International Renown
I found this painting by Robert S. Duncanson in the digital collection of the Cleveland Art Museum, and I assumed, as I usually do when I find an artist I've never heard of, that lots of people already know all about him and I'm just catching up. In this case, that's only partly true.
Duncanson was an African-American painter who found fame on both sides of the Atlantic during his lifetime, but fell into obscurity after his death. Happily, he's recently been featured in new exhibitions that have "helped restore his renown".
More:
- For more on Duncanson, this profile also explores his life: Robert S. Duncanson Charted New Paths for Black Artists in 19th-Century America.
- Duncanson's works are included in collections at the MET, the Smithsonian American Art Museum, and the Cleveland Museum of Art.
A Secret Note Hidden in an 1800s Dress Has Been Decoded
By Meg St-Esprit. Atlas Obscura.
By way of cryptography and fashion history, a reminder that some of the things we take for granted now are based on disciplines less than 150 years old.
“Bloggers listed it among the top 50 unsolved codes in the world, and many took a stab at it…While not espionage or international secrets, that cipher contained coded information that did in fact change daily life in North America.“
VIDEO: The Black Hole Bomb and Black Hole Civilizations
By Kurzgesagt – In a Nutshell.
This is the kind of video I enjoy most from the Kurzgesagt team: wildly imaginative speculation about far distant futures or alternative histories, but based on known scientific processes or principles, like the Penrose process and superradiant scattering.
"Everything you think you know about the weirdest thing in the universe is about to get weirder, for one simple reason: black holes are spinning."