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Monterey Bay Aquarium @montereybayaquarium.org · yesterday

🌊 Nearly 90 California lawmakers have sent a clear message: No new offshore drilling and continued strong protection for California’s iconic coast! 🧵

LinkedCulture @linkedculture.org · 23h ago

Albrecht Dürer · The Small Passion: Christ Washing St. Peter's Feet Why would the most celebrated artist in Europe kneel a figure of Christ before his own disciple, turning the expected hierarchy of power completely upside down? This… View full record → Watch video → Cleveland Museum of Art | CC0

Why would the most celebrated artist in Europe kneel a figure of Christ before his own disciple, turning the expected hierarchy of power completely upside down? This woodcut is part of Albrecht Dürer's Small Passion series, produced in Germany around 1509 to 1510, a sequence of thirty-seven small-format prints that compressed the entire story of Christian redemption into images a person could hold in their hands. Christ kneels at the lower left, bent over a shallow basin in which Peter's bare foot rests, while Peter reaches down and gestures in protest, surrounded by a crowd of bearded apostles pressed into a candlelit interior with a hanging chandelier above. Dürer's signature monogram anchors the lower right corner, and the precision of the crosshatching, the candlelight playing across robes and faces, and the drama packed into such a small space demonstrate why these prints circulated across Europe and established the woodcut as a medium capable of genuine artistic ambition.

LinkedCulture @linkedculture.org · 23h ago

Francisco de Goya · The Horrors of War: They Can Still Be of Use Francisco de Goya made these images in secret, never publishing them in his lifetime, because what he recorded about the Peninsular War was too raw and too honest for… View full record → Watch video → Cleveland Museum of Art | CC0

Francisco de Goya made these images in secret, never publishing them in his lifetime, because what he recorded about the Peninsular War was too raw and too honest for the political climate he lived under. This is an etching by Goya, made in Spain around 1810 to 1820, and it is plate 72 from his series known as The Disasters of War. A chaotic cluster of figures, soldiers and civilians tangled together in urgent motion, crowds the centre of the composition against a spare, darkened landscape, with one man arching his head back in what reads as either exhaustion or despair, while others crouch, drag, and carry around him, all beneath the inscribed caption "Aun podran servir," meaning "They can still be of use." That caption is the bitterest part of the image, asking the viewer to consider what exactly these broken human bodies might still be good for, and it is this combination of unflinching observation and sardonic moral weight that makes Goya's Disasters a founding document of modern anti-war art.

LinkedCulture @linkedculture.org · 23h ago

Albrecht Dürer · Life of the Virgin: Rejection of Joachim's Sacrifice Albrecht Dürer chose to begin his celebrated Life of the Virgin series not with the Virgin herself, but with a moment of humiliation: an old man turned away from… View full record → Watch video → Cleveland Museum of Art | CC0

Albrecht Dürer chose to begin his celebrated Life of the Virgin series not with the Virgin herself, but with a moment of humiliation: an old man turned away from the altar because he has no children, deemed unworthy in the eyes of God and community alike. This is a woodcut by Albrecht Dürer, made in Germany around 1504 to 1505, as part of his ambitious series depicting the life of Mary. The scene is crowded with figures pressed beneath a crumbling Romanesque arch, where the elderly Joachim reaches across a cloth-draped altar toward a priest who rejects his offering, while a small child sits on the table, onlookers pack the background, and a chandelier hangs above the charged confrontation. Dürer's technical mastery of the woodcut medium is on full display here, with hatched drapery, architectural depth, and dozens of individuated faces achieved through the cutting of a single block of wood, his monogram tablet visible at the lower center of the composition.

The Public Domain Review @publicdomainrev.bsky.social · 2d ago

Some 15th-century rainbow-coloured beasts to brighten your Monday: https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/rainbow-coloured-beasts-from-15th-century-book-of-hours?utm_content=bufferec024&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=buffer

LinkedCulture @linkedculture.org · 2d ago

Albrecht Dürer · The Virgin and Child Seated by the Wall Albrecht Dürer completed this engraving in 1514, the same year his mother died after a long illness, and the quiet grief in that biographical fact gives the image a weight that… View full record → Watch video → Cleveland Museum of Art | CC0

The Virgin in this small engraving appears monumental against a contemporary view of Nuremberg castle. Although she looks regal, Dürer underscores her humanity by presenting her in this modern context and by adding commonplace household keys and a money purse at her waist. As she sits serenely, the Christ Child displays an apple to the viewer as a reminder of the past, specifically the Fall of man and his divine role in the redemption of humanity. The arrangement and introspective character of this engraving have been compared to Dürer’s Melencolia I . Both were finished in the same year as his mother’s death—a difficult time for the artist. As the third of 18 children, of which only three reached adulthood, Dürer witnessed the particular joys and heartache of motherhood.

LinkedCulture @linkedculture.org · 2d ago

Caravaggio · The Crucifixion of Saint Andrew Why would a dying man beg his executioners to stop trying to save him? This large-scale oil on canvas was painted by Caravaggio in Naples between 1606 and 1607, during his years as a… View full record → Watch video → Cleveland Museum of Art | CC0

Saint Andrew’s efforts to introduce Christianity to Greece in the first century CE were met with hostility from local authorities. He was sentenced to die on the cross because he refused to acknowledge pagan gods. For two days, Andrew preached from his martyr’s station to an increasingly sympathetic crowd. Bowing to public demand, Andrew’s would-be executioners attempted to untie him, but their hands were mysteriously paralyzed. Andrew’s desire for martyrdom was thus fulfilled and he died enveloped in divine light. Caravaggio’s innovative interpretation involves the viewer more closely in the event by presenting the crucifixion as intimate and private, rather than as a gruesome public spectacle. Bold contrasts of light and dark suggest the presence of God. A masterpiece of Baroque painting, Caravaggio’s Crucifixion of Saint Andrew is the only altarpiece by the artist in America. Although Saint Andrew is typically associated with an X-shaped cross, here he is depicted on a standard vertical cross.

LinkedCulture @linkedculture.org · 2d ago

Raymond Duchamp-Villon · Rooster (Gallic Cock) Why would a sculptor carving a defiant national symbol while stationed near the trenches of World War I choose the precise visual language of Cubism to do it? This painted bronze relief… View full record → Watch video → Cleveland Museum of Art | CC0

A pioneer of Cubist sculpture, Duchamp-Villon carved the original plaster for this bronze relief while serving in the army during World War I. It was intended for the entrance to a temporary theater erected near the front lines, where French soldiers would have recognized the rooster and rising sun as symbols of victory. Duchamp-Villon died during the war, and in 1919, five bronze casts were made from his plaster as a memorial to the artist. Before being embraced by artists, the term "Cubism" originated from an insult. The same is true of Gallus, a Latin word meaning both "rooster" and "inhabitant of Gaul" (present-day France). Once used to mock the French, the rooster was reclaimed as a national symbol of triumph, as pictured here.

The Public Domain Review @publicdomainrev.bsky.social · 4d ago

Scottish-born inventor Alexander Graham Bell — who died #onthisday in 1922 — goes to kiss his wife Mabel while she stands in one of his spectacular tetrahedral kites. See more of these wonderful creations (and the kiss realised) in our post here: publicdomainreview.org/collection/a... #OTD

LinkedCulture @linkedculture.org · 3d ago

Albrecht Dürer · The Men's Bath House Why would a German artist in the 1490s depict naked men relaxing together in a bathhouse with no biblical story, no myth, and no moral pretext to justify it - just men, in their bodies, passing… View full record → Watch video → Cleveland Museum of Art | CC0

Albrecht Dürer’s depiction of men relaxing in a public bath house was unusual in the early 1500s because it showed nudity without an accompanying mythological or biblical narrative. The print showcases Dürer’s ability to depict the male figure in various inventive poses and may feature portraits of some of his friends. Meant to be studied closely, the image includes visual puns such as the faucet placed near the man’s groin at left. The popularity of the print during Dürer’s lifetime may relate to the 1496 closure of the public bath in his hometown of Nuremberg to prevent a syphilis outbreak.

LinkedCulture @linkedculture.org · 3d ago

Francisco de Goya · Bullfights: A Spanish Mounted Knight in the Ring Breaking Short Spears Without the Help of Assistants Goya spent years obsessed with the bullfight, not as a spectacle to celebrate but as a ritual to dissect, and… View full record → Watch video → Cleveland Museum of Art | CC0

Goya spent years obsessed with the bullfight, not as a spectacle to celebrate but as a ritual to dissect, and this print captures a moment from a vanished era when noblemen on horseback, not professional matadors on foot, were the central figures of the ring. This is an engraving by Francisco de Goya, plate 13 from his celebrated series La Tauromaquia, etched in 1816 and printed in this edition in 1876 in Spain. A richly costumed caballero in ruffled collar and wide-brimmed hat rides a dark, muscular horse across the sandy arena floor, wielding a short lance while a bull charges from the right, with a row of spectators peering over the barrier wall in the upper background. The Tauromaquia series was Goya's attempt to document the full history of bullfighting as he understood it, and this plate specifically honors the older aristocratic tradition of rejoneador combat, a practice already fading by the time Goya etched it, preserved here with a documentary seriousness that sets the series apart from mere sporting imagery.

LinkedCulture @linkedculture.org · 3d ago

Francisco de Goya · No One has Seen Us, Plate 79 The caption beneath this scene reads "Nadie nos ha visto," meaning "No one has seen us," and the irony is immediate: Goya has seen them, and so have we. This is an etching and aquatint… View full record → Watch video → Cleveland Museum of Art | CC0

The caption beneath this scene reads "Nadie nos ha visto," meaning "No one has seen us," and the irony is immediate: Goya has seen them, and so have we. This is an etching and aquatint by Francisco de Goya, plate 79 from his Los Caprichos series, made in Spain in 1799 and printed in this edition around 1855. Three grotesque figures huddle around a barrel in a darkened space, raising glasses in a furtive toast, their faces rendered with skull-like exaggeration, while a looming shadow of a monstrous form fills the background behind them. Los Caprichos was Goya's savage, privately published satire of Spanish society, and this plate captures his recurring theme that vice and foolishness flourish precisely in the moments people believe themselves unobserved.

Monterey Bay Aquarium @montereybayaquarium.org · 5d ago

🌎💚 We partner with planet-loving companies to ditch plastic, one product at a time! Real change can happen when we work together to protect the ocean from plastic pollution. We’ve partnered up to cut plastic out of the products you love. Out of our systems, out of our stores!

Two branded Monterey Bay Aquarium and Captain + Stoker coffee cans with a white background

Alvarado Street Brewery Raft pilsner six-pack and full beer on tide rocks with waves crashing behind

Hand holding a teal can of Fruition Brewing Ebb & Flow Tropical Pale Ale, created in collaboration with Monterey Bay Aquarium

The iconic vintage sea otter shirt on white background

LinkedCulture @linkedculture.org · 4d ago

Albrecht Dürer · St. Jerome in Penitence Why would one of the most technically gifted artists in Europe choose to depict a half-naked old man beating himself with a rock in the wilderness? This is an engraving by Albrecht Dürer, made… View full record → Watch video → Cleveland Museum of Art | CC0

This print shows Albrecht Dürer’s interpretation of Saint Jerome in the wilderness. In this image, the saint is a gaunt penitent who kneels in front of a small crucifix placed on top of a tree stump (a reference to Christ’s cross and the tree of knowledge), while holding a rock in his right hand. Jerome was said to have beat his chest with a rock to alleviate his frequent hallucinations. Dürer included several different plant species, all Northern European in origin, displaying his dedication to the careful study and depiction of real plants. According to legend, after he aided a lion by pulling a thorn from its paw, it became Saint Jerome's permanent companion.

LinkedCulture @linkedculture.org · 4d ago

Francisco de Goya · The Proverbs: Loyalty Goya titled this print "Loyalty," and then filled it with a writhing crowd of grotesque figures who appear to be doing almost anything but showing it. This is an etching and aquatint by… View full record → Watch video → Cleveland Museum of Art | CC0

LinkedCulture @linkedculture.org · 4d ago

Francisco de Goya · The Horrors of War: The Women Give Courage During the Peninsular War, Francisco Goya bore witness to atrocities that official art would never record, and he responded by making prints so raw and unflinching that he… View full record → Watch video → Cleveland Museum of Art | CC0

During the Peninsular War, Francisco Goya bore witness to atrocities that official art would never record, and he responded by making prints so raw and unflinching that he kept them hidden until just before his death. This etching and aquatint, made by Goya in Spain around 1810 to 1820, belongs to his landmark series known as The Disasters of War. Against a murky, undefined ground, three women are locked in close combat with a soldier, one brandishing a sword, another grappling from behind, while a third figure lies pinned to the earth beneath them, the inscription below reading "Las mujeres dan valor," meaning "The women give courage." The series was not published until 1863, more than thirty years after Goya's death, suggesting he understood that these images of civilian resistance and mass suffering were far too politically dangerous to share in his own lifetime.

Natural History Museum, London @nhm-london.bsky.social · 6d ago

Purple is relatively rare in nature - but there are some powerfully purple species across the globe! 💜 Let’s meet some of the purplest players seen in the natural world ⬇️

A vibrant purple toad with bright pink markings resting on a green leaf, credited to Nick Stacey @‌indicator_species

LinkedCulture @linkedculture.org · 5d ago

Albrecht Dürer · Christ Shown to the People Albrecht Dürer compressed one of Christianity's most charged moments into a space barely larger than a human hand, making every line of the burin count toward conveying humiliation, power,… View full record → Watch video → Cleveland Museum of Art | CC0

Albrecht Dürer compressed one of Christianity's most charged moments into a space barely larger than a human hand, making every line of the burin count toward conveying humiliation, power, and guilt simultaneously. This is an engraving by Albrecht Dürer, made in Germany in 1512, part of his Engraved Passion series. Christ stands crowned with thorns on a raised stone step, his wrists bound, while a turbaned figure behind him gestures with a rod toward a armored soldier in the foreground whose back faces us, a cross and armed crowd visible in the distance to the right. The extraordinary density of Dürer's engraved line gives each figure a psychological weight rare in printmaking of the period, and the deliberately compressed composition forces the viewer into the position of the crowd itself, implicated in the scene unfolding before them.

LinkedCulture @linkedculture.org · 5d ago

Albrecht Dürer · Knight, Death, and the Devil Why would an artist pack a single image with a fully armoured knight, the figure of Death, a horned devil, a loyal hound, a skull, and a distant hilltop city - and still make it feel like a… View full record → Watch video → Cleveland Museum of Art | CC0

In this tour de force engraving, considered one of his three greatest “masterworks,” Albrecht Dürer portrayed a mounted soldier who resolutely forges through a dark gorge, ignoring a horned devil in his path. Confronted by Death itself, crowned with snakes and holding an hourglass indicating mortality, the soldier and his faithful dog demonstrate the strength of righteousness required to stay upon the right path. The skull underfoot suggests that others have not been so resolute. Indeed, this road of life is full of obstacles, with the city on the hill accessible, it seems, only by way of treacherous peaks. The personification of Death in this image holds an hourglass whose sands are exactly half full, which may indicate a turning point in the rider's life choices.

LinkedCulture @linkedculture.org · 5d ago

Rembrandt van Rijn · Abraham Francen, Apothecary View full record → Watch video → Cleveland Museum of Art | CC0

Monterey Bay Aquarium @montereybayaquarium.org · 6d ago

The Trump administration's plan for new offshore oil and gas drilling in federal waters is expected any day. If finalized, drilling could begin off the California coast next year. 📣 Take action! Contact your California representative and send your concerns to NOAA today: mbayaq.co/4fFiaV3

Man on paddle board with dog on front of paddle board standing up on the Monterey Bay

LinkedCulture @linkedculture.org · 6d ago

Albrecht Dürer · Adam and Eve Albrecht Dürer spent years trying to solve a problem that had obsessed artists since antiquity: what does a mathematically perfect human body actually look like, and can geometry unlock the secret of… View full record → Watch video → Cleveland Museum of Art | CC0

LinkedCulture @linkedculture.org · 6d ago

Francisco de Goya · The Proverbs: The Men in Sacks Goya made this print after his death, which is to say he never saw it published: he completed the plates in secret, kept them hidden, and died in 1828 with this series unknown to the… View full record → Watch video → Cleveland Museum of Art | CC0

Goya made this print after his death, which is to say he never saw it published: he completed the plates in secret, kept them hidden, and died in 1828 with this series unknown to the world. It is an etching and aquatint by Francisco de Goya, produced in Spain around 1816 to 1823 and first published posthumously in 1864 as part of the series known as the Disparates, or Proverbs. Against an almost total darkness, a line of figures shuffles across the composition, each one encased entirely in a heavy sack or cloak that eliminates any individual identity, with one figure at center crouching low and twisting its face outward as the only direct point of contact with the viewer, while hunched shapes dissolve into shadow at the far right. The image belongs to a group of eighteen prints that resist any single interpretation, combining the language of Spanish proverb and carnival with a claustrophobic menace that reads less like illustration than like a vision from inside a mind that had long since lost faith in reason.

LinkedCulture @linkedculture.org · 6d ago

Albrecht Dürer · Revelation of St. John: St. John Devouring the Books Albrecht Dürer chose one of the strangest commands in all of scripture to visualize here, the moment an angel orders Saint John to literally eat a book, and he… View full record → Watch video → Cleveland Museum of Art | CC0

Albrecht Dürer chose one of the strangest commands in all of scripture to visualize here, the moment an angel orders Saint John to literally eat a book, and he renders it with a ferocious intensity that makes the bizarre act feel entirely credible.

This is a woodcut by Albrecht Dürer, made in Germany in 1511, part of his celebrated Apocalypse series illustrating the Book of Revelation.

Saint John kneels on a rocky shore in the lower right, reaching upward to receive a small scroll from a radiant angel whose haloed face blazes with sunlike rays, while cherubs drift through clouds above, a suspended architectural baldachin floats in a celestial circle at upper left, twisted columns rise from the water's edge, and a sea creature stirs in the distance beneath a wide horizon.

Dürer's mastery of the woodcut medium is on full display here, with his dense, controlled hatching conjuring the textures of robes, bark, cloud, and divine light from nothing but carved lines in wood, making this series one of the most technically ambitious and visually influential print cycles ever produced in Europe.

The Public Domain Review @publicdomainrev.bsky.social · last wk.

Covers from Amauta, a Peruvian avant-garde literary magazine (1926–30): https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/amauta-covers/

LinkedCulture @linkedculture.org · 7d ago

Master of the Brussels Initials and Associates · Hours of Charles the Noble, King of Navarre (1361-1425): fol. 253v, Text View full record → Watch video → Cleveland Museum of Art | CC0

LinkedCulture @linkedculture.org · 7d ago

Albrecht Dürer · The Adoration of the Magi Albrecht Dürer could achieve with a woodcut what many painters could barely manage in oils, and this print from 1511 is one of the clearest proofs of that claim. It is a woodcut by Albrecht… View full record → Watch video → Cleveland Museum of Art | CC0

Albrecht Dürer could achieve with a woodcut what many painters could barely manage in oils, and this print from 1511 is one of the clearest proofs of that claim. It is a woodcut by Albrecht Dürer, made in Germany in 1511 as part of his second, revised edition of the Life of the Virgin series. Beneath a crumbling timber shelter whose rafters and beams are rendered with extraordinary precision, the three Magi present their gifts to the Virgin and Christ child, while Joseph stands to the left and additional figures crowd the edges, a six-pointed star suspended in the dark space above the scene. Dürer's control of the woodcut medium here is remarkable, using dense cross-hatching and fine parallel lines to create tonal depth and texture that push print-making far beyond its decorative origins and into the territory of high art.

LinkedCulture @linkedculture.org · 7d ago

Francisco de Goya · Swallow it, Dog!, Plate 58 Plate 58 of Goya's Los Caprichos asks what kind of society forces a kneeling figure to accept something monstrous while grotesque onlookers grin with delight at the spectacle. This is an… View full record → Watch video → Cleveland Museum of Art | CC0

Plate 58 of Goya's Los Caprichos asks what kind of society forces a kneeling figure to accept something monstrous while grotesque onlookers grin with delight at the spectacle.

This is an etching with aquatint by Francisco de Goya, published in 1799 in Spain, with this impression printed around 1855.

A robed, dark-cloaked figure looms from the left, pressing a long stick toward a cowering person who kneels with hands clasped and face upturned in supplication, while a cluster of leering, distorted faces crowds in from the right and a shadowy winged form hovers in the murky background above, the caption below reading "Tragala perro," meaning "swallow it, dog."

This print belongs to the eighty-plate series Los Caprichos, in which Goya used the satirical distance of nightmare imagery to attack the coercions of religious authority, superstition, and blind obedience in late eighteenth-century Spain, producing one of the most sustained works of political and social criticism in the history of printmaking.

The Public Domain Review @publicdomainrev.bsky.social · last wk.

Happy birthday Beatrix Potter, born #onthisday in 1866. Here she is as teenager with her pet mouse Xarifa. More in our essay on her life by the late Frank Delaney: https://publicdomainreview.org/essay/the-tale-of-beatrix-potter #otd

LinkedCulture @linkedculture.org · last wk.

Albrecht Dürer · The Virgin and Child with a Monkey Why would Albrecht Dürer place a chained monkey at the feet of the Virgin Mary, and what could it possibly have to do with original sin? This engraving was made by Dürer around 1498… View full record → Watch video → Cleveland Museum of Art | CC0

Catholic theology during the Renaissance taught the Virgin Mary as a woman born without original sin, an idea manifested in botanical and zoological symbols. Albrecht Dürer portrayed the Virgin and Christ child within a garden enclosed by a low wood gate. Mary gazes down at her son, who holds a bird with his left hand, a symbol of the souls he will save through his Crucifixion. The tamed monkey, chained to the fence, is an accurate zoological study (probably a Barbary macaque) with a theological role: associated with bodily pleasure, it shows the power of Mary’s virtue over Eve’s sin. The monkey portrayed here can be identified as a Barbary macaque, which the artist may have seen as part of a zoological collection in Germany.