Making time this morning for this magnificent Rothko via Daily Rothko.
In 1914, the Austrian actress Tilla Durieux was driven from Berlin to Paris some 15 times to sit for a portrait by Pierre-Auguste Renoir. In the resulting painting, Durieux looks serenely grave, fixing her gaze somewhere outside its shimmer of rose and honeyed tones. Writing years later, she described the severely arthritic artist. As he was wheeled into the room by a nurse, Durieux was “flabbergasted” by Renoir’s hands. His right, she noted, had been frozen by the arthritis in the gesture of holding a paintbrush; the left was contorted in such a way that it perfectly held a palette.
Fascinating nugget from this piece here at Art In America.
Some 2,300 light years from Earth lies the pulsar PSR B1257+12. It flashes 161 times per second and has been nicknamed “Lich” after an undead creature in western folklore. It is orbited by three rocky, terrestrial planets named Phobetor, Draugr and Poltergeist.