How to Relate My Life to an Art Masterpiece in an Introductory Speech
Opening remarks from the 2018 Lasker Awards ceremony
Critics of art and philosophers of scientific discipline and have long wrestled with the question of what elevates a piece of art or a set up of experiments to masterpiece condition. The general consensus is that great art and cracking science share three characteristics. The starting time is that the piece of work is so original that it overwhelms us by its power. The second is that it stands the examination of time. And the third is that is changes the way generations of artists or scientists retrieve most their field. Masterpieces of fine art and science are like hooks that capture our imagination.
Speaking of hooks, one of the iconic paintings in modern art involves a fishhook (Figure i, height). In the 1950s, Roy Lichtenstein worked as an illustrator for comic books in Rutgers, New Jersey. In 1961, at age 39 Lichtenstein produced a painting that shook the art world overnight. The 1950's and early on threescore'southward was the heyday of abstract expressionism led by Jackson Pollack, Willem de Kooning, Marker Rothko, and Barnett Newman. And then comes forth a lowly cartoon illustrator who produces a non-abstract painting that featured a new art manner − one that mimicked images from comic books with speech communication balloons and hand-painted dots.
Effigy ane. Two Iconic Paintings by Roy Lichtenstein
(Top) Expect Mickey. 1961. Oil on canvas. four.0 x 5.viii ft. National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. (Bottom) Masterpiece. 1962. Oil on sheet. four.5 x 4.five ft. © Manor of Roy Lichtenstein.
This 1961 painting, entitled Look Mickey, I Hooked a Big One, launched Lichtenstein's career every bit America's start Pop artist. Observe the manus-painted, cartoon-like dots on Donald'due south eyes and Mickey's face (Figure 1, pinnacle). As evident by the pink dots in his cheeks, Mickey can hardly comprise his excitement, trying hard to suppress a express mirth at Donald's blunder of hooking himself. Similar Mickey, Lichtenstein can inappreciably suppress his excitement. He knows that he is on to something big with this revolutionary painting – a breakthrough in modern art.
Roy Lichtenstein's Masterpiece
Within ane year, Lichtenstein had hooked another big one − a solo exhibit at the famous Leo Castelli gallery in New York City, which to a scientist is like having your next 10 papers published in Cell, Science, and Nature − without whatever revisions. Ane of Lichtenstein's paintings in the 1962 Castelli show was entitled Masterpiece (Effigy 1, bottom). Masterpiece is a tongue-in-cheek joke that portends the future turmoil that Lichtenstein would stir upward. The female speaks the prophetic words; "Why, Brad darling, this painting is a MASTERPIECE! Soon, you lot'll have all of NEW YORK clamoring for your work!"
Lichtenstein's words turned out to be prophetic. Masterpiece was originally sold in 1963 for several thousand dollars, and eventually concluded up in the private collection of Agnes Gund, one of the leading fine art collectors in New York City. For the last 25 years, private collectors and auction houses clamored for Gund to sell Masterpiece. She finally gave in last year after living with the painting for fifty years. She sold Masterpiece to Steven Cohen, the infamous hedge fund manager, who paid her a whopping $165 million. Gund has used the money to create a foundation for criminal justice reform, which in itself is a masterpiece of philanthropy (Pogrebin, 2017).
During his 40-year career, Lichtenstein became one of the most celebrated contemporary artists in the concluding one-half of the 20th century. His paintings, prints, and sculptures are represented in every major art museum throughout the world. Although he died 20 years ago, his iconic signature way of comic-strip images and cartoon-like dots have had a lasting influence on present-day popular civilisation. Many electric current advertisements in newspapers and magazines go on to emulate the Lichtenstein comic book style.
A Masterpiece in The Louvre: Géricault'southward Raft of the Medusa
The Lichtenstein test for a masterpiece of art is straightforward: an original work that stands the examination of time and has everyone clamoring to see information technology. The Louvre in Paris, which is the almost visited museum in the world exhibits many masterpieces that people bedlam to run into. Other than the Mona Lisa, the painting in The Louvre that nearly museum goers clamor to see is a massive sheet by the French artist Théodore Géricault entitled Raft of the Medusa (Effigy ii).
Raft of the Medusa is based on a real-life event − an historic shipwreck 300 years agone that involved starvation, cannibalism, and multiple deaths (Miles, 2007). On July 2, 1816, a French ship called the Medusa ran aground on a sandbar off the coast of Westward Africa. Attempts to free the transport failed, and everyone had to carelessness transport. Just half-dozen minor life boats were bachelor, an insufficient number to hold all 400 passengers. Just 250 people could be accommodated: the captain, his senior officers, and the wealthy. The 150 less-privileged were packed together like sardines on a raft hastily synthetic from the wooden decks of the ship. The only provisions available to the 150 castaways were one bag of biscuits, two barrels of water, and a few kegs of vino. The raft soon became a floating hell of infighting, starvation, crazed behavior, and roughshod murders. By the third day, cannibalism was rampant. By the time of rescue after 13 days at sea, only 15 men had survived, 5 of whom died within several days.
This tragic event involving 140 deaths became an international scandal when the printing discovered that the French government had appointed an incompetent helm who had non been to sea in 25 years, had never allowable a ship, and was a favorite of King Louis 18 (Miles, 2007). Before long after the rescue, two of the survivors – the send's engineer and its surgeon – wrote a celebrated account of the shipwreck and its horrors. Their gripping tale attracted the attention of the 27-year-quondam Géricault, who became obsessed with creating a painting that would make a provocative public statement nigh the tragic event (Eitner, 1973; Alhadeff, 2002).
The massive size of Raft of the Medusa (16 by 24 feet) with life-sized figures (Figure 2) differed in a revolutionary way from before classic works that dealt with biblical or historical themes: Raft dealt with a current event that was timely and controversial (Eitner, 1973; Miles, 2007). As the central theme for his painting, Géricault focused on the moment when a boat on the horizon was beginning sighted – the point at which the survivors experienced a surge of hope and optimism. As shown at the top of the painting, an African crew member frantically waves his shirt in hopes of getting the gunkhole's attention (Figure 2). The boat, depicted as a speck in the upper right corner, was seen by the survivors for only a half hr and then disappeared. From the delirium of joy, the survivors savage into profound despondency and grief. Just two hours later, the boat reappeared and rescued the survivors.
Figure 2. Raft of the Medusa
Théodore Géricault. 1818/1819. Oil on canvass. 16 x 24 ft. Musée du Louvre, Paris.
How Géricault Rocked the Gunkhole and Produced a Masterpiece
The brilliance of Raft is the fashion in which Géricault makes the viewer feel the immensity of the event. He positions the boat right into the viewer'southward space, cartoon us into the painting and propelling us to stride onto the raft to give help to the dying survivors. He captures the emotions experienced by the crew at the first sighting of the boat by a clever utilise of two interlocking pyramidal structures that contrast the gestures of the figures (Figure 3). The triangle on the left illustrates the despair and hopelessness of the dying. The triangle on the correct illustrates the hope and optimism of the survivors, culminating at the apex with the African sailor waving his shirt in hopes of alluring the fleeting ship.
Figure 3. 2 Interlocking Triangular Components in Raft of the Medusa.
(Left) This triangle illustrates the despair and hopelessness of the dying. (Right) This triangle illustrates the hope and optimism of the survivors.
The bodies of the men on the raft are much less emaciated than one would expect subsequently xiii days of hunger, illness, and cannibalism. Here, Géricault is showing his truthful colors of romanticism. He wanted not only to draw a real life event, but he also wanted to elevate the survivors to heroic status. Thus, he composed his painting in the high style of the Quondam Masters, harking back to the idealized muscular figures of Michelangelo and Caravaggio.
Raft's Influence on Prominent 20th Century Artists
In 1824, Raft was purchased by The Louvre, where it has been viewed by hundreds of millions of people over the terminal ii centuries. It is arguably the nearly arresting painting in The Louvre and has stimulated many artists to produce their own variations of the painting. One such case is a work by the abstract expressionist Barnett Newman. Newman is known for his "aught" pictures in which fields of colors are painted on a large rectangular canvas and and then separated past thin vertical strips of contrasting colour that extended from the lesser of the canvas to the height (Temkin, 2002). The vertical strips − the "zips" − grab our attention and aid define the spatial structure of his rectangular-shaped canvases (Figure 4, left).
In 1968, Newman visited The Louvre for the outset fourth dimension. Raft was the picture that fascinated him the near. "Information technology's fantastic! ….. You tin experience the surge of the water, the figures tumbling out toward us" (Schneider, 2002). Newman was as well peculiarly impressed with the triangular composition of Géricault's painting. On his return to New York, Newman painted a "zip" movie in the shape of a triangle (Figure 4, right). This was a radical departure from all of his previous rectangular-shaped paintings. Since his triangular canvas had no rectangular walls, Newman entitled the painting Jericho in reference to the Sometime Testament city whose walls came tumbling downwards. The title is also a pun on Géricault's name. Although Jericho and Géricault are not spelled the aforementioned mode, they are phonetically identical (Schneider, 2002).
Figure four. Ii Artworks past Barnett Newman
(Right) Adam. 1951/1952. Oil on canvass. vii.9 x 6.7 ft. Tate, London. (Left) Jericho. Oil on canvas. 1968/1969. 9.4 10 8.8 ft. Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris. © The Barnett Newman Foundation, New York / Artists Rights Gild (ARS), New York.
Some other prominent creative person inspired by Géricault'due south Raft is Frank Stella, known for his geometric paintings and abstract sculptures (Auping, et al., 2015). In 1990, Stella began experimenting with steel and other metals, and one of his first sculpted works was inspired past Géricault's painting. Stella's Raft of the Medusa is an enormous twisting grey mass of aluminum − thirteen anxiety loftier, broad, and deep − that evokes the cacophony of suffering bodies clinging to a dilapidated raft constructed out of chicken wire and steel beams (Figure five).
Figure five. Raft of Medusa, Office I
Frank Stella. 1990. Aluminum with steel pipes, other metals, and chicken wire. 14 ten 13.5 x thirteen.three ft. (Left) Front side of sculpture evoking cacophony of suffering bodies clinging to battered raft. (Right) Dorsum side of sculpture showing raft constructed out of chicken wire and steel beams. The Glass Business firm Collection, New Canaan, CT. © 2018 Frank Stella / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.
Stella's immense sculpture and Newman'due south triangular painting are themselves great works of art that pay homage to Géricault'due south Raft of the Medusa − a painting that overwhelms us by its originality and ability and one that has stood the test of time − the ii cardinal characteristics that define a work of fine art every bit a masterpiece.
2018 Lasker Awards
Similar Lichtenstein's Masterpiece and Géricault's The Raft of the Medusa, the original research of this year'southward Lasker Awardees has changed the style scientists and physicians remember about their particular fields.
The Lasker Basic Research Award honors Michael Grunstein (University of California, Los Angeles) and David Allis (Rockefeller Academy) for discoveries elucidating how cistron expression is influenced past posttranslational covalent modifications of histones − the proteins that packet Dna within chromosomes. For many years, scientists did not appreciate the importance of histones in gene expression. Histones were largely believed to be only the glue that held Deoxyribonucleic acid together in chromosomes. This view began to change in the early 1990'due south when Grunstein initiated genetic experiments in yeast cells that demonstrated a requirement for the North-concluding tails of histones in activating and silencing genes. He so went on to place specific lysine residues in the histone tails that turned out to be targets of post-translational acetylation. This ground-breaking work set the phase for Allis' classic biochemical experiments in 1996 showing that a histone acetyltransferase from Tetrahymena was the homologue of GCN5, a genetically defined translational coactivator in yeast. Allis went on to testify that purified GCN5 possessed intrinsic histone acetyltransferase activeness that directly acetylated specific lysines in the histone tails. These biochemical findings, when considered together with the genetic studies of Grunstein, provided solid evidence for the office of histone acetylation in factor expression.
A flood of research rapidly ensued. Hundreds of scientists began working in this new field. Other histone modifications (including methylation, phosphorylation, and ubiquitination) and the enzymes that add and remove these residues were identified and characterized. The implications for biomedical science are profound: 1) histone modifications influence the activation or silencing of virtually every eukaryotic transcriptional network studied to date; 2) mutations disrupting the histone machinery underline several Mendelian disorders of development (e.g., Rubinstein-Taybi syndrome and Kabuki syndrome); and iii) histone-modifying enzymes, such equally those that remove methyl and acetyl groups, are beingness actively pursued as therapeutic targets for a multifariousness of cancerous diseases, including solid tumors (especially pediatric gliomas), lymphomas, and leukemias. To date, only a few such inhibitors of histone deacetylates and demethylases have been canonical for man employ. But hundreds of clinical trials are currently in the works
The Lasker-DeBakey Clinical Research Accolade honors John Baird Glen (AstraZeneca, retired) for the discovery and development of propofol, the well-nigh widely used agent for induction of anesthesia in patients throughout the world. In 1972, Glen joined Imperial Chemical Industries (ICI) in London (through mergers, ICI subsequently became AstraZeneca). At ICI, he carried out a chemical screen searching for anesthetic agents that possessed three desirable backdrop: fast onset, brusque recovery time, and absence of the "hang-over" effects observed in mice administered other anesthetics. Of the thousands of agents tested, Glen selected propofol (ii,half-dozen-diisopropylphenol) every bit a promising hypnotic.
Propofol is an oil at room temperature, which created a formidable formulation challenge that took Glen and his colleagues 10 years to solve. Success was ultimately achieved with a soybean-egg lecithin emulsion that rendered propofol in a soluble form that could be used intravenously in patients and animals. The size range of the emulsified propofol aerosol (marketed as Driprivan®) refracts light, creating a milky color that led anesthesiologists to refer to it as "milk of amnesia". Propofol was approved in 1986 in the U.k., in 1989 in the US, and later on in 90 other countries.
In 2013 when the World Eye Organization (WHO) added propofol to the list of essential medicines, more than 190 million people worldwide had received the anesthetic. In the United states in 2014, 10 meg inpatient surgical operations and 17 million outpatient surgeries were performed, nearly all of which were initiated with propofol. The favorable backdrop of propofol – its rapid onset of activity, quick metabolism by the liver, and freedom from rest furnishings such equally nausea, vomiting, and grogginess – are largely responsible for the contempo widespread increase in ambulatory surgery and outpatient diagnostic procedures, such equally colonoscopy and bronchoscopy.
John Baird Glen discovered the anesthetic properties of propofol, and for more than twenty years he guided its transformation from an insoluble chemical compound to arguably the most important anesthetic since the introduction of ether in 1846. His persistent pursuit of the ideal anesthetic has improved the lives of hundreds of millions of people throughout the globe.
The Lasker-Koshland Special Achievement Award is given to a scientist whose lifetime contribution to biomedical science is universally admired for its inventiveness, importance and impact, and whose professional statesmanship has engendered among her colleagues the deepest feelings of awe and respect. This year's award honors Joan Argetsinger Steitz (Yale University) for four decades of leadership in biomedical science − exemplified by her pioneering discoveries in nuclear RNA, her generous mentorship of hundreds of budding scientists, and her vigorous and passionate support of women in science.
Joan Steitz has been a towering figure in the field of RNA biology for 45 years, starting time with her graduate work on the structure and part of RNA in RNA-containing bacteriophages. Her most notable scientific achievement came in 1979 and the early 1980's when she discovered that antisera confronting nuclear antigens from patients with lupus and other autoimmune diseases targeted distinct entities, each of which independent a specific small nuclear RNA and a mutual set up of proteins, which she and her student Michael Lerner named snRNPs (small nuclear ribonuclearproteins). These antibodies proved to exist key reagents that revealed the primeval biochemical studies on the spliceosome, the particles that are sites of processing of pre-messenger RNA into the last mRNA. Steitz also discovered that introns, which were thought to exist inert, code for snoRNAs (small nucleolar RNAs) that part in the processing of ribosomal RNA. Steitz's virtually contempo RNA venture has led her into the earth of small-scale noncoding viral RNAs that perturb cellular homeostasis.
Throughout her academic career, Steitz has served on multiple review panels and advisory committees for universities, research institutes, and funding agencies. She is asked to serve on these committees non because she is a woman scientist, merely because of her wise counsel and broad expertise in academic and scientific matters. For 12 years, she served equally scientific manager of the Jane Bury Childs Fund, which grants postdoctoral fellowships to outstanding immature biomedical scientists.
Over the last xl years, Steitz has mentored more than 200 students (undergraduate, graduate, and One thousand.D.-Ph.D.) and postdoctoral fellows, many of whom take gone on to found their ain research careers in laboratories in the U.S. and other countries. 1 unique aspect of Steitz'due south mentoring fashion is her belief that students and postdoctoral fellows who work completely independently should be immune to publish on their own. Of the 360 publications that accept originated from her laboratory, sixty of them do non include her proper noun in the list of authors. Such generosity of this scale is indeed rare.
A word of Steitz's statesmanship would not be complete without mentioning the fact that she is a function model for young women scientists. This is a responsibility that she has taken seriously throughout her career. When Steitz herself started her graduate career at the Biological Laboratories at Harvard University in 1963 and her postdoctoral fellowship at the MRC in Cambridge in 1967, in that location were substantially no women as role models and few if any women scientists in the laboratories where she trained. To take accomplished so much at the fourth dimension she began in scientific discipline certainly engenders "the deepest feeling of awe and respect."
REFERENCES
Miles, J. (2007). The Wreck of the Medusa. (New York: Grove Press).
Eitner, L.E.A. (1973). Géricault's "Raft of the Medusa". (London, UK: Phaidon Press Ltd.)
Schneider, P. (2002). Flat forms, deep thoughts: Newman on Géricault. In Reconsidering Barnett Newman, M. Ho, ed. (Philadelphia, PA: Philadelphia Museum of Art), pp. 132-147.
Pogrebin, R. (2017). Agnes Gund sells a Lichtenstein to first criminal justice fund.
Alhadeff, A. (2002). The Raft of the Medusa: Géricault, Fine art, and Race. (New York: Prestel Publishing).
Temkin, A. (2002). Barnett Newman on exhibition. In Barnett Newman, A. Temkin, ed. (Philadelphia, PA: Philadelphia Museum of Art), pp. 18-75.
Auping, M. Weinberg, A.D., Kantor, J., and Owens, Fifty. (2015) Frank Stella: A Retrospective. (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press).
Source: https://laskerfoundation.org/what-makes-a-piece-of-art-or-science-a-masterpiece/
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