#museums and collections

[biglisbonnews]

Last Supper Museum Art & Music Center in Douglas, Arizona When Leonardo da Vinci painted The Last Supper in the dining hall at the monastery of Santa Maria delle Grazie, he couldn't have known that it would become one of the most frequently referenced and reimagined images in the history of art. In the last 500 years, thousands of Last Suppers have entered the world, with variations that include plaster ghosts in the Nevada desert and Jesus and his disciples eating guinea pig. The Last Supper Museum in Douglas, Arizona, is the world's largest collection of Last Supper-inspired pieces of art. Every medium is represented, including coal, mother of pearl, volcanic ash, gourd, among many others. Paintings and sculptures from all over the world presenting over 50 countries, located in a 113-year-old building. The museum was founded by Eric Braverman. He started collecting Last Supper artwork at a young age, and eventually learned about an Indiana museum with a collection of about 2,000 items inspired by the da Vinci painting. When the owner passed away a few years ago, Braverman acquired his collection and brought it to Arizona, where he opened a museum of his own. https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/last-supper-museum-douglas-arizona

[amnhnyc]

What can we learn from a dinosaur feather preserved in amber? Let’s go behind the scenes of the Museum’s collection of amber fossils to find out!

[aristoteliancomplacency]

I have died and am dead.

[jstor]

Roses are red, violets are blue... have some Valentine's Day cards, from JSTOR to you! 💌 Each card features a lovely image from Artstor on JSTOR. Images courtesy of Wellcome Collection and The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

[palossssssand]

Kraken sculpture made from cicada molts! Around 2 weeks of work cutting out the parts and glueing them onto an armature made of pipe cleaners and tape. Every “scale” is cut out from the abdomen of the molt, so each scale is from an individual cicada! This was a fun project made at the request of our museum director. No cicadas were harmed in the making of this sculpture.

[moodboard-d]

[a-dinosaur-a-day]

What's most amazing about people who hate that birds are dinosaurs is that, without the discovery of birds being dinosaurs in the 1960s, none of y'all would have ever actually cared about dinosaurs

the history:

dino craze in 1800s. people thought, birds are very similar to these guys. Dollo fucked it up, made a bad theory, and people stopped thinking that

Early 1900s, dinosaurs deemed sluggish, stupid, pointless evolutionary failures. most people not really into dinosaurs anymore. this continues until

1960s: Deinonychus discovered. suddenly, dinosaurs interesting again: vibrant, lively, warm blooded animals. Also... birds might be dinosaurs?

from the 60s through the 70s, a slow buildup of dinosaur culture - both in crappy stop motion movies, but also in children's books and other media

80s cladistics revolution shows birds are living dinosaurs, though not without flaws. documentary after documentary is made, causing the major dinosaur boom of the late 80s and early 90s

the peak of this boom are the A&E and PBS documentaries, which both outright state birds are dinosaurs

cartoons like land before time and other dinosaur content keep coming out too, especially at the end of the 80s and the earliest 90s

the book jurassic park, referencing the birds are dinosaurs thing, is written in the late 80s. in the early 90s, is adapted into one of the greatest blockbusters of all time. now dinosaur interest is MAINSTREAM.

jurassic park isn't the start of the dinosaur boom, it is the apex

90s becomes the decade of dinosaurs, with tons of new discoveries, television shows, documentaries, and other programming

1996 first feathered "nonavian" dinosaur discovered. birds are dinosaurs is the closest thing we have to proven phylogenetic fact

1999 walking with dinosaurs premieres, revolutionizing the dinosaur-documentary genre.

early 2000s becomes the age of Period-Type Dino-Docu-Dramas

velociraptor is determined to have feathers

suddenly, dinosaur mania starts to die in the later 2000s

even though discoveries keep happening and we learn so much in the 2010s, the 2010s becomes a very regressive time - a sort of reactionary response to the birdification of dinosaurs and the dinosaurification of birds. the height of this is jurassic world

we may be in the middle of a dino-docu-drama revitilization thanks to prehistoric planet. stay tuned on that one

like, everyone was fine with the birdification of dinosaurs up and until they looked "feminine" on the outside, because of feathers.

It's just all such transparent misogyny and homophobia and people who react against feathered dinosaurs or birds being dinosaurs are just... so transparently parroting conservative talking points

Anyways, yeah. without birds are dinosaurs, you wouldn't have jurassic park. Sooooo

[reading-books-in-the-moonlight]

[pwlanier]

[markscherz]

Those stuffed Ceratophrys blues

[ancientsstudies]

The most beautiful is to see the joy in your eyes.

ig credit: danielapardor.

[biglisbonnews]

L'Iber Museo de Los Soldaditos de Plomo in Valencia, Spain Said to be the largest collection of toy soldiers in the world, plus a few dinosaurs, cartoon characters, and the Beatles in several different guises, this museum is easily missed in the old heart of Valencia.  Whatever your interests, be it warfare through the ages, the modeling and painting of miniatures, or just wanting to see something unique, it's worth visiting. The building itself, and the rooms, are nearly as stunning as the collection, as it is housed in a well-preserved Mediterranean Gothic-style palace. Inside, there are more than 95,000 pieces on display, some in highly-detailed dioramas. Cabinet after cabinet is filled with inch-high models of battling men (and women) from prehistoric times (did man ever battle dinosaurs?) to World War II, although the Spanish Civil War seems to have been ignored. The first diorama portrays medieval knights on horseback jousting in front of a grandstand. Below it on a lower shelf, there is a random collection of 20th-century rock stars from the Small Faces to Prince, sadly the depiction of Peter Gabriel was spoilt by the fact that he had fallen over whilst playing a grand piano. In other rooms we are treated to street scenes from India and China, the Ancient Greeks fill several cabinets as do the Romans. There's a fair bit of nudity, one scene has naked ladies cavorting with half-men/half-stags. On a lighter note Asterix and his fellow Gauls fill a whole display as do a whole host of cowboys. Possibly the grandest display is of the Battle of Almansa, which contains over 9,000 figures alone. This battle took place in Spain in 1707 and won't mean much to you unless you are Spanish or have an interest in 18th-century history, but it's an epic diorama all the same. Yes, there are bigger attractions in Valencia, but if you want a change from religious iconography or 21st-century architecture, this is well worth a visit. https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/liber-museo-de-los-soldaditos-de-plomo

[amnhnyc]

On this day in 1936, the last known thylacine (Thylacinus cynocephalus) died at the Hobart Zoo in Tasmania. The animal’s passing marked the extinction of its species. Also known as the “Tasmanian wolf,” the thylacine was Australia’s largest marsupial predator. It sported a dog-like form, with distinctive stripes, and a jaw that could open up to 80 degrees—one of the largest gapes of any mammal.

The thylacine fed primarily on small mammals and birds. Nocturnal and shy, it was seldom seen by humans. However, beginning in the 19th century, settlers believed the animals threatened their livestock and, spurred on by a bounty offered by the government, hunted them relentlessly. Attempts at protecting the species in the wild came too late: Despite numerous unconfirmed reports of sightings in recent decades, no definitive sightings have occurred since the 1930s.

[mispelled]

That build-a-bear guy

[chaotic-archaeologist]

I mean it wasn't wrong, it just wasn't helpful.

[life-imitates-art-far-more]

Viggo Johansen (1851-1935) "Silent Night" (1891) Oil on canvas Located in the Hirschsprung Collection, Copenhagen, Denmark