[Art_beyond_sight_learning_tools] links and articles

[Lisa Yayla]

Hi,
Some articles with links. One about school children visiting
a painting workshop in India, a lot of links about Rembrandt
and the possibility that he had visual impairments (have
text from one article and links to others articles), and one
about Budapest and cultural heritage being open to all and a
bit about tactile models (article mostly about areas that
usually aren't open to the public), and last a short blurb
about an article in the Economist about computer technology
and haptics (one has to pay for the web version, so if
anyone has read the Economist version, perhaps they can tell
us more).
All the best,
Lisa

Links

http://www.onlypunjab.com/latest/fullstory-newsID-2032.html

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/3665670.stm
http://news.scotsman.com/features.cfm?id=1090282004
http://www.heraldsun.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5478,10792621%255E1702,00.html
http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/local/articles/0916rembrandt16.html
http://www.abc.net.au/science/news/stories/s1198105.htm

http://www.budapestsun.com/full_story.asp?ArticleId=%7B9E4FBE0C5297456E8C40BE958A51AC26%7D&From=Style

http://www.economist.com/science/tq/displayStory.cfm/none/?story_id=3171347

Articles

Special children visit painting workshop
Publish Date : 9/15/2004 10:34:00 AM   Source :
Onlypunjab.com Team

The state-level painting workshop that began here today had
very special guests. A few children from a school run    by
the Red Cross for blind, hearing impaired and mentally
retarded children had arrived to see artists’ work and   
drew inspiration from them. 

   These children were keenly watching the artists at work.
The correspondent interacted with them through their   
principal and tried to explore how would they understand the
art and an artist’s creation. Gursewak and     Harmanpreet,
both deaf and dumb, and other three mentally retarded
children quickly identified Baba Farid’s    painting despite
the fact that the artist had merely drawn the outline. 

   Not only this, they also identified the “shloka” on which
the painting was based as birds were also shown in it. 

   The “shloka” was — “Kaga karang dandheleya sagla khaya
mass, eh do naina mat chhoyo phir dekhan ki aas”.
   When they saw a clay model having religious symbols of
different religions they cleverly used their hands and   
expressions to point out as to which religion the symbols
belong. They identified men and women in paintings and   
sculptures by moving their hands towards moustache and nose. 

   Ms Prabhjeet Kaur, the school principal, said the hearing
impaired children had great interest in painting and
other    art forms and they were good at painting. She said
a student with low vision, Mangal Ram, won a state-level   
painting contest held at Ferozepore two years back. 

   She said these children were visiting this workshop for
the third time in a row. “They love painting, clay
modeling    and dry decoration and their works had been put
on display at the school building,” she added. 

   About 15 students of the school were in Mansa these days
to participate in a painting contest. The school had   
three wings — Umang for mentally retarded children, Ujala
for blind, and Umeed for hearing impaired.



'Lazy eye helped Rembrandt's art'
 
 
The scientists say it was the left eye which was affected 
Having less-than-perfect vision may be the secret of being a
great artist, scientists have revealed. 
A team from Harvard Medical School say the Dutch master
Rembrandt may have had a "lazy eye". 

The scientists analysed his self-portraits and found one eye
looked straight ahead, while the other looked outward. 

Writing in the New England Journal of Medicine, they say
this may have helped him perceive the world as a flat image. 

  Art teachers often instruct students to close one eye in
order to flatten what they see 

Margaret Livingstone, Harvard Medical School  
The perfect alignment of the eyes, called stereoscopic
vision, allows people to see in three dimensions. 

But neurobiologist Margaret Livingstone, who carried out the
study, suggests this could be a hindrance to an artist
trying to depict a 3D scene on a flat canvas. 

She said: "Art teachers often instruct students to close one
eye in order to flatten what they see." 

"Therefore, stereoblindness might not be a handicap -and
might even be an asset - for some artists." 

'Benefit' 

Dr Livingstone and her colleagues analysed 24 oil paintings
and 12 etchings in which the 17th century master Rembrandt
van Rijn depicted himself. 

In all but one painting, the eye on the right of the
painting looked straight ahead, and the one on the left
looked outwards. 

They suggest this means it was his left eye which was
affected, because the paintings would have been done by
looking in a mirror. 

In the etchings, the opposite eye appeared to be the one
which was misaligned, but the researchers say left and right
are reversed in an etching, which is made by scratching
lines on a metal plate and using the plate to make a print. 

They say having a lazy eye, also known as extropia, can be a
benefit to an artist. 

"We examined a number of self-portraits of Rembrandt, an
artist known for his astute powers of observation, and
noticed that many of them show his eyes are exotrophic." 

They say the errant eye appears to be gazing around 10
degrees off-centre. 

Dr Livingstone told Reuters news agency: "It illustrates
that disabilities are not always disabilities. They may be
assets in another realm." 
 


September 16, 2004 - Volume XII, Issue 38  
Cultural Heritage now open to all

By Esther Vécsey

 IN mid-to-late September each year, the National Trust for
Historic Monuments (KÖH), Budapest, together with the
European Union, holds their annual Cultural Heritage Open
Days, when historic buildings and cultural sites not usually
accessible are open for special "behind-thescenes" tours to
the public with multi-lingual guidance free of charge. 

Begun in 1984 in Europe, the Cultural Heritage Days have
become a tradition observed in over 47 countries in Europe,
as well as in Kazakhstan. The event has been held for the
past 13 years in Hungary; the KÖH took over organizing the
Open Days six years ago and developed it into its most
popular annual event which last year, when the theme was
"Zsolnay-Clad Monuments", drew over 160,000 visitors. 

This year's theme is "Healthy Breathing", featuring over 417
sites in 182 cities, towns, and counties in Hungary and even
across the borders! Over 100 special walks, of which 23 are
in Budapest, and 81 throughout the country are listed, the
walks outlined in green in the special issue no. 32 of Pesti
Estdedicated to the Open Days. 

Parks, open squares, green spaces, botanical gardens,
cemeteries, arboreta, nature preserves in the countryside,
and walks in nature not normally accessible, will be open to
the public. Across the borders such historic sites as the
venerable Cemetery of Házsongárd in Kolozsvár (Cluj-Napoca,
Romania), where so 

many of Hungary's oldest historic families are buried, are
also included on the tour. 

According to custodians of the Open Days, Magda Kertész and
Edina Horváth, of the KÖH Budapest, thousands of visitors
have repeated visits behind the scenes to such interesting
sites in Budapest as the Sándor Palota (Presidential Palace
on Castle Hill), and classical Hungarian historic monuments
such as Parliament, the National Archives on Castle Hill by
architect Samu Pecz of 1896; the stunning National
Geological Institute by Ödön Lechner of 1896 on Stefánia út;
and the Zsolnay pyrogranite and eosin-clad Museum of Applied
Arts also by Ödön Lechner, and many, many more sites . 

Also open to the public is the hermetic Ministry of the
Interior, originally built as a bank in the early 20th
century, with extemely rich wood-glass-and metal work. 

Strictly "off limits" to the public in the reign of Stalin
and Mátyás Rákosi, it is still impenetrable except for the
short weekend in mid-to-late September during the EU/KÖH
Open Days every year. The special attraction this year is
the Budapest Zoo and Botanical Gardens, with its spectacular
Zsolnay pyrogranite, majolica-glazed gateway, known as "The
most beautiful Zoo Entrance in the World", (pictured in the
photo by Tamás Mattyasovszky Zsolnay, 2002) and the
idiosyncratic Islamic-style "Elephant House"" 1911-1912,
whose Mosque-like shape the architect Kornél Neuschloss
designed especially so the elephants and rhinos would feel
"at home", housed in architecture that reminded them of
their homeland, the Mughal Empire. 

Special tours of towns and cities such as Pécs, where the
architectural historian Zsuzsa Mendöl leads tours of the
Zsolnay sites are also on the list this year. 

In the countryside, do not miss the former Royal arboretum
of Alcsút in the Pilis Hills, and the imposing Károlyi
Kastély (Castle/ Mansion) at Fehérvárcsurgó just 15 minutes
from Székesfehérvár. The grand, classic, Hungarian Baroque
style XVIIIth century twostory manor house has a typical
Ushaped plan, enclosing a once stately courtyard with box
hedges and a fountain. 

The young Károlyis, Count György and his wife Angelica, who
live in Paris, warmly await visitors on the Open Days with
the theme, "Parks and Gardens", and the exhibitions
"Fehérvárcsurgó, a Mansion, a Park', "The French Garden',
featuring photographs and documents of the Kastély and the
Family, and a walk around the grounds, stables, and the park
- of whose former splendor but a mere shadow remains. A
special exhibit: 

"Paris-Fehérvárcsurgó-Istambul", features photos of the
4,000 km bycicle tour across Europe organized by the Károlyi
children, is also on view. 

The tactile model of the Castle, the U-shaped Court with its
interior Garden, created for the blind and weak-sighted, is
available to touch. A concert and a Solemn High Mass will be
celebrated in the newly restored Chapel of the Kastély. 

The Fejér County's traditional "Hubertus" Hunt Days,
beginning with the traditional Mass at 4pm, and an exhibit
of hunting trophies followed at 7pm, by the "Nimród" Green
Ball will be held on Sat. Sept. 18, at the neo-Tudor-Gothic
Nádasdy Castle/Manor House in Nádasdladány, near Veszprém. 



Information 



Kulturális Örökségvédelmi Hivatal (KÖH), Buda, District I,
Táncsics M. u.1. 

Tel: 224-558O-86 

www.koh.hu 


http://www.economist.com/science/tq/displayStory.cfm/none/?story_id=3171347
Data you can virtually touch
Sep 16th 2004 
>From The Economist print edition



Computer interfaces: Is haptic technology, which allows
users to “feel” virtual objects, finally ready to come out
of the laboratory?