No one before Bernini had managed to make marble so carnal. In his nimble hands it would flatter and stream, quiver and sweat. His figures weep and shout, their torses twist and run, and arch themselves in spasms of intense sensation. He could, like an alchemist, change one material into another – marble into trees, leaves, hair, and, of course, flesh. – Simon Schama’s Power of Art. Bernini
This is the world’s largest crystal ruby. Mark Mothersbaugh had the gem carved in the shape of an ice cream cone.
“A few years ago I became friends with a gemologist, and I saw all these gems that he had lying around, one of which was this big ugly stone that I picked up. “That’s the world’s largest ruby you’re holding.” He didn’t know what to do with it, so next time I saw him I asked if I could carve it. It’s right over there. [Points across the room to a glass case.]
I was thinking: Who do you sell the world’s largest ruby to? Somebody who’s uber-rich. And people don’t get uber-rich unless there’s something dark attached to it. It’s always communists in China, or drug dealers in South America, or oil people in Russia. It’s those kinds of people who are going to want the world’s largest ruby. And I wanted to fuck with them in some way. So I said: I’m going to carve it into a turd. But it will look like a custard. I’m going set it on top of a cone, and it will look like a sweet-treat, but really it’s a turd. They’ll buy it because it’s the world’s largest ruby, but only I’ll know that it’s a turd.“ – Mark Mothersbaugh
Le génie du mal [The genius of evil, aka; Lucifer]; Guillaume Geefs
“The statue was originally a commission for Geefs’ younger brother Joseph, who completed it in 1842 and installed it the following year. It generated controversy at once and was criticized for not representing a Christian ideal.The cathedral administration declared that “this devil is too sublime.” The local press intimated that the work was distracting the “pretty penitent girls” who should have been listening to the sermons.” [x]
[The original ‘sublime’ version shown below, and the ‘revised’ one in the photoset above]
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I-want-my-IWTV 