The top 5 things that you absolutely, positively do not need in order to sell your art (and the top 5 things you actually do need

By Tyler Tervooren | June 21, 2010

We’ve all been there. Staring down the barrel of some crazy, ambitious goal, some dream, wondering how the heck we’re ever going to pull it off.
A trend I notice in my own life is a lot of amazing artists and creatives doing awesome work dreaming of someday making a living from it. We want to get started, but we’re missing a lot of important pieces. We look at everyone that’s making it and think we need what they have just to get a foot in the door.

That’s not actually true.

There are all kinds of things we could have before we start selling our art, but the reality is that we don’t actually need most of them. They’re just barriers that we put up to keep from taking a risk and doing what’s really important – actually selling our work.
Here are the top 5 things that you absolutely, positively do not need in order to sell your art (and the top 5 things you actually do need).

Image by *eddie

1. Business Cards

What I really mean when I say “business cards” is any of those standard office items that act as a barrier to getting out there and starting. This could be a printer, a fax machine, an assistant, anything besides your art, really.

Sure, eventually you’re going to need a few things, but they should come as an answer to an actual problem rather than a prerequisite for doing business. Heck, in most cases, you don’t even need a business license to get things going.

You don’t need business cards or any of that other junk, but here’s what you do need: intense focus on your art and simplicity. When you’re trying to get off the ground, you don’t need the self-inflicted resistance that comes with all the business gadgets.

Focus on creating your art and finding people who like it. That’s all that matters right now. Besides, the less you need to run your art business, the less you have to sell to keep running your art business.

2. An Art Degree

Here’s something really important that we should get out of the way. Education comes in so many different forms, and even though a classroom is a valid one, a degree is completely unnecessary if you want to start your own business and sell your art.

There are very few people outside of the corporate world who care if you have a degree and, dare I say, those people are a waste of your time and energy anyway.

Here’s what you need instead: A burning desire to learn and change.

No one who buys your art cares if you have a degree, but they do care that you have an education and an opinion about what you create and sell.

Luckily, those two things are easily attained for a lot less than the cost of tuition. If you have a hunger to learn, you’ll find all the education you need for free.

3. An Agent

Someday you may get to the point where you need someone to look out for you and help make good business deals so that you can focus on creating, napping, and taking exotic vacations.
Today is not that day. In fact, that day just might never come.

There’s nothing wrong with hiring someone to keep your best interest in mind, but always remember that no one cares as much about your art or your business as you do. Learn how to take care of your art business yourself before you outsource it.

You don’t need an agent, but you do need basic business aptitude.

Don’t worry if you haven’t got it now. There are all kinds of ways to pick it up.

The fastest is to just get out there and start doing business everywhere you can. You’ll screw up, lose money, get burned, and learn a lot of hard lessons. But if you keep at it, you’ll fail forward.

The safest way is to read every art and business blog you can, take business classes and start as small as possible.

The best way is probably somewhere in the middle. You’ve already got a great start reading Lateral Action (you smarty).

4. A Masterpiece

If there’s one thing that aspiring artists continually destroy their businesses with, it’s their own self doubt. This is a topic for a whole other discussion, but the thing to take away is that you do not need to create the world’s greatest masterpieces in order to make it as a professional artist.

There’s a market for every type of art and you don’t have to be the very best in the world to sell yours. You just have to be the best in your customer’s world. That means being the best thing available to them in their own sphere of influence.

Think of the last piece of art you paid for. Did you buy it because it was the most technically amazing piece of work you’ve seen or did you buy it because it told a story you liked?

People like art that looks good, but they buy it because it makes them feel good.

Better technique comes with more practice. Practice telling better stories and the technique (and money) will follow.

Here’s another secret the pros don’t tell you. No one paid attention to them when they started either.

People pay attention to things that their friends tell them about. When you’re starting out, your job is to be persistent and tell stories that people want to share.

5. Permission

No one can give the permission you need to sell your art. I totally understand the need for approval – I’ve been there many times myself – but it’s a dangerous rabbit hole to go down.

You see, asking for permission and waiting for approval is a carrot on a stick. Once you decide to chase it, you’re forever grasping. Every step you take is on the back of someone else’s approval and the further you go, the more of it you need.

Not a good place to be.

You don’t need permission or approval to be you and do what you do.

Without doubt, it’s the hardest thing to overcome, but the rewards for doing it are endless. You’re not good enough the day someone tells you that you are. You’re good enough when you’re tired of waiting for that day.

At this stage, skill and aptitude have nothing to do with it. Hard to believe, I know. Truth is, everyone starts out “not good enough.” Only the people that actually start end up becoming good enough.

My Confession

Here’s a little confession: I’m pretty new to the writing world, myself. I’ve got no credentials beyond my award winning book report on Oliver Twist in 10th grade and if we cross paths tomorrow, I’ll have no business card to give you.

Do I write the most beautiful prose you’ve ever read? Heck no. But every day I try to tell stories that connect with people that are like me and it seems to be working.
That’s why I’m writing this post for you. You’re not going to come find me just because I’m here, so I’m out finding you.

The most important thing you can do when you start selling your art is anything. Sure, you’ll get a lot of things wrong, but then you’ll get a lot of them right.

Think of everything you wish you could have before you get started and then imagine how you’d begin if you could never have it.

Start there.

Over to You

Can you think of anything else you don’t need to start selling your creative work?
About the Author: Tyler Tervooren helps extraordinary people improve their lives by doing really scary things at his site, Advanced Riskology. He’s currently on his own quest to join the top 1% of the world.

EIGHT THINGS YOU MUST DO WHEN SELLING A PIECE OF ART:

There are a few steps to take when you’ve made a sale of your artwork.  The most important is to make a meaningful connection with your new collector.  After all, the collectors are your supporters who enable you to live a creative life.  And living a creative life enables you to make important contributions to the world.
The rest of the Eight Things You Must Do are necessary for all creative professionals for their creative success.

1.)  PHOTOGRAPH OR SCAN YOUR ART:  Before selling any and every piece you create, be sure to have a photograph of it, preferably a high quality scan.  Trust me, this will come in handy later for more reasons than I can list here.

2.)  AGREE TO A PRICE: The price of your artwork should already be determined and listed, either on your website or on the price sheet if you’re at an art festival or event.  A customer may ask for a discount.  It’s up to you if you want to offer a discount. Some artists will bump their prices up by 5%, then give a discount of 5% when asked.  Or, if a customer is buying multiple pieces, you may want to give a small price break.

3.)  ADD SALES TAX AND SHIPPING CHARGES:  In Orange County, California, our sales tax is a whopping 8.75%!  That gets added to the price of the piece, as well as my estimated shipping charges, if the item will be shipped.  Be careful with estimating shipping – sometimes you’ll end up paying a lot more because you didn’t charge enough.  (Note:  If you are shipping the item to an out-of-state location, you don’t have to charge sales tax.)

4.)  ARRANGE DELIVERY:  There are a few options for artwork delivery:

• CUSTOMER TAKES IT HOME ON THE SPOT:  When at an event, if the customer paid cash or credit card (and you processed the card already), then let them take it with them if possible.  This will save you the trouble of shipping later, and the customer is usually happy not to have to pay shipping charges.
• If they paid by check or PayPal, I strongly advise you to wait for the payment to clear. We’ve sold many art pieces at shows where the customer paid by check, and only one time did a check bounce.  But I’ll tell you, that one time stung!  I no longer let the customer take the item home until after the money is officially in the bank.
• PICK UP AT STUDIO:  If the buyer is local to your area, arrange for them to pick up the piece at your studio after the payment has cleared.   I love when people come to our Drew Brophy studio to pick up art, because it’s an opportunity to show them other pieces. Once we get a new collector to come into our studio and get to know us personally, they become a Drew Brophy fan for life.  The personal connection is very powerful.
• DELIVER AND HANG FOR THEM:  You could offer to deliver and hang the art for a small additional fee that would cover your time and travel expenses.  If a customer purchases several large pieces, and they are less than a two hour drive from our studio, we offer to personally deliver and hang the art for them at no charge.
• FOLLOW UP:  If you’ve shipped the piece, follow up by phone or e-mail later, to make sure that it arrived safely.

5.)  PROVIDE A RECEIPT: Print out a receipt for the customer so that they have a record of the artwork and price they paid for it.  The receipt should have all of your contact information on it, as well as your website address, your phone number and your email.  Many artists include a copyright notice on their receipts.  Ours states that “The artwork copyright is owned by Drew Brophy.  Any reproduction of this artwork must be agreed to, in a separate licensing agreement and in writing, by Drew Brophy.”

6.)  RECORD THE COLLECTORS CONTACT INFO: Always keep a record of all buyers of your artwork. We have a spreadsheet of every person who has bought Drew Brophy’s originals going back to 1996 (which is when we started keeping track).  I recommend using an Excel Spreadsheet so that you can sort according to year, or painting name, or medium, as you need to.  The spreadsheet has the following information:

TITLE OF ARTWORK/Year Created/MEDIUM/Size/$ PRICE PAID/Buyer NAME, ADDRESS, PHONE, EMAIL

7.)  SEND A THANK YOU CARD:  We mail a nice “thank you” card about a week after the painting was shipped, delivered or picked up.  In the card we write our heartfelt thanks for the buyer contributing to the arts and we share our wish that they enjoy the art for years to come.

8.)  MAILING LIST:  Add your collector’s information to your mailing list (ask permission to add their e-mail to your newsletter list).  If you don’t send out mailers or newsletters, eventually you will, so start your list now.  A mailing list is a fabulous way to keep in touch with your collectors over the years, particularly if you want to invite them to future shows or let them know about new works that you’ve created.

Be sure to let your collector know that you appreciate their love of your art, and that you are happy to see the piece go to a good home.  Without the support of our collectors, I don’t know what Drew and I would be doing for a living.

Art collectors are the angels that provide support for the arts and that make it possible for artists to put more beauty into the world. For that, I’m grateful!

article from Maria Brophy

Robin Baker Teaching participants to “see” is the primary goal of this Two Day Drawing Workshop . It is to introduce the elements of drawing such as gesture, line, contour, etc. To “look” observe. And see as an artist

We will be using charcoal initially then moving on to other materials such as conte, pen and ink, if time allows. My firm belief is if you can print or write your name you can learn to draw. All you need is the desire to learn. (This is a workshop that I would normally teach over say 6 to 8 weeks , but perhaps a taste to start as an introduction to drawing might be a good start for some people ) It might encourage them to take other courses and workshops you might run .

Following classes will also be available for people that wants to learn more about drawing with Robin Baker. They will be on February 4, 11, 18, 25 




Please call at 613-205-1258 to reserve you seat; space is limited The cost is 220$ and it a 2 day class on Saturday, January 28, 20112

Here is a bit more information on your teacher:

In 1995, through a collaborative project with Carleton University's School of Architecture, a unique building was designed and constructed to serve as Ms. Baker's art studio and as a place for workshops and special events held for the public and artistic community.

When not painting or teaching, Ms.Baker actively works to promote the visual arts through special public awareness exhibits, demonstrations, and lectures. In 1998, Ms. Baker completed a 11' x 14' commission of seven painted masonite panels for the lobby entrance of Mosaid Technologies Incorportated of Kanata, Ont. Robin Baker has since completed several series of works inspired by her travels across Canada, and visits to New Mexico, Portugal, and Morocco.

Robin Baker is a mixed media artist and art instructor, working in oils, encaustics, watercolours, pastels, and pen and ink with subjects ranging from landscapes, the figure, and still life. Abstract works and the human figure remain her special interests. When not painting or teaching, Ms Baker actively works to promote the visual arts through special public awareness exhibits, demonstrations, and lectures. Robin Baker has several series of works inspired by the people and landscapes encountered during her travels across Canada and visits to New Mexico, Portugal, Morocco, Turkey, Costa Rica, and Paris, France.

Education

1968-1973 Centre for Creative Studies, Detroit, Michigan affiliated college with Wayne State University

Solo Exhibitions

Almonte, Detroit, Merrickville, and Windsor

Images of Women: Equalities and Inequalities. Philip K Wood Gallery, 1997

Zen Rocks & Santa Fe Suite. Peter K Wood Gallery, September 1999.

Robin Baker & Robert Hinchley. Peter K Wood Gallery 1998.

Robin's Flight. SAW Video Ottawa Arts Court Feb. 2002

Figurative Classical & Contemporary. Sans Souci Gallery, Oct-No v, 2003

Zen and Now - Green Door Restaurant. Ottawa, June 2005

Moments in Humanity- Atrium Gallery, Ottawa Oct-Nov, 2005

The Reflective Spirit - Cumberland Gallery, Orleans, Nov.-Dec. ,2007

Empowered Women- Moving Forward, Judith Moore Gallery, Merrickville, 2008

Group Exhibits

Almonte, Ann Arbour, Mich., Detroit, Kingston, Merrickville, Montreal, Toronto, Ottawa

Vancouver, Wakefield, Westport, & Windsor. Annual: Merrickville Artists' Guild.

Special Exhibits

In Praise of Women's Bodies - World Conference on Breast Cancer, at the National

Congress Centre, Ottawa July 1999

Divinia et Famina III: Sacred Domesticity - Ottawa University, May 2000.

The Mayor's Sweet Heart Lunch for the Arts, Canadian Museum of Nature 2002

Vagina Monologues (set design). Brockville Arts Centre, Brockville 2003

Drawing 2005. 6th Annual Juried Exhibition, John B. Aird Gallery, Toronto 2005

On and Off the Wall. Juror & Exhibitor, Britannia Gallery, Ottawa April 2005

Regeneration - Juried Exhibition, John B. Aird Gallery, Toronto April 2006

3rd Annual "The Print Show" John B. Aird Gallery, Toronto June 2006

Women's Art Festival, Kingston, August 2006, 2007

5th Annual "The Print Show" John B. Aird Gallery, Toronto 2008

Publications

Queen's Quarterly, Queens University, Kingston. Fall 2001; Winter 2003; Fall 2004

Current Galleries

Michalange Gallery, Montreal; Ottawa Art Rental, Ottawa; Judith Moore Gallery, Merrickville

Teaching Experience: has instructed classes in colour, drawing, and other forms of artistic creative expression through art colleges, art galleries, and private workshops. Regularly conducts week-end workshops exploring various aspects of creativity. Also provided specialized workshops for corporations and government managers to stimulate creativity and re-invigorate leaders to think "out of the box."

Cost will be 220 dollars

Modern art was CIA 'weapon'

Revealed: how the spy agency used unwitting artists such as Pollock and de Kooning in a cultural Cold War

For decades in art circles it was either a rumour or a joke, but now it is confirmed as a fact. The Central Intelligence Agency used American modern art - including the works of such artists as Jackson Pollock, Robert Motherwell, Willem de Kooning and Mark Rothko - as a weapon in the Cold War. In the manner of a Renaissance prince - except that it acted secretly - the CIA fostered and promoted American Abstract Expressionist painting around the world for more than 20 years.

The connection is improbable. This was a period, in the 1950s and 1960s, when the great majority of Americans disliked or even despised modern art - President Truman summed up the popular view when he said: "If that's art, then I'm a Hottentot." As for the artists themselves, many were ex- com- munists barely acceptable in the America of the McCarthyite era, and certainly not the sort of people normally likely to receive US government backing.

Why did the CIA support them? Because in the propaganda war with the Soviet Union, this new artistic movement could be held up as proof of the creativity, the intellectual freedom, and the cultural power of the US. Russian art, strapped into the communist ideological straitjacket, could not compete.
The existence of this policy, rumoured and disputed for many years, has now been confirmed for the first time by former CIA officials. Unknown to the artists, the new American art was secretly promoted under a policy known as the "long leash" - arrangements similar in some ways to the indirect CIA backing of the journal Encounter, edited by Stephen Spender.

The decision to include culture and art in the US Cold War arsenal was taken as soon as the CIA was founded in 1947. Dismayed at the appeal communism still had for many intellectuals and artists in the West, the new agency set up a division, the Propaganda Assets Inventory, which at its peak could influence more than 800 newspapers, magazines and public information organisations. They joked that it was like a Wurlitzer jukebox: when the CIA pushed a button it could hear whatever tune it wanted playing across the world.

The next key step came in 1950, when the International Organisations Division (IOD) was set up under Tom Braden. It was this office which subsidised the animated version of George Orwell's Animal Farm, which sponsored American jazz artists, opera recitals, the Boston Symphony Orchestra's international touring programme. Its agents were placed in the film industry, in publishing houses, even as travel writers for the celebrated Fodor guides. And, we now know, it promoted America's anarchic avant-garde movement, Abstract Expressionism.

Initially, more open attempts were made to support the new American art. In 1947 the State Department organised and paid for a touring international exhibition entitled "Advancing American Art", with the aim of rebutting Soviet suggestions that America was a cultural desert. But the show caused outrage at home, prompting Truman to make his Hottentot remark and one bitter congressman to declare: "I am just a dumb American who pays taxes for this kind of trash." The tour had to be cancelled.

The US government now faced a dilemma. This philistinism, combined with Joseph McCarthy's hysterical denunciations of all that was avant-garde or unorthodox, was deeply embarrassing. It discredited the idea that America was a sophisticated, culturally rich democracy. It also prevented the US government from consolidating the shift in cultural supremacy from Paris to New York since the 1930s. To resolve this dilemma, the CIA was brought in.

The connection is not quite as odd as it might appear. At this time the new agency, staffed mainly by Yale and Harvard graduates, many of whom collected art and wrote novels in their spare time, was a haven of liberalism when compared with a political world dominated by McCarthy or with J Edgar Hoover's FBI. If any official institution was in a position to celebrate the collection of Leninists, Trotskyites and heavy drinkers that made up the New York School, it was the CIA.

Until now there has been no first-hand evidence to prove that this connection was made, but for the first time a former case officer, Donald Jameson, has broken the silence. Yes, he says, the agency saw Abstract Expressionism as an opportunity, and yes, it ran with it.

"Regarding Abstract Expressionism, I'd love to be able to say that the CIA invented it just to see what happens in New York and downtown SoHo tomorrow!" he joked. "But I think that what we did really was to recognise the difference. It was recognised that Abstract Expression- ism was the kind of art that made Socialist Realism look even more stylised and more rigid and confined than it was. And that relationship was exploited in some of the exhibitions.

"In a way our understanding was helped because Moscow in those days was very vicious in its denunciation of any kind of non-conformity to its own very rigid patterns. And so one could quite adequately and accurately reason that anything they criticised that much and that heavy- handedly was worth support one way or another."

To pursue its underground interest in America's lefty avant-garde, the CIA had to be sure its patronage could not be discovered. "Matters of this sort could only have been done at two or three removes," Mr Jameson explained, "so that there wouldn't be any question of having to clear Jackson Pollock, for example, or do anything that would involve these people in the organisation. And it couldn't have been any closer, because most of them were people who had very little respect for the government, in particular, and certainly none for the CIA. If you had to use people who considered themselves one way or another to be closer to Moscow than to Washington, well, so much the better perhaps."

This was the "long leash". The centrepiece of the CIA campaign became the Congress for Cultural Freedom, a vast jamboree of intellectuals, writers, historians, poets, and artists which was set up with CIA funds in 1950 and run by a CIA agent. It was the beach-head from which culture could be defended against the attacks of Moscow and its "fellow travellers" in the West. At its height, it had offices in 35 countries and published more than two dozen magazines, including Encounter.

The Congress for Cultural Freedom also gave the CIA the ideal front to promote its covert interest in Abstract Expressionism. It would be the official sponsor of touring exhibitions; its magazines would provide useful platforms for critics favourable to the new American painting; and no one, the artists included, would be any the wiser.

This organisation put together several exhibitions of Abstract Expressionism during the 1950s. One of the most significant, "The New American Painting", visited every big European city in 1958-59. Other influential shows included "Modern Art in the United States" (1955) and "Masterpieces of the Twentieth Century" (1952).

Because Abstract Expressionism was expensive to move around and exhibit, millionaires and museums were called into play. Pre-eminent among these was Nelson Rockefeller, whose mother had co-founded the Museum of Modern Art in New York. As president of what he called "Mummy's museum", Rockefeller was one of the biggest backers of Abstract Expressionism (which he called "free enterprise painting"). His museum was contracted to the Congress for Cultural Freedom to organise and curate most of its important art shows.

The museum was also linked to the CIA by several other bridges. William Paley, the president of CBS broadcasting and a founding father of the CIA, sat on the members' board of the museum's International Programme. John Hay Whitney, who had served in the agency's wartime predecessor, the OSS, was its chairman. And Tom Braden, first chief of the CIA's International Organisations Division, was executive secretary of the museum in 1949.

Now in his eighties, Mr Braden lives in Woodbridge, Virginia, in a house packed with Abstract Expressionist works and guarded by enormous Alsatians. He explained the purpose of the IOD.

"We wanted to unite all the people who were writers, who were musicians, who were artists, to demonstrate that the West and the United States was devoted to freedom of expression and to intellectual achievement, without any rigid barriers as to what you must write, and what you must say, and what you must do, and what you must paint, which was what was going on in the Soviet Union. I think it was the most important division that the agency had, and I think that it played an enormous role in the Cold War."

He confirmed that his division had acted secretly because of the public hostility to the avant-garde: "It was very difficult to get Congress to go along with some of the things we wanted to do - send art abroad, send symphonies abroad, publish magazines abroad. That's one of the reasons it had to be done covertly. It had to be a secret. In order to encourage openness we had to be secret."

If this meant playing pope to this century's Michelangelos, well, all the better: "It takes a pope or somebody with a lot of money to recognise art and to support it," Mr Braden said. "And after many centuries people say, 'Oh look! the Sistine Chapel, the most beautiful creation on Earth!' It's a problem that civilisation has faced ever since the first artist and the first millionaire or pope who supported him. And yet if it hadn't been for the multi-millionaires or the popes, we wouldn't have had the art."

Would Abstract Expressionism have been the dominant art movement of the post-war years without this patronage? The answer is probably yes. Equally, it would be wrong to suggest that when you look at an Abstract Expressionist painting you are being duped by the CIA.

But look where this art ended up: in the marble halls of banks, in airports, in city halls, boardrooms and great galleries. For the Cold Warriors who promoted them, these paintings were a logo, a signature for their culture and system which they wanted to display everywhere that counted. They succeeded.

* The full story of the CIA and modern art is told in 'Hidden Hands' on Channel 4 next Sunday at 8pm. The first programme in the series is screened tonight. Frances Stonor Saunders is writing a book on the cultural Cold War.

Covert Operation
 
In 1958 the touring exhibition "The New American Painting", including works by Pollock, de Kooning, Motherwell and others, was on show in Paris. The Tate Gallery was keen to have it next, but could not afford to bring it over. Late in the day, an American millionaire and art lover, Julius Fleischmann, stepped in with the cash and the show was brought to London.

The money that Fleischmann provided, however, was not his but the CIA's. It came through a body called the Farfield Foundation, of which Fleischmann was president, but far from being a millionaire's charitable arm, the foundation was a secret conduit for CIA funds.

So, unknown to the Tate, the public or the artists, the exhibition was transferred to London at American taxpayers' expense to serve subtle Cold War propaganda purposes. A former CIA man, Tom Braden, described how such conduits as the Farfield Foundation were set up. "We would go to somebody in New York who was a well-known rich person and we would say, 'We want to set up a foundation.' We would tell him what we were trying to do and pledge him to secrecy, and he would say, 'Of course I'll do it,' and then you would publish a letterhead and his name would be on it and there would be a foundation. It was really a pretty simple device."

Julius Fleischmann was well placed for such a role. He sat on the board of the International Programme of the Museum of Modern Art in New York - as did several powerful figures close to the CIA.


Article from the Independent

By Frances Stonor Saunders Sunday 22 October 1995

Search for Lost da Vinci Gets Desperate.

Image: Peter Paul Rubens' copy of The Battle of Anghiari. (Wikimedia Commons)
.
After 35 years of noninvasive research, art experts have turned to rather drastic methods to solve a longstanding Leonardo da Vinci mystery.

Putting aside the state-of-the-art technologies employed in the past decades, the researchers have simply drilled a hole into a frescoed wall that they believe hides a long-lost da Vinci masterpiece known as the "Battle of Anghiari."

"We are finally in the condition to put to an end a great research. In the next two-three months, one of art history's greatest mysteries will be solved once and for all," Matteo Renzi, the mayor of Florence, said.
Unfortunately, the drill wasn't performed on an ordinary wall. Standing in Palazzo Vecchio, Florence's 14th-century city hall, in the imposing Hall of Five Hundred, the wall houses a mural known as the "Battle of Marciano." It was painted by the renowned 15th-century painter, architect and writer Giorgio Vasari.

PHOTOS: Da Vinci's 'Magi' Hides Master's Original Vision: Photos 

Maurizio Seracini, director of the Center of Interdisciplinary Science for Art, Architecture and Archaeology at the University of California, San Diego, is convinced that Leonardo's lost work lies right behind that Vasari wall.

The long-lost fresco, which Seracini has been searching for since the 1970s, has a mysterious history. It was conceived in 1503, when Leonardo and Michelangelo received twin commissions to paint on opposite walls of the Palazzo Vecchio.

Both murals were to represent historic Florentine victories, and the commissions re-enforced the intense rivalry between the two artists.

While Michelangelo never got past a sketch of his "Battle of Cascina," Leonardo began to paint the ''Battle of Anghiari" on June 6, 1505, when he was 53. The mural would celebrate the Florentines' victory over Milanese troops in 1440.

In his 1550 book Lives of the Artists, Vasari (1511-1574) reported that Leonardo painted only a portion of the 12- by 15-foot fresco. It was a battle known as the ''Fight for the Standard," which represented "vividly the rage and fury both of the men and the horses," Vasari wrote.

NEWS: Nude, Mona Lisa-like Painting Surfaces 

He also reported that Leonardo abandoned the project because of technical problems arising from his experimental mixing of oil paint and fresco.

Historians, however, have questioned Vasari's conclusion. Some speculated that he made up the story, and that the fresco, which now survives in several preparatory drawings and sketches by the master, actually was completed.

Ten years after writing his account of the "Battle of Anghiari," Vasari was given the task to modify the council room into the Hall of Five Hundred, a hall dedicated to the ruling Medici family.
During that operation, Leonardo's mural disappeared.

It wasn't the only artwork to dissolve. Working on the city-wide renovation plan devised by Duke Cosimo I to celebrate the Medici family, Vasari had to sacrifice masterpieces such as Masaccio's Trinity in the church of Santa Maria Novella.

Yet he did not destroy the work; he just covered it with a brick wall on which he painted a panel of the "Madonna of the Rosary."

Masaccio's work remained obscured until 1861, when Vasari's wall was removed.

Image: Giorgio Vasari's Battle of Marciano. (Wikimedia Commons).

In 2000, at a da Vinci conference, leading scholar Carlo Pedretti proposed that Vasari saved Leonardo's masterpiece just as he had Masaccio's.

The conference prompted Seracini to carry out sophisticated tests that involved the use of laser scanners, X-ray machines, and thermographic and radar equipment.

First he reconstructed the plan of the hall before Vasari's remodeling by finding the original windows and doors, now covered by walls. Then he focused on Vasari's work.

He found that the walls were reinforced with large stone frames, which Vasari then filled with bricks to create a surface for his own paintings: the "Battle of Torre" on the west wall and the "Battle of Marciano" on the east wall.

Seracini (the only nonfictional living character mentioned in "The Da Vinci Code") found a Dan Brown-like clue in the wall housing the "Battle of Marciano."

There, on a tiny painted green flag, Vasari wrote: Cerca, trova -- seek and you shall find.

PHOTOS: The Face of Da Vinci: An Enduring Mystery 

A radar survey carried out last September revealed the presence of a hollow space on the east wall (which houses the "Battle of Marciano") between Vasari's brick wall and the original stone wall.

After the survey's promising results, Seracini and his team launched a fund-raising campaign to develop a unique camera that could take photographs through the 5-inch-thick wall.

The camera would use a special copper-crystal mosaic gamma ray diffraction lens, which can map out hidden paint pigments.

As the fund-raising effort failed, the researchers turned to a less complicated but more intrusive technique.
In a sort of art endoscopy, they are now drilling holes in various areas of the Vasari fresco and inserting micro cameras to capture images inside the wall.

A total of seven micro holes will be drilled this week. Then at least two months will be needed for the final lab results.

The first hole has already revealed that a less than 1-inch hollow space indeed exists.

BLOG: Ultraviolet Light Uncovers Real Giotto 

"We are very moved. We are aware that there might be nothing behind the wall. However, the results of the radar survey have been totally confimed and this gives us great hopes," Renzi said.

Although Renzi stressed that the holes have been drilled in some already damaged areas of the Vasari fresco, which will be restored after the operation, a controversy has sprung up over the intrusive approach.
Cecilia Frosinini, mural paintings section director at Florence's Opificio delle Pietre Dure art restoration laboratory, resigned in protest from the project.

"It's an ethical question. I'm supposed to protect the artworks, and here there is an invasive intervention on the painting," Frosinini wrote.

According to Tomaso Montanari, an art historian at the University Federico II in Naples, the researchers will have to face disappointing results.

"I believe Leonardo's work is not behind that wall," he told the daily La Repubblica.

"Vasari would have never covered a work by an artist he admired so much in the hope that one day someone would search and find it. You would expect such a hypothesis from Dan Brown, certainly not from art historians," Montanari said.

article from Discovery News

Analysis by Rossella Lorenzi
Thu Dec 1, 2011 04:27 PM ET

How to Live With an Artiist

article from eHow

By braniac

• Print this article

                                                                      Living with an artist is not easy. They can be moody and eccentric to say the least. They are also usually very passionate about the things they care about, one of which is the person they love. This article is for those of you who have chosen to live under the same roof as an artist. Being an artist, I understand the ups and downs of being creative, but also married to another artist, I am able to see things from the other side, and how truly crazy it can seem at times!

Instructions

How to Live With an Artist 

1. Don't nag. This is a hard one, especially for those who are not artists. But being an artist myself, I still find myself nagging my husband. There are better ways of asking for something to be done or reminding him about something. Asking in a nice way is key. If they forget, instead of nagging in an angry way, try to convey the way that it hurt you. After all, anger is a byproduct of being hurt.
2. Watch for depression. It's a wonderful thing that whoever you are with is lucky enough to have you in their lives. Artists can become very alone in their creative depression bouts, and that is a dangerous thing. Make sure that they do have their necessary alone time because that is also necessary, and will make your life a lot easier. But also remind them that you are there for them. Be a shoulder to cry on if they need it.
3. Be careful when you are arguing about money troubles. Try to figure out how to work through it together instead of placing all of the burden on them. Being an artist isn't easy. At times, my husband and I both wish we could be satisfied with regular jobs that bring in regular cash. However, we wouldn't trade in being artists for anything in the end.
4. Give them their space. This doesn't mean that they don't love you or are tired of you. Artists need their space to breathe for their own creativity. Give them what I like to call "alone time."
5. In general, artists tend to be a bit messy! My husband is a tornado and I am not much better naturally. I've had to learn to be more organized, otherwise the house would be more of a wreck than it is! For one, you cannot expect the house to be spotless all the time. Artists will have books, papers, supplies, and everything else, everywhere! This will be extremely hard for people who are used to having everything in its place. If possible, have a specific room for creating art, or at least a good sized area in the house. This area either needs to contain or be close to books and the computer. Also think of things in big sections. These sections will be easier for the artist to separate things (i.e. hamper for dirty laundry, basket in the front for mail and other papers that need to be looked at). Artists can see the big picture, and once that is maintained, will pay attention to the details. Also, categorizing things where you can visually see them will help keep things organized.

 Read Next: How to Research the Career of an Artist

Do Mona Lisa's Eyes Hide a Secret Code?

Hidden behind the Mona Lisa's eyes is a mysterious code made of letters and numbers, according to a controversial claim by members of Italy's national committee for cultural heritage.
Magnifying high-resolution images of the world’s most famous painting would reveal hidden letters and numbers added by Leonardo Da Vinci, said Silvano Vinceti, president of the Committee.
“To the naked eye, the symbols are hard to distinguish, but with a magnifying glass you can see the letters LV behind the right pupil (the left when watching the painting). They could stand for his name Leonardo Da Vinci,” Vinceti told the Italian news agency ANSA.
Even harder to decode would be the symbols in the left pupil (the right when watching the painting).

SEE ALSO: Mona Lisa's Smile Hides Da Vinci's Technique

According to Vinceti, they appear to be the letters CE or simply the letter B. Other symbols would be hidden in the landscape, more precisely in the arch of the bridge.
“They seem to be the number 72, or it could be an L and the number 2,” Vinceti said.
While it is quickly spreading over the Internet to the delight of Dan Brown’s fans, the claim has not gained much support among Leonardo scholars.

SEE ALSO: Mona Lisa's Identity Confirmed by Document

“I can’t offer any comment on the scientific value of this 'finding' since the scientific basis to support it are missing,” Carlo Pedretti, the world's leading scholar in Leonardo studies, told Discovery News.
“Under the microscope, the eyes of the original Mona Lisa -- not those appearing in magnifying high-resolution images -- do not present any cryptic sign, such as numbers or letters, but only the craquelure (or cracking) also visible to the naked eye,” Pedretti, who heads the Armand Hammer Center for Leonardo Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles, said.

SEE ALSO: Nude, Mona Lisa-Like Painting Surfaces

Alessandro Vezzosi, the director of the Museo Ideale in the Tuscan town of Vinci, where Leonardo was born in 1452, agrees.

“Scientific tests such as non-invasive X-ray fluorescence spectroscopy have revealed many interesting features, but certainly no letters and numbers,” Vezzosi told Discovery News.

“People are so fascinated by this painting that they can see everything in it,” said Vezzosi, the curator of a traveling exhibition called “Mona Lisa Is Naked,” which explores the impact of the enigmatic lady on art while gathering portraits of a half-naked women with clear links to the famous (and clothed) Mona Lisa.
Completed toward the end of the life of Leonardo, who lived from 1452 to 1519, the Mona Lisa has raised innumerable speculations.

SEE ALSO: Mona Lisa Grave Found, Claims Scholar

Some, including Vinceti, claimed that the woman with the enigmatic smile was a self-portrait, Leonardo Da Vinci in drag.

Others suggested that the sitter was either Caterina Sforza, the illegitimate daughter of Galeazzo Maria Sforza, Duke of Milan; Isabella of Aragon, the Duchess of Milan; or Costanza d'Avalos, Duchess of Francavilla, a mistress of Giuliano de Medici.

In 2005, Veit Probst, director of the Heidelberg University Library, found evidence in notes written in October 1503 in the margin of a book that Leonardo’s model was Lisa Gherardini, a member of a minor noble family of rural origins who married the merchant Francesco del Giocondo.

Attempts to solve the enigma around her smile, described by the 16th century artist and writer Giorgio Vasari as "more divine than human," have included theories that the noblewoman was happily pregnant, suffering from asthma, had facial paralysis or that the smile was the result of a compulsive gnashing of teeth.

SEE ALSO: Was Da Vinci's Mother a Slave?

Another disease attributed to Mona Lisa is an inherited cholesterol disorder called familial hypercholesterolemia.

The disorder is highlighted by a wart-like lesion of the skin near the left eye (the right when watching the painting) which is basically a cholesterol skin deposit called xanthelasma.

Interestingly, none of the known reproductions of the Mona Lisa feature such skin lesion.

"We might come to the conclusion that none of the copies which have come down to us were based upon a direct confrontation with the Louvre picture, and hence were more than likely copies of copies," the late art historian James Beck wrote in a 2007 paper on the subject.

Analysis by Rossella Lorenzi
Mon Dec 13, 2010 05:17 PM ET
(25) Comments | Leave a Comment

          Photo credit: Getty Images
          Article from Discovery News 

 WATCH VIDEO: The woman behind one of the world's most famous paintings was born in a humble house in Florence.

Was Michelangelo's artistic genius a symptom of autism?

Artist ~PLynn

 Genius or a symptom of autism?

The ceiling of the Sistine Chapel in Rome, the Pietà, the statue of David - Michelangelo's works have long been recognised as the creations of a true genius. But two medical experts now claim the renowned Renaissance artist could have suffered from a form of autism.

The ceiling of the Sistine Chapel in Rome, the Pietà, the statue of David - Michelangelo's works have long been recognised as the creations of a true genius. But two medical experts now claim the renowned Renaissance artist could have suffered from a form of autism.

Dr Muhammad Arshad, staff psychiatrist at Whiston Hospital in Prescot, Merseyside, and Professor Michael Fitzgerald, from Trinity College Dublin, have concluded that the Italian artist may have suffered from Asperger's syndrome. The claims, however, have been rubbished by art historians.

Outlining their evidence in the Journal of Medical Biography, Dr Arshad and Professor Fitzgerald said: "Michelangelo's single-minded work routine, unusual lifestyle, limited interests, poor social and communication skills, and various issues of life control appear to be features of high-functioning autism or Asperger's syndrome."

But James Hall, an art historian and the author of Michelangelo and the Reinvention of the Human Body, dismissed the claims. He said: "There is simply no evidence [Michelangelo] had any medical problems of this nature. He wrote poetry, was extremely articulate and worked to an extremely high level well into his eighties.

"The character traits they are referring to - obsessional behaviour, fiery temper, propensity to be a loner - could be linked to many artists. Or newspaper editors for that matter. This deconstruction of artists along medical lines seems to be a sort of vogue among certain doctors. One recently said El Greco's distinctive painting style was the result of a squint."

People with Asperger's syndrome have difficulties with communication and social interaction but can show an unusual, often obsessional, talent or skill in a particular area. Some sufferers display remarkable abilities in music, drawing or mathematics. According to Dr Arshad and Professor Fitzgerald, their research into the sculptor and painter's life - taken from numerous works, including notes from the artist's assistant and his family - all pointed to Michelangelo suffering from high-functioning autism.

Michelangelo di Ludovico Buonarroti Simoni, born in 1475, had a troubled childhood, being frequently beaten by his father, the pair noted. Aged 14, he began a three-year apprenticeship with the famous artist Domenico Ghirlandaio.

However, his dexterity with brush and chisel contrasted with his inability to conduct normal human relationships. Dr Arshad and Prof Fitzgerald said: "Michelangelo was aloof and a loner. Like the architect John Nash, who also had high-functioning autism, he had few friends." His failure to attend his brother's funeral demonstrated that he was unable to show emotion, the two experts claimed.
Michelangelo was also obsessive and followed repetitive routines. Loss of control caused him "great frustration", the report said, and he focused so much on his work that he toiled eight years over The Last Judgement. His highly retentive memory also allowed him to generate, in a short time, many hundreds of sketches for the Sistine ceiling.

The report also said Michelangelo found communication and conversation difficult. "He was bad tempered and had anger outbursts," it added. He had a sarcastic wit and was "paranoid at times, narcissistic and schizoid". He was also described as "strange, without affect, and isolated" as well as being "preoccupied with his own private reality".

TORTURED MASTERS OF THE ARTS
 
CLAUDE MONET
 
Suffered from astigmatism and cataracts. Fitted with glasses, he proclaimed: "If the world really looks like that I will paint no more." When painting the Water-lilies sequence he is reported to have told a friend: "My poor eyesight makes me see everything in a complete fog."

VINCENT VAN GOGH
 
After deciding art was his vocation and "the means by which he could bring consolation to humanity", Van Gogh was poverty-stricken and in hallucinatory depression in 1888. He painted more than 200 canvases in 15 months then cut off part of his left ear.

LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN
 
After the onset of deafness in 1812, Beethoven became chronically depressed. This gave way to a period that produced Hammerklavier Op106, Choral Symphony No9 in D minor and seven piano sonatas, works considered by some as his "profoundest music".

CLAUDE DEBUSSY
 
When ill health prevented him from serving in the French army in the Second World War, Debussy became depressed and unable to compose - until his second sonata, dedicated to his daughter Claude-Emma. He said it was "terrible melancholy - should one laugh or cry?"

JOHN KEATS
 
Since his death, experts have diagnosed the poet with manic depressive illness, an affective disorder characterised by a proximity of highs and lows. Statements such as "I shall get over my indolent fits" seem to suggest this predicament.

MARY SHELLEY
 
Fell under a dark spell of depression after the death of her infant daughter. The feelings paved the way for her gothic masterpiece Frankenstein, published in 1818, which was to become the most widely read novel for three decades.

by Yvonne Gavan

Stone Age Cave Painters Were Realists

from Discovery News

 

THE GIST

• Researching their genetics, scientists confirmed the existence of leopard spotted horses.
• These horses were depicted on cave walls, providing evidence the cavemen painted realistic images based on what they saw. 

An international team of researchers said Monday they have found the first evidence that spotted horses, often seen depicted in cave paintings, actually existed tens of thousands of years ago.
That means ancient artists were drawing what they saw around them, and were not abstract or symbolic painters -- a topic of much debate among archeologists -- said the findings in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

By analyzing bones and teeth from more than 30 horses in Siberia and Europe dating back as many as 35,000 years, researchers found that six shared a gene associated with a type of leopard spotting seen in modern horses.

Until now, scientists only had DNA evidence of monochrome horses, such as bay and black.

One prominent example that has generated significant debate over its inspiration is the 25,000-year-old painting, "The Dappled Horses of Pech-Merle" in France, showing white horses with black spots.
"The spotted horses are featured in a frieze which includes hand outlines and abstract patterns of spots," explained Terry O'Connor, a professor at the University of York's Department of Archaeology.
"The juxtaposition of elements has raised the question of whether the spotted pattern is in some way symbolic or abstract, especially since many researchers considered a spotted coat phenotype unlikely for Paleolithic horses," he said.

"However, our research removes the need for any symbolic explanation of the horses. People drew what they saw."

The team was led by Melanie Pruvost of the Department of Evolutionary Genetics at the Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research and the Department of Natural Sciences at the German Archaeological Institute in Berlin.

Scientists from Britain, Mexico, the United States, Spain and Russia helped with the genotyping and analysis of the results.



"We are just starting to have the genetic tools to access the appearance of past animals and there are still a lot of question marks and phenotypes for which the genetic process has not yet been described," said Pruvost.
"However, we can already see that this kind of study will greatly improve our knowledge about the past. 

 

article posted on Discovery News on Tue Nov 8, 2011 11:40 AM ET
Content provided by AFP

 

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