Month: October 2009

The first candid photos ever taken in Japan

Modern(ish), Multimedia

Another neat piece of photographic history went on the auction block yesterday in a Bonham’s sale called “India and Beyond – Travel and Photography”. It’s a photo album of pictures taken mainly in Japan in 1898 by the felicitously named Walter J. Clutterbuck. Candid picture by Walter Clutterbuck, Japan, 1898

Besides the awesomeness of his name (somewhat reminscent of eminent Goonies treasure hunter Chester Copperpot), Clutterbuck took what are thought to be the first candid pictures of people on the streets of Meiji-era Japan. Before him, Japanese pictures were posed studio portraits, so not exactly a slice of life.

He actually disguised his camera as a pair of binoculars so people didn’t even know he was taking pictures of them. How he managed to disguise a 19th c. stereoscopic camera as binoculars, I do not know. Here’s an example of a Henry Clay stereoscopic model from the 1890s. It’s 5 x 7 or 8 inches in dimension.

I poked around a little and found a style of binoculars from that era that might have served as cover for one of those cameras: the ‘Zodac’ Prismatic Box Binoculars were made by Aitchison & Company in 1895 or so. They’re 8 x 20 inches, and that box design might have been able to contain the entire stereoscopic camera.

Henry Clay stereoscopic camera, 1898-1899 Aitchison 'Zodac' Prismatic Box Binoculars

I’m just spitballing here. I don’t know the exact model of his camera or how he modified it. I’m terribly curious, though. I wish the binocamera had been included in the sale just so I could see it.

There are a few pictures from his travels to China and Hong Kong in the album as well. The estimate was £3,000 – 4,000, but Bonham’s doesn’t say what it actually sold for, so the album either didn’t sell of the catalog hasn’t been updated after sale.

The latter is unlikely. People bid over the internet these days, so the auction sites update the data in real time.

Scientist reproduces the Shroud of Turin with medieval materials

Medieval, Modern(ish)

Luigi Garlaschelli, an organic chemistry professor at the University of Pavia, says he has reproduced the Shroud of Turin using only materials and techniques available in the Middle Ages.

The Shroud of Turin is said to be the sheet in which Jesus was wrapped after the Crucifixion. It bears an image of a bearded man, with wounds on his head, wrists, feet and side.

In 1988, three independent laboratories radiocarbon-dated it to between 1260 and 1390 A.D. This set off a major controversy and some people questioned whether the small samples taken from the edges of the cloth could have been contaminated from hundreds of years of handling. (The Church itself took no stand on the question and never has. The shroud is a symbol of the Passion of Christ, as far as they’re concerned, and they leave it at that.)

Before then, in 1978, a team of American scientists from NASA, the Navy and a variety of universities and research agencies carefully examined the shroud. They found microscopic protein evidence that the linen came from the first century Middle East.

They also found that the bloodstains were in fact blood, and that the image wasn’t made of paint or pigment. Scientists still haven’t been able to pin down exactly how the image on the linen might have been created at that time.

Enter Garlaschelli and his team.

They placed a linen sheet flat over a volunteer and then rubbed it with a pigment containing traces of acid. A mask was used for the face.

The pigment was then artificially aged by heating the cloth in an oven and washing it, a process which removed it from the surface but left a fuzzy, half-tone image similar to that on the Shroud. He believes the pigment on the original Shroud faded naturally over the centuries.

They then added blood stains, burn holes, scorches and water stains to achieve the final effect.

It looks pretty damn good, I must say. The original is on the left, the reproduction on the right.

Shroud of Turin on the left, Garlaschelli's new one on the right

Of course this doesn’t prove anything other than that it was physically possible for people to have rigged themselves up a miraculous shroud in the Middle Ages. As Garlaschelli notes, folks who don’t believe the carbon dating results from some of the most reputable labs in the world aren’t likely to believe him either.

The study was also funded by an Italian association of atheists and agnostics, so people who don’t trust their motivations and Garlaschelli’s integrity obviously will not trust the findings.

The Shroud of Turin is kept out of sight most of the time. In the past 300 years, it has only been viewable by the public 17 times. The last time it was on public display was in 2000. To catch a rare glimpse of the Shroud of Turin, make your way to the Guarini Chapel in the Turin Cathedral next year between April 10 and May 23.

Fun fact: a displaying of the Shroud actually has a name. It’s called an “ostensione” — an ostentation in English — after the shameless way in which the royal house of Savoy showed it off back in the late 16th/early 17th century when they first got it.

The man behind the mouse ears

Modern(ish), Museums

The Walt Disney Family Museum opened its doors for the first time Thursday. Founded by Walt Disney’s daughter and grandson, the facility cost $110 million to build, and focuses on the man and his work.

Earliest Mickey Mouse drawings, by various artists including Ub IwerksThe Disney Company collaborated — they hold the copyrights to all the important cartoons and of course own many of the seminal artifacts — but didn’t fund it. All that cash and much of the memorabilia came from the family foundation. Disney Co. just loaned them some of the major pieces, like the two-story-high camera used to create the 3D effects in “Pinocchio” and “Fantasia.”

The museum is housed in a 19th c. Army barracks and two adjacent buildings in the Presidio in San Francisco. The family specifically wanted to adapt a historical property for use as a museum, and the barracks also provided them with the space to build a 20,000 square foot addition in the U-shaped courtyard.

From the New York Times museum review:

The 348 frames that made up 1 single minute of footage from "Steamboat Willie"Every gallery is packed with video monitors, touch screens and sound systems intended to bring static drawings, storyboards and ephemera to life. Many of the exhibits focus on technological advances made by Disney himself that resulted in the first successful synchronized sound cartoon (“Steamboat Willie,” 1928), the first convincing suggestion of depth in animation (“The Old Mill,” 1937) and the first modern-day theme park (Disneyland, 1955). […]

One of the most fascinating objects here is an enormous notebook created by Herman Schultheis, a technician in the camera-effects department in the late ’30s, in which he documented how images were produced in “Pinocchio” and “Fantasia.” Next to it, an animated display of the book responds to touch, so you can almost feel the creators’ imagination at work as they transmute real objects into fantastical washes of color.

It’s not all fun and games, though. There is a section in the permanent collection that gets into the animators’ strike of 1941 and Walt Disney’s subsequent testimony before the House Un-American Activities Committee in 1947 where he enthusiastically named names of “communist agitators” who he was convinced wanted to smear his name and take down his studio.

The museum has audio recordings of Disney’s HUAC testimony, which I wasn’t able to find online, but you can read how personally Walt Disney took the strike and about his concerns over the power of propaganda in film in the HUAC transcript.

The display also includes interviews from the striking workers as well as from the animators who crossed the picket lines, so you get both sides of the story.

Anne Frank captured on film

Books, Multimedia, Museums

The real Anne Frank, I mean, not an actor in a movie. This footage was shot from the street when a neighbor was getting married on July 22, 1941.

For a few seconds, the camera points upward and captures an excited, raven-haired young girl leaning out the window to catch a glimpse of the bride and groom.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/v/4hvtXuO5GzU&w=430]

Less than a year after she leaned out of that window, Anne would receive an autograph book for her 13th birthday, a book she decided to use as a diary. A month after that, the family would go into hiding in the “Secret Annex”, the hidden top floors of her father’s office building.

Two years later, they would be betrayed and sent to their ultimate deaths in Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen. Only Otto, Anne’s father, would survive the death camps.

This is the only known footage of Anne Frank, courtesy of the bride and groom who have allowed the Anne Frank House to display it. It was uploaded to the brand new Official Anne Frank Channel 10 days ago.

Anne Frank writing, 1941The channel already offers a variety of eye-witness interviews, period footage and comments from contemporary luminaries on the enduring significance of Anne Frank and her diary.

They also have a sneak preview of the Anne Frank House virtual museum which will launch in April of next year. Once it’s up and running, you’ll be able to walk the halls of the Secret Annex as they were during the war.

Until then, you can learn more about Anne Frank and her world from the Anne Frank House website.

Lewis Chessmen to tour the motherland

Medieval, Museums, Treasures

Lewis Chessmen in the National Museum of Scotland, EdinburghThe Lewis Chessmen are 12th c. ivory chess pieces that were found almost 180 years ago on the island of Lewis, in the Outer Hebrides off the west coast of Scotland.

There are 93 pieces in total, constituent parts of 4 different sets, and all of them in virtually untouched condition, so it’s thought that they belonged to a merchant who stopped on the island while traveling from Ireland to Norway.

The pieces were found in a small stone chamber 15ft beneath a sand dune near Uig on the west coast of Lewis at some point before 1831.

They include elaborately worked walrus ivory and whales’ teeth in the forms of seated kings and queens, mitred bishops, knights on their mounts, standing warders and pawns in the shape of obelisks.

It is believed they were made between about 1150-1200 AD when the Western Isles were part of the Kingdom of Norway, not Scotland.

Similar carvings from the period have been found in Trondheim, Norway, so it’s thought that the chessmen were carved there and brought to Lewis by the trader.

Lewis chessmen (kings and queens) in the British MuseumSince their discovery, they’ve been sold and resold, so now there are only 11 pieces left in Scotland. They’re part of the National Museum of Scotland‘s permanent collection. The 82 remaining pieces belong to the British Museum.

Needless to say, this is a sore spot for many Scots — including the Scottish National Party government — who would like to have the whole set back together again in Scotland. That’s not likely to happen any time soon, but at least they can get partial satisfaction from the loan of 24 of the British Museum’s chessmen for a year-long traveling exhibition in Scotland.

The National Museum of Scotland is adding 6 of its pieces to the exhibit, so a total of 30 of these exquisite pieces will be on display in various Scottish museums in Edinburgh, Aberdeen, Stornoway and Lerwickfrom from May of 2010 to May of 2011.

The SNP sees this as a compromise, a step towards the ultimate goal of repatriating the whole set. The British Museum disagrees. (Scoffs, really.)

Lewis Berserker rook biting his shield and king