Death of Absalom. 17th century.
Credit line: Gift of Mr. and Mrs. William B. Jaffe, 1956
https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/336469
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Naoto Fukasawa is a Japanese industrial designer known for his dedication to minimalism and functionality.
💠Before creating a new object, Naoto retreats to his mountain cabin without electricity or running water. There he lives an ascetic lifestyle for several days, reflecting on whether the object he plans to design is truly necessary.
💠 After returning, Naoto Fukasawa follows five key principles when creating a design:
⭐️ The “Without Thought” Concept
A user should not need to spend time figuring out how an object works.
⭐️ If it’s technology, it should be cutting-edge
If a device doesn’t truly reflect the technology it claims to represent, it will quickly become boring to modern users.
⭐️ The concept of tactile branding
If a material is not what it appears to be, it deceives the user.
⭐️ If it’s furniture, it should last for decades
Minimalism and high-quality materials allow furniture to be passed down from one generation to the next.
⭐️ The “Later Wow” Concept
The first “wow” happens before purchase; the second “wow” comes after long-term use.
💠 Naoto Fukasawa has had a significant influence on the design world, promoting principles that have been adopted by many designers and major companies.
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27-02-26 (Forgot to post this one 🤓)
📍Real Academia de San Fernando (Madrid, Spain)
Their collection of the caprichos and disasters of the war added to the way they show both the copper plaque and stamp… it’s simply gorgeous.
Also, it’s so funny to read Goya’s letters as to why he would not change a thing on a fresco he worked on, and that he is an artist protected by the king himself (no, he wasn’t at that time 😆) so they shouldn’t disrespect him like that. Yeah, go tell them baby.
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Seated Statues of Rahotep and Nofret. 4th dynasty. c. 2613 to 2494 BCE Rahotep, thought by some to be a son of King Sneferu and thus a brother to Khufu. Nofret is alternatively known as Nefert or Neferet. Nefert means “beautiful”. In 1871 CE by Daninos, beautiful statues of Rahotep and Nofret were found.
These Statues are in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo. Photo taken by me in 2024.
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Claude Monet (1840 – 1926)
“A Ecologia de Monet” (Monet’s Ecology) exhibition at MASP in São Paulo (2025, Brasil)
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original Les Demoiselles Cahen d’Anvers – Rose et Bleue (1881, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, France) at MASP- museu de Arte de São Paulo
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Bather Sleeping by a Brook (1845) by Gustave Courbet (1819–1877)
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Rachel Hannah Weisz (British, born Mar. 7, 1971).
Descent of the Holy Spirit, circa 1545. Tiziano Vecellio, known as Titian (Italian, circa 1488/1490 - Aug. 27, 1576).
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Notes from a Visit to the Doria Pamphilj: The Small Head of Innocent X
Not sure if he was pissed off or all that innocent.
During my recent visit to the Palazzo Doria Pamphilj in Rome, I spent time studying Velázquez’s famous Portrait of Pope Innocent X. What caught my attention even more was the smaller head of the pope displayed kind of nearby, a couple of halls away, high on a wall, and hard to see. It immediately raised questions for me, was it a copy, was it by Velázquez?
At first glance the small head resembles the larger painting closely. The color, tonal structure, and technique suggest someone deeply familiar with Velázquez’s method, bur, there are differences. The forms feel slightly chunkier, the drawing less precise, and some transitions in the face more generalized. These qualities made me wonder whether the painting might be the work of someone very close to Velázquez rather than the master himself. Was it a copy made by a student who had access to the Pamphilj or maybe by Pareja?
My first thought was that it was a study for the big painting, then I thought maybe, it was Juan de Pareja, Velázquez’s assistant who traveled with him to Italy in 1649 and later became a painter.
Pareja prepared pigments and worked closely in the studio, which could explain the similar color structures and handling. The slight awkwardness in proportion might reflect the hand of a skilled assistant working under the influence of a master.
While pursuing this idea, I unexpectedly found reproductions on Wikipedia of two drawing sheets described as studies of Innocent X, published in 1976 by Mary Cazort Taylor in European Drawings from Canadian Collections. At the time they belonged to the collector and curator Theodore Allen Heinrich and were reportedly discovered in the library of the Palazzo Doria Pamphilj.
The drawings show the pope’s head in several orientations—frontal, profile, and partial views—alongside small sketches of the seated composition. Although they have been proposed as possible Velázquez studies, they feel less like preparatory drawings and more like analytical explorations of the pope’s features.
This led me to another possibility. By the early 1650s sculptors such as Alessandro Algardi had produced busts of Innocent X. An artist studying the pope’s likeness could therefore have used both the painting and the sculptures as models. The drawings may represent a later artist’s attempt to understand the portrait rather than sketches by Velázquez himself.
If so, that might explain why they were preserved in the palace library but later dispersed. My investigation continues: the drawings once belonged to Heinrich, and I’ve begun contacting archives holding his papers to see whether their provenance can be traced.
For now, the small head and the mysterious drawings remain part of a puzzle linking Velázquez, Pareja, Roman sculptors, and later artists studying one of the most enigmatic portraits ever painted.
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Reliquary Arm of St. Valentine. 14th century.
Credit line: Gift of J. Pierpont Morgan, 1917
https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/464332
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Sheet of Studies: Two Male Heads in Profile and Standing Man. late 18th–mid-19th century.
Credit line: Gift of Alexander B.V. Johnson and Roberta J.M. Olson, 1989
https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/337476
