Welcome back, one and all. We hope your Thanksgiving brought a bountiful harvest of food and family, and your Black Friday a crazy boatload of steals ‘n’ savings! We’re still too tryptophan-addled to churn out a long post, but we did want to take a moment to point you in the direction of The Art History Blog, the labor of love of a couple of “art-obsessed undergraduates” named Chelsea and Alexander. First of all, let us just say how impressed we are to see undergrads taking on a project of this scope. We give them a non-grade-inflated A for effort. Second of all, for those ungenerous older readers expecting a college art history blog to read something like: “Have you ever seen The Starry Night stoned? ‘Cause that’s totally how Van G must have painted it!”—well, you have sorely underestimated America’s youth, because Chelsea and Alexander get high marks for content as well. They successfully aim for the tone of “a really spunky docent,” because really spunky docents is precisely what they are.
We’ve especially enjoyed their “Art in Real Life” series, in which they show readers the actual size and scale of famous works of art by taking photos of people standing next to them. This, to us, constitutes a more useful art history lesson than can be found in many a textbook. It also reminds us of the time we found out that Raphael’s famous 1506 self-portrait was not only smaller in real life than you’d expect, but also reverently installed by the Uffizi in an awkward corner above a dehumidifier. Anyway, have fun over at The Art History Blog, and be sure to leave Chelsea and Alexander a nice comment, a good grade, or as they wistfully suggest, a job offer.
