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Claude Monet, The Road to Giverny in Winter , sold last year, but hadn't been seen in public since 1930 When Monet's The Road to Giverny in Winter came up at auction about a year ago, it was the first time this idyllic painting had been on the art market since 1924.  The painting leaves me with a magical impression, in the way Monet painted a pink sunset with warm highlights poking through the winter chill.  Leave it Monet to see the beautiful warmth in the coldness of winter. So I wanted to explore his other paintings of snow and see how he developed the theme. At one point in the late 1870s, Monet's colleague Manet tried to paint a scene of snow, but gave up, exclaiming that no one could do it like Monet. When looking at reproductions online, we get a great variety of versions of the colors in the various photos of the same painting.  No reproduction can substitute for seeing the actual painting.  Monet did about 140 paintings of snow, but they represent just a...

The Hyperbolic Coral Reef project has spread around the globe Nature is mysterious and some of the magical colors and patterns of the coral reef are a wonder of nature's artistry. Surprisingly, vegetables such as kale, frissée and other lettuces mimic the free-flowing, wild patterns found in the coral reef.  These products of nature form hyperbolic planes, not explained by Euclidean Geometry.  Crochet, a fiber art that traditionally has utilitarian purpose, holds the power to make this mystery visible to our eyes.  With this in mind, various hyperbolic coral reef projects have sprung up around the globe, bringing together crochet artists to call attention to the fact that this natural wonder -- something akin to the oceans' natural forest -- is vastly disappearing as a result of pollution, human waste and climate change. Photo of satellite reef, Föhr, Germany, courtesy Uta Lenk The Hyperbolic Coral Reef Project is the brainstorm of Margaret and Christine Wertheim, ...

Manet, The Repose , 1870, Rhode Island School of Design.    Berthe Morisot is at rest, but the seascape behind her could symbolize an inner restlessness behind her calm demeanor.  Why hasn't the love story of painters Édouard Manet and Berthe Morisot been told in film?  (Both Manet and Morisot are represented in large numbers at the exhibition, Imp ressionism, Fashion and Modernity , formerly at Musée d' Orsay, but no w at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in NYC and onto the Art Institu te of Chicago this s ummer.  M orisot was the sub ject of a large retrospective at Musée Mar mottan Monet, Paris , last year , and her work , like much Impressionism, is so much better when viewed in real life rather than reproduction.) Manet, a "people person" and painter of people, is the one artist of the past I would wish to meet above all others.  Morisot, one of his muses, is the artist with whom I empathize more than any other.  She loved in a painful way,...