morning Google+
Albrecht Dürer, known as the greatest artist of the Northern Renaissance, was born on May 21st in 1471. He was an incredibly prolific artist, and created works in oil, watercolor, drawings and woodcuts.
His subjects were often religious ones, such as here, in his famous Paumgartner Altar. The piece is named after the Paumgartner family, who commissioned the tryptich for the Church of St. Catherine in Nüremberg. The two side panels show the brothers Stephan and Lukas Paumgartner as the Saints George and Eustace - both portrayed as knights. It is thought that the work may have been commissioned after the safe return of Stephen Paumgartner from a pilgrimage to Jerusalem in 1498.
The center panel shows a nativity scene, also with the faces of Paumgartner family members. Interestingly, while it shows a good use of perspective, there are a number of very ... more »
2013-05-20 19:48:24 (13 comments, 6 reshares, 22 +1s)
Please help us contact the country of Georgia via Facebook and Twitter to oppose their tacit approval of anti-gay violence in that country, where a mob of 20,000 people recently attack a small group of gay protesters.
2013-05-20 06:23:13 (13 comments, 7 reshares, 69 +1s)
Good Morning Google+
The French painter Charles Camoin died on May 20th in 1964. Camoin was a student in Gustave Moreau's class at the Ecole des Beaux Arts in Paris, where he met and befriended Henri Matisse and Albert Marquet. He was actively involved in the 1905 exhibit at which his works and those of Matisse and Darin among classical sculptures caused the renowned French art critic Louis Vauxcelles to exclaim "Donatello parmi les fauves" (a Donatello amongst wild beasts), and thus was born the term "Fauves".
Maybe influenced by his mentor Cezanne, he soon abandoned the classic hallmarks of Fauvism, strong visible brushstrokes, heavy outlines, and equal weight of light and shadows, all of which can be seen here, in his _Sail Boat in Port Cassis_ dated 1902. But he remained true to another central aspect of Fauvism, the primary importan... more »
2013-05-19 20:33:38 (9 comments, 0 reshares, 65 +1s)
Church Windows in Waidhofen/Ybbs
I drove through Waidhofen for the first time in many years and took this photo of the church in which I was baptized even more years ago for #SacredSunday
+SacredSunday™ , +Manfred Berndtgen , +Robyn Morrison , +Chatchai Rombix , +Justin Hill , +Steve Barge , +Carolyn St.Charles , +*****
ps: this is my first experiment using Lightroom, comments, critique or tips are welcome!
#treadlightly
2013-05-19 06:46:14 (13 comments, 5 reshares, 64 +1s)
Good Morning Google+
On this Sunday we remember the Swiss painter, Ferdinand Hodler, who died on May 18th in 1918. Hodler came from a very modest background, he was the eldest of six children, his father a carpenter, and his mother from a peasant family. By the time he reached maturity, all the members of his immediate family had died of tuberculosis. It is likely that these experiences formed the focus on death that many of his works display.
Hodler's main subjects were landscapes of the Swiss countryside, women, often in symbolic groupings, death and self portraits. It is said that only Rembrandt painted more self portraits than Hodler. He was a man of much energy, both for painting and for life itself, having a succession of wives and mistresses.
This, his _Lake Geneva with Mont Blanc at dawn_ is one of his later works and shows why he is considered to be on ... more »
2013-05-18 07:09:11 (24 comments, 18 reshares, 114 +1s)
Good Morning Google+
Today’s painting, The First Step presents mystery, grounds for salacious gossip, and, best of all: an excuse to add both a #fightlikeagirl and a #caturday hashtag!
First, the mystery: this painting is sometimes attributed to Marguerite Gérard, a French genre-scene artist, and sometimes to Jean-Honoré Fragonard, the popular Rococo painter, and sometimes to them both. In style it shows some of Fragonard’s compositional techniques, but in character it is closer to Gerard’s domestic scenes.
So why the confusion? The answer leads us to the salacious gossip: born in 1761, Gérard at a young age joined her older sister, who was married to Jean-Honoré Fragonard, in Paris. She became an informal student and then assistant of Fragonard and collaborated with him on a number of works. Because of the close relationship between the two and the fact that Gérar... more »
2013-05-17 07:40:36 (7 comments, 4 reshares, 30 +1s)
The New Google+ interface (includes HINTS AND TIPS)
I thought I would write up a few changes, observations and hints and tips you may find of use...(more below)
#newlook #newgoogleplus #googleplusupdate
This now looks very similar across all devices. So whether you are using Chrome or Android (or iOS) you will find usuality and style to be almost the same.
I will focus on Google Chrome as this is where most of the changes have been, and forgive me for any errors/omissions as I am still working it all through...
Site structure:
The side bar of options for e.g. profile, communities, ‘what’s hot’ etc, is now a hover activated one.
The top bar of e.g. for a profile options for ‘about’ are now at the top of the page instead of being underneath the ‘cover photo’
Google+ Search is hidden at the top until you need it
Tip... more »
2013-05-17 07:14:47 (15 comments, 6 reshares, 25 +1s)
Supposedly 'Rational' decisions affected by something as basic as needing to pee
Humans, especially those in positions of authority or power in the business world, pride themselves in their ability to make rational decisions. I can't begin to tell you how often I've heard CEO's and C-Suite members expound on their logical thinking and decision making.
Yet, here is a study that shows how something as simple as the basic human need to urinate can affect decision making. A number of experiments by Dr Mirjam Tuk, seemed to show that when people need to urinate and thus exercise self-control over their bodies, they also seem to exercise a bit more self-control in other forms of gratification. In her experiments people who needed to pee regularly chose to receive €30 in 35 days versus €16 the next day, the opposite of what people who did not need to pee chose. - Read ... more »
2013-05-17 06:52:20 (9 comments, 1 reshares, 25 +1s)
A perfect combination of Voice, Guitar and Lyrics
Heard this again yesterday and it reminded me of a conversation I had with +Paul Platt, one of Google+'s cool musicians, about some pieces where either the lyrics, or the voice, or the guitars/tune were excellent, but often one or the other was less pleasing.
Well, here is an example where it all works for me, your mileage may vary ;-)
#treadlightly #music #bounceinyourchair #ledzeppelin #jimmypage
2013-05-17 06:05:35 (22 comments, 18 reshares, 64 +1s)
Good Morning Google+
Today we commemorate the death of Sandro Botticelli, who died on May 17th in 1510 and was one of the greatest painters of the Italian Renaissance.
The Birth of Venus is one of his most famous paintings and much has been speculated about its meaning from philosophical, religious and even political standpoints. Here,let's just 'look' at what the painting contains.
Venus, the Goddess of Love, Fertility, but also Chastity, stands slightly to the right of center on a shell, which is said to have carried her to the Island of Cyprus. Interestingly, shells were long considered to be a symbol of women's genitalia, which does raise questions about all those shells on numerous buildings of the 18th and 19th century, even many palaces of bishops and cardinals.
At the left, we see Zephyr, God of the west wind, holding the nymph C... more »
2013-05-16 06:38:01 (20 comments, 4 reshares, 92 +1s)
Good Morning Google+
... and a very Happy Birthday to +John Rakestraw, who shares both the first name and a birthday with the artist of today's painting, John Sell Cotman, an English artist born on May 16th in 1782.
Cotman was a prodigious artist, producing many etchings and watercolors. He was known as the best water-colorist of his generation. Especially his work in the early 19th century, of which this, his Waterfall in a Desolate Landscape is one, shows a very individual style. Considering that this work is more than 200 years old, it has a very modern feel about it.
The attention to lines and details, with very sparse strokes remind me a bit of Japanese prints, something that would not be 'popular' for years after his death. Somehow, his focus on light and shadows, without attempting to capture 'atmosphere', give his work a very clean, pea... more »
2013-05-15 18:14:11 (3 comments, 3 reshares, 12 +1s)
Irony alert: Siri (a machine!) is a great model for effective communication
In short, demonstrates the following:
1. When you can’t listen, don’t.
2. Demonstrate that you are listening.
3. Take notes.
4. Don’t assume.
5. Check out emotions. (Siri doesn't do this yet, but her questions for clarity achieve a similar effect)
6. Slow down.
7. Be clear about your position or disposition.
8. End on a positive note.
and, oh yeah, these are great guidelines for comments in threads as well ;-)
#treadlightly #communicationtips #communication #communicationskills #siri
2013-05-14 07:33:48 (12 comments, 0 reshares, 23 +1s)
Good Morning Google+
To celebrate my return to the city, today's art is not a static visual offering, but a video, Vienna Calling by Falco.
This fun video shows both a number of the historical sites that have made Vienna famous, and one of our most successful pop music figures, Falco, whose music crossed the Austrian borders - one of his albums even made the number three spot in US charts.
So please, feel free to #bounceinyourchair while I attack my mountains of luggage and laundry, regular 'art' service wil resume tomorrow.
Have a great day and tread lightly
#art #treadlightly #artandclassontheplus
2013-05-13 12:49:51 (13 comments, 9 reshares, 56 +1s)
Good Morning Google+
If the timing of this post has you confused, rest assured that I am confused myself, being in transit in Frankfurt, Germany, on my way back to Vienna. So it is fitting that today’s artist is Ludwig Deutsch, an Austrian French artist born on May 13th, 1855. He was born in Vienna, where he studied painting and then moved to Paris, which was his home base for the rest of his life.
Deutsch was an orientalist taking most of his subjects and inspiration from oriental history and scenes that he saw himself on his many trips to the Orient, mostly to Egypt. Here is his Prayer at the Tomb, which uses the Aqsunqur Mosque (known as the Blue Mosque of Cairo in the West) as a setting. The Mosque dates back to 1347 and is named after its founder Shams ad-Din Aqsunqur, and contains his tomb, along with those of a number of his family members. The painting show... more »
2013-05-12 11:20:59 (15 comments, 1 reshares, 34 +1s)
Good Morning Google+
Today I leave the US to return to Vienna and it seems fitting to end my stay with one of America's most influential (and controversial) artists of the 20th century: Robert Rauschenberg, who died on May 12th in 2008.
I first saw his famous goat, titled Monogram sometime in the 70's at the Albright Knox Art Gallery in Buffalo and, being 'but a wee child', was both fascinated and repelled to find such an object in a museum! Imagine my surprise when I ran across the same piece this spring at the Moderna Museet, in Stockholm. It suddenly felt familiar and no longer shocking.
Rauschenberg's work is what I call 'intellectual art', meaning that in order to appreciate it at all, one must understand both its context and something about the artist. It is very different from 'aesthetic art', which allows us to ... more »
2013-05-12 01:31:05 (10 comments, 1 reshares, 34 +1s)
Baconalia is the modernised Bacchanalia
After (re-)reading about the Bacchanalia in ancient Rome and writing about it last week, imagine my thrill at seeing the tradition being carried on with only slight variations ;-)
#art #treadlightly
2013-05-12 01:41:05 (8 comments, 1 reshares, 6 +1s)
THERE'S A PRIZE IF YOU GO DOWN THE LADDER!
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╬═╬ IT'S A BIG PRIZE!!!! GO DOWN!!!
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╬═╬ COME ON A LITTLE MORE
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2013-05-11 14:37:03 (15 comments, 2 reshares, 31 +1s)
Time for Led Zeppelin
this time a rather funky version of Black Dog though it seems strange at first to hear it done in such a laid back way, you can still #bounceinyourchair , so it works for me!
#treadlightly #artandclassontheplus #ledzeppelin
2013-05-11 12:32:09 (19 comments, 6 reshares, 85 +1s)
Good Morning Google+
Today we celebrate the birthday of Salvador Dalì, who was born in the Catalan town of Figueras, near Barcelona on May 11th, 1904. Our favorite search engine (hint, has two "oo"'s) shows over 75 Million entries for "Dalì", so here I focus on a less well-known work, his Cosmic Madonna, which is a Lithograph he made in 1981 and is based on his more famous painting of 1951, the Raphaelesque Head Exploding. Both the painting and the lithograph were an homage to Raphael and include a variation of the head of Raphael's Madonna of the Goldfinch, shown below on the right.
While Dalì is one of the most famous painters of the 20th century, for most people, he is probably best known as the grandiose and slightly crazy guy who painted weird pictures of dream-like scenes. What often goes unremarked is his complete mastery of drafts... more »
2013-05-10 21:36:51 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 7 +1s)
This weeks HQSP PAC is here again!
+Simon Wareham is waiting to see your PAC entries for this week! We've had a lot of entries already this week but you can submit your entry to our gallery for your photos posted between 29th April to 5th May now. Please share this post and see if we can get over 200 posts in our gallery.
To join in the fun, just visit www.hqsp.org/hqsppac and don't forget that all contributors are added to the HSQP Peoples Appreciation Circle on Monday. Open to everyone whether you share with HQSP or not!
Please only submit your own work, have your follower count viewable for verification and let me know below if you have any problems submitting.
2013-05-10 12:35:31 (19 comments, 0 reshares, 45 +1s)
Good Morning Google+
As yesterday's figurative painting went over like a lead balloon, I feel free to return to something a bit more modern this morning with Mikhail Fyodorovich Larionov's A Cock. (Honi soi, qui mal y pense) Larionov, who was born in 1881, the same year as Picasso, died on May 10th, 1964, was a Russian pioneer of pure abstract painting.
Influenced by impressionism, orphism, cubism and futurism, he was one of the founders of a short-lived movement called "Rayonism" in which the central element was crossing of reflected rays from various objects.
This painting was completed in 1912, one year before he wrote his manifesto introducing rayonism. While we can still recognize the cock, we can also see definite influences of post-impressionism in the use of color, and both cubism and futurism in in the fractured, linear elements. It is ... more »
2013-05-16 22:33:48 (29 comments, 11 reshares, 58 +1s)
Good Morning Google+
This morning's choice of artist left me rather cold, ... until I stumbled over this: The Triumph of Bacchus by Cornelis de Vos, a Flemish painter who died on May 9th in 1651. Please indulge my (twisted?) sense of humor in offering this representational, figurative painting to those of you who don't always appreciate my taste for expressionism and abstract art ( +R. Harlan Smith ;-)
On a serious note: this painting of Bacchus, the Roman God based on Dionysus of Greek Mythology shows the descent of Bacchus from a figure of power and respect in classical times, to a drunken, fat man, who is so powerless that he requires help to even remain upright on his seat in the carriage. In both Greek representations of Dionysus and Roman portrayals of Bacchus, the God of the grape harvest, wine and wine making as well as ecstasy, was most often shown as a v... more »
2013-05-08 13:00:38 (14 comments, 14 reshares, 86 +1s)
Good Morning Google+
After the Angst of the last two days, I am very glad that the commemoration of Eugène-Henri-Paul Gauguin's death on May 8th, 1903 gives me an excuse to share something in a quite different spirit, Gauguin's Two Tahitian Women.
Gaugin led a somewhat untypical life, born in 1848 in Orléans in France, his family emigrated to Peru, the country of his mother, after Napoleon III's coup d'état in 1851, but returned to France in 1855. Like Kirchner, he voluntarily preempted forced military service by joining voluntarily, in his case the merchant marines. In all, he spent 5 years at sea, sailing all over the world.
Of all things, he worked as a stockbroker in Paris between for 12 years in Paris, where he learned to paint from a fellow stockbroker. During this time he was fascinated by the works of the impressionists, collected a number of... more »
2013-05-07 12:42:50 (11 comments, 8 reshares, 79 +1s)
Good Morning Google+
Today we celebrate not an artist, but the return of a stolen painting, The Scream by Edvard Munch, on May 7th in 1994. The painting had been stolen from the National Gallery in Oslo on Feb. 22nd, 1994, the same day the 1994 Winter Olympics opened in Lillehammer.
Munch made a number of versions of The Scream, including pastells and lithographs. He also originally titled the work "Der Schrei der Natur," or "The Scream of Nature", which would imply that the shriek coming from the figure in the foreground is more of a reflection of nature's pain and horror.
Because there is no recognizable threat to be seen, the painting seems to sum up a general feeling of horror and desperation, maybe at the thought of all the unspeakable acts that humans have visited on each other, or even at the awareness of the constang killing and pain ... more »
2013-05-06 11:19:23 (10 comments, 3 reshares, 68 +1s)
Good Morning Google+
After Impressionism comes Expressionism, so on this Monday morning I offer you the Self Portrait as a Soldier by Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, the German expressionist painter who was born on May 6th in 1880. Kirchner admired the work of Dürer and was influenced by van Gogh, Munch and even Matisse, as well as Medieval German woodcuts and primitive prints. His work was a conscious rejection of what he saw as the bourgeois values perpetuated by Impressionism. He and his fellow artists of the “Brücke” were drawn to the seedy elements of Berlin’s underworld, with its whores, pimps and gangsters.
All of these influences can be seen in this self portrait, which was created in 1915. When WW I broke out in 1914, Kirchner attempted to avoid the draft and service as a common soldier by enlisting voluntarily as an artillery driver. However, he suffered a mental breakdown... more »
2013-05-05 18:08:39 (12 comments, 1 reshares, 34 +1s)
Sunday Book Recommendation: The Art Forger by B.A. Shapiro
Anyone interested in Art, the current state of the "Art-Industry", forgeries, or Degas, will most likely enjoy this book. I am reading it right now and find it hard to tear myself away, even for the opening of an exhibition in an hour ;-)
It based on an actual, unresolved theft at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston on March 18th, 1990 and is part crime novel and part art instruction, done so well that you hardly notice that you are learning something - the very best way to learn.
A great way to spend a Sunday afternoon.
Edit: (Available as eBook from your usual sources)
#treadlightly #art #artandclassontheplus
2013-05-05 13:20:01 (26 comments, 23 reshares, 147 +1s)
Good Morning Google+
Sundays are, for many people, a day to wake slowly and enjoy some moments of lolling about in bed. Such a moment is shown here, in the Morning Awakening by Eva Gonzalès, a French impressionist painter, who died on May 5th in 1883. Her unfortunate death in childbirth at the age of only 34 means that this gifted artist did not produce the quantity of works that many other impressionists left behind.
In spite of hear untimely death, Eva Gonzalès is considered to be one of the four great female impressionists, the other three being Mary Cassatt (1844–1926), Marie Bracquemond (1840–1916) and Berthe Morisot (1841–1895), who is considered one of the founding members of impressionism. In the 19th century, women's lives were very restricted, it was even considered unseemly for (non-working-class) women to leave the house alone. And yet, these four women man... more »
2013-05-04 12:34:21 (10 comments, 5 reshares, 96 +1s)
Good Morning Google+
On this Saturday, I give you another view of the spectacular
Niagara Falls, this time by Frederic Edwin Church, an America artist and the most successful painter of the Hudson River School, who was born on May 4th in 1826.
The Hudson River School was the first fraternity of American artists, it was not a 'school' as such, but rather a loose grouping of artists who shared a common style and philosophy. The main subjects were landscapes, influenced by Romanticism. Their works emphasized both the grandeur and the fragility of nature, the effects of light, and a sense of vastness and the sublime.
This view of the Niagara Falls by Church demonstrates these elements very well. The man at the left edge of the painting is completely dominated by the forces of the Falls, soundly putting us in our place. The effects of light, which make... more »
2013-05-03 13:19:22 (16 comments, 23 reshares, 91 +1s)
Good Morning Google+
Today, just in time for +First Friday Art Walk, I would like to introduce you to some work by an artist I visited yesterday, +Evan Hawkins. As well, I am doing something I normally never do, and that is to ask you to please share this post so that Evan can get the exposure he deserves.
I first saw Evan's work last November at his first one-man show in Buffalo, N.Y. and was immediately fascinated both with his fantastic draftsmanship and the subjects of his work. The quality of his draughting will hopefully be apparent in the photos I took while visiting him at the University of Buffalo Arts Center, where he prints many of his lithographs, so here is just a little about the drawings themselves.
Most of these prints are from a series of works that deal with decay and passage of time by combining, or superimposing elements of Mayan a... more »
2013-05-03 01:53:44 (7 comments, 0 reshares, 18 +1s)
Gloria Steinem, a true icon of the Women's Movement...
spoke last night at an event commemorating the 80th Anniversary of Planned Parenthood in Western New York. Serendipity and +Friedl Fuerst pointed me to this event, which was a true must attend for me.
Many of you are too young to have even heard of Gloria Steinem, one of the leading lights and prominent figures of the Womens' Rights movement off the '70s. She was one of the founders and long time editor of Ms. Magazine, one of the first publications to treat women as more than pin-ups or future housewives. Her advocacy for womens' rights, especially in the area of womens' health and reproductive rights was both groundbreaking and an essential step to the rights women enjoy today (or, in some areas, used to enjoy).
Her speech last night was engaging, full of gentle humor and passion, while exp... more »
2013-05-02 23:09:36 (102 comments, 103 reshares, 465 +1s)
Good Morning Google+
Leonardo da Vinci died on May 2nd in 1519. To commemorate his life and work, here is a copy of his most famous work (often called the most famous painting in the world), the Mona Lisa, often called La Giaconda. One measure of the painting's popularity (or notoriety) is demonstrated when you Google "Mona Lisa" and find over 43 Million entries.
The English name "Mona Lisa" came about due to a spelling error, originally it was "Monna Lisa". Monna being a contraction for Madonna, Mia Donna (Madam or My Lady) but the second "n" was lost at some point. It is accepted theory that this is a portrait of Lisa Gherardini del Giocondo,
however, in Italian, gioconda means "mirthful, joyous, jocund, gay, cheery" and there is a definite, if subtle, sense of happiness in her expression, especially in the famous... more »
2013-05-01 15:25:18 (2 comments, 5 reshares, 25 +1s)
A Boy and His Atom
⚛ How do you make the world's smallest movie? By moving atoms, one at a time. Certified by the Guinness Book of World Records, this stop motion animation made by IBM nanophysicists only lasts 60 seconds and shows a tiny atomic "boy" jumping on an atomic trampoline and playing with his ball atom, magnified 100 million times. It took 242 frames, each made by a scanning tunneling microscope that weighs 2 tons and operates at -268 degrees Celsius (or 450.5 degrees below zero on the Fahrenheit scale). A needle comes within 1 nanometer of each atom (actually diatomic carbon monoxide), grabs and drags it across the surface of a tiny chip to a new location..you can hear the dragging sound in the "behind the scenes" movie.
⚛ Why was this movie made? According to Moore's Law, chip performance doubles every 18 months, as the ind... more »
2013-05-01 14:04:19 (12 comments, 7 reshares, 72 +1s)
Good Morning Google+
Today, May 1st, is also known as May Day, or as the International Worker's Day. The tradition of celebrating May Day goes back to pre-Christian times, when it was celebrated by such diverse cultures as the Celts (Beltane) or Germans (Walpurgisnacht). May 1st is considered to be the first day of summer, the planting and seeding usually completed, and the time to celebrate both fertility and increased (day)light. After the reform of the Catholic Calendar, May 1 became the Feast of St Joseph the Worker, the patron saint of workers. This fits quite well with the added meaning of the day as _International Worker's Day._
Interestingly, this designation, which many may view as a 'socialist, communist' threat, actually has its roots in the US. On May 1st, 1886, there was a public assembly at which workers were demonstrating for an 8-hour workday in Chic... more »
2013-04-30 13:28:13 (15 comments, 1 reshares, 65 +1s)
South Grand Island Bridge
This is the one I couldn't wait to post.
Pretty happy with how it turned out!
#longexposurethursday +LongExposure Thursday by +Francesco Gola +Luca Gerardi
#plusphotoextract +PhotoExtract Photography Magazine by +Jarek Klimek
#sharingiscaring #westernny
ISO 100 15mm f/8 30s
2013-04-30 13:06:37 (2 comments, 0 reshares, 10 +1s)
Transience and Permanence in Online Interactions
+John Rakestraw regularly hosts Hangouts On Air with a fun and intelligent group of people including (in order of appearance in the bottom) +Adam Boenig , +Bitte Rozalia , himself, +R. Harlan Smith , +Simon Grew and myself.
In response to the recent events in Boston (online vigilantism) and on Wall Street (the tweet that almost crashed the stock exchange), last Sunday we spoke about Transience and Permanence on the Internet.
Shameless self-promotion: my remarks are at 05:10 and 1:05:30
The "David" I am referring to is +David Amerland, a regular member of the group, who like +Sergey Andrianov was caought up in real life and could not join us last Sunday.
My sincere thanks to +John Rakestraw, who, as always, led us through the discussion with intelligence, humor and his wonderful warm personal... more »
2013-04-30 12:37:20 (15 comments, 6 reshares, 66 +1s)
Good Morning Google+
A post in which I am reminded that good genre painting can be very interesting indeed:
Today, let's look at a work by another artist who was apparently unaffected by the developments in the art world during his time: Franz Von Defregger, the Austrian genre painter who was born on April 30th in 1835. Though he was in Paris studying art auto-didactically for a few years starting in 1863, his work does not in any way reflect the artistic trends of his time. There is no hint that he was in any way affected by Manet, Renoir, or Monet, even though he cannot have missed the brouhaha caused by the famous Salon des Refusés in 1863.
At first glance, this painting, Die Erste Studienreise (The First Study Trip) showing two young men in front of a farm house, looking at young girl sitting on the bench at the front of the house, is a typical genre paint... more »
2013-04-29 14:47:28 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 17 +1s)
Serendipity at work
Sunshine coming in a window at the Burchfield Penney Art Center at SUNY Buffalo adds to ANN HAMILTON's work: PHORA (http://goo.gl/109s0).
Hamilton created these images from single frames of videos of large medieval relief panels from Stockholm’s Museum of National Antiquities. She was fascinated by mouths and speaks of "Breath is formed here by the hand…by the animating of the frozen figures and the silences they conjure." So it seemed appropriate to capture the play of light that seems to be a breath, flowing from one of the mouths across others.
#treadlightly #artandclassontheplus #art
2013-04-29 12:45:26 (20 comments, 3 reshares, 77 +1s)
Good Morning Google+
After yesterday's provocative work by Francis Bacon (which is, admittedly, an acquired taste) let's start the week with something completely different and a bit more soothing: Trout Fishing, Wyoming by Ogden Pleissner, an American artist who was born on April 29th in 1905.
Though born in Brooklyn, Pleissner spent many summers in Wyoming as a young boy, where he started sketching and developed a love for landscapes. He served as a painter for the US Air Force in WW II, where he became acquainted with Europe and a number of his works of that time are owned by the Pentagon. He traveled extensively throughout Europe, but most of his works are landscapes and sporting images from areas in the US, such as this watercolor.
Though he is known as a painter of sporting scenes, many of men fishing, it's the landscapes that dominate his... more »
2013-04-28 20:06:25 (9 comments, 1 reshares, 15 +1s)
Sunday Circle Share: Cool Women
Yesterday, +Stephanie Calahan put up a post looking for women on Google+. Apart from my suggestions on her post, I am sharing my personal, handpicked circle of "Cool Women"
These are women who are intelligent, generous, kind and fun. You will find women who post about Art, Google+, Social Media, Social Issues, (some) Politics, Travel, Ideas, Modern Media, and the occasional cat post (though those are rare).
You will find a few 'big names', and many others who deserve to be.
Enjoy!
#treadlightly
2013-04-28 14:11:15 (9 comments, 4 reshares, 16 +1s)
Not your typical Career Self-Help book
Warning: you will not find any checklists, how-to instructions or "7-Steps to ..." in this book. What you will find are quotes by (among others) Camus, and Dostoevsky: _“If one wanted to crush and destroy a man entirely, to mete out to him the most terrible punishment, all one would have to do would be to make him do work that was completely and utterly devoid of usefulness and meaning.”_
What you will find is a great philosophical reflection about various aspects of both fulfillment and work. In fact, maybe this book should be read not so much by people in frustrating, boring and mindless jobs, but by those people who structure work to be frustrating, boring and mindless.
Just a thought for a Sunday.
#treadlightly #vitaledge #glia +The Vital Edge
2013-04-28 12:55:00 (13 comments, 3 reshares, 36 +1s)
Good Morning Google+
It is Sunday, or #sacredsunday , and while I know that some of you may not agree with me, it seems appropriate to honour Francis Bacon, the Irish painter who was born on April 28th in 1909, with his Three Studies for Figures at the Base of a Crucifixion, 1944.
This is considered to be the first 'mature' work of Bacon, who worked as a designer and taught himself to paint. His earlier works were quite different, and one art critic called them "aesthetically pleasing", but lacking "a sense of urgency or inner necessity; they are beautiful, but lifeless." That changed dramatically with this painting. In spite of the title, this painting is less an attempt to show the 'reality' of figures beneath the Cross, but rather a very personal view of the three Furies from the Eumenides, one of the plays in the Orestia by ... more »
2013-04-27 18:13:25 (28 comments, 28 reshares, 150 +1s)
Good Morning Google+
When in Rome..... today we celebrate the birthday of Samuel F. B. Morse, who was born on April 27th in 1791 and yes, this is the Morse who invented the single-line telegraph and the famous Morse Code.
What you may not be aware of (I wasn't) is that he was originally a painter. His interest in speeding up long distance communication seems to have developed after a personal tragedy. He had been painting a portrait of the Marquis de Lafayette, when a horseback messenger brought him news of his wife's illness, on returning home, Morse found that his wife had already been buried.
Personally, I am not overly inspired by his paintings, they are, for the most part very somber, mostly portraits and some allegories that are strongly influenced by his Calvanistic background (his father was a pastor). Even this, his view of Niagara Falls, painted ... more »
2013-04-26 11:53:09 (9 comments, 12 reshares, 87 +1s)
Good Morning Google+
Eugene Delacroix, the great French Romantic painter, was born on April 26 in 1798. Romanticism was, in part, a reaction to the increasing industrialization and the dry rationalism of the Enlightenment and had its peak in the first half of the 19th century. Personally, I think that Romanticism, with its emphasis on emotions and the subjective feelings of the artist towards the subject being portrayed, rather than the focus on form and line of Neoclassicism, provided one of the main milestones on the road to modern art.
Delacroix was inspired by Byron, and, like the somewhat older JMW Turner (last seen here: http://goo.gl/e5Dve) had a fascination with "forces sublime", often portrayed in the violent actions of nature. We see his ability to show emotion here, in the Orphan Girl in a Cemetary. While there are a number of different interpretations a... more »
2013-04-25 16:25:01 (16 comments, 13 reshares, 41 +1s)
Who would have thought: Meditation Enhances Creativity
Whether you really appreciate his work or not (Twin Peaks anyone?), David Lynch can certainly be counted to be creative, maybe he's onto something?
#treadlightly #creativity
2013-04-25 13:17:20 (1 comments, 2 reshares, 11 +1s)
So honored to co-author this with Ian Gonsher - wish he'd been teaching when I was at Brown --
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