Wednesday, August 22, 2007
Lion Man, or the Dawn of Art
American archaeologist Nicholas Conard is convinced art was invented in Germany more than 35,000 years ago. Artifacts found in the limestone caves of southwestern Germany -- a region called Swabia -- bear out his theory, to an extent. Many. like the Loewenmensch, or "Lion Man." are imaginative mixtures of human and animal features that speak to a high level of religious and artistic sophistication.
Not everyone agrees with his argument, though. I wrote about Conard and the controversy around his research in the September/October issue of Archaeology, on newsstands now.
Labels: Archaeology, conard, germany
Monday, August 13, 2007
Old Masters Online
Dresden's beautiful Gemaeldegalerie Alte Meister (Old Masters Picture Gallery) contains one of Germany's finest art collections. Being in the East, it's a little less well known than collections elsewhere in Germany. The museum's solution? Put itself online -- specifically, on the occasionally disparaged Second Life. The museum literally created a 1:1 clone of itself, faithfully recreating 37,000+ square feet of gallery space.
I put together a sort of multimedia photo gallery/article for Wired News on the cloned gallery. It's a fun little online tour, even if you don't follow it all the way to the Second Life version.
I put together a sort of multimedia photo gallery/article for Wired News on the cloned gallery. It's a fun little online tour, even if you don't follow it all the way to the Second Life version.
