Apocalypse and Amnesia
August 23, 2010 11:35 AM Subscribe
How "The Last Washington Painting" Became "The Lost Washington Painting": Losing- and finding again- Alan Sonneman's "apocalyptic image of nuclear doom".
Losing art is a lost art.
posted by dances_with_sneetches at 12:04 PM on August 23, 2010 [2 favorites]
posted by dances_with_sneetches at 12:04 PM on August 23, 2010 [2 favorites]
I'm pretty sure by the time you get to that stage of mushroom cloud the shock wave would have already passed over that section of roadway and those cars would be overturned flaming chunks of metal.
posted by Jawn at 12:05 PM on August 23, 2010
posted by Jawn at 12:05 PM on August 23, 2010
For a moment I thought jjray was referring to concept art and screenshots from Fallout 3, which actually were picked up by at least one intelligence agency as "terrorist visions of a destroyed Washington"
posted by Bora Horza Gobuchul at 12:09 PM on August 23, 2010 [2 favorites]
posted by Bora Horza Gobuchul at 12:09 PM on August 23, 2010 [2 favorites]
What is it about that painting that makes it look so...so...eighties? It's not the models of the cars, it's something else. Color scheme? Large areas of flat color? The way it's detailed but way too clean to be mistaken for a photo?
posted by echo target at 12:35 PM on August 23, 2010
posted by echo target at 12:35 PM on August 23, 2010
I'm pretty sure by the time you get to that stage of mushroom cloud the shock wave would have already passed over that section of roadway and those cars would be overturned flaming chunks of metal.
Let me guess: you’re the guy who goes to parties and derails people’s jokes or tall tales by injecting Facts, aren’t you?
posted by spitefulcrow at 12:39 PM on August 23, 2010
Let me guess: you’re the guy who goes to parties and derails people’s jokes or tall tales by injecting Facts, aren’t you?
posted by spitefulcrow at 12:39 PM on August 23, 2010
echo target, I think it's the gamut of color. It reminds me of the color film that was available in the 80s.
posted by Uncle Ira at 1:14 PM on August 23, 2010 [1 favorite]
posted by Uncle Ira at 1:14 PM on August 23, 2010 [1 favorite]
What is it about that painting that makes it look so...so...eighties?
The mushroom cloud looks like it borrowed its color scheme from Patrick Nagel (and you don't get much more eighties than that).
posted by Mooski at 1:21 PM on August 23, 2010
The mushroom cloud looks like it borrowed its color scheme from Patrick Nagel (and you don't get much more eighties than that).
posted by Mooski at 1:21 PM on August 23, 2010
I think it is always so fascinating how things end up where they do. All it takes is a lapsed payment on an artist's storage locker and an opportunistic buyer or a forgetful dealer and bad record keeping, or a family member settling an estate and not realizing what is there and *poof* something fairly well known is seemingly gone forever.
Really well written article. It hit home for me.
posted by Tchad at 1:34 PM on August 23, 2010
Really well written article. It hit home for me.
posted by Tchad at 1:34 PM on August 23, 2010
Jawn: "the shock wave would have already passed over that section of roadway"
Yes, the blast wind would expand at around 1000 Km/h. Ironically, given its time period, it would appear that this (presumably) Soviet-planned detonation would have been a relative failure. A mushroom cloud such as this results only from a ground or near-ground explosion. Both of these are sub-optimal when it comes to maximising the extent, overpressure and lethality of the explosion compared to a higher altitude detonation (which does not produce such a distinctive mushroom effect). Also, mushroom clouds are initially reddish-brown with some yellowish tinting, that transforms quickly into white and gray and the nitrates disperse. The stem may remain dark for longer.
posted by meehawl at 2:35 PM on August 23, 2010 [1 favorite]
Yes, the blast wind would expand at around 1000 Km/h. Ironically, given its time period, it would appear that this (presumably) Soviet-planned detonation would have been a relative failure. A mushroom cloud such as this results only from a ground or near-ground explosion. Both of these are sub-optimal when it comes to maximising the extent, overpressure and lethality of the explosion compared to a higher altitude detonation (which does not produce such a distinctive mushroom effect). Also, mushroom clouds are initially reddish-brown with some yellowish tinting, that transforms quickly into white and gray and the nitrates disperse. The stem may remain dark for longer.
posted by meehawl at 2:35 PM on August 23, 2010 [1 favorite]
We have a number of lost art objects, most collected by my grandparents, that went to my uncle. When his wife died, he sold his house and it all got scrunched into a storage garage. It then emerged that he had alcoholism and Alzheimer's (or ARD). He bounced between relatives for a number of months, until finally ending up in the care of one of his less estranged daughters, and although they've always insisted the payments were kept up, they deny knowing where any of the artwork is.
I really hope they sold it, because if as we suspect they (intentionally or not) let the locker go, the storage owner could have made a killing.
posted by dhartung at 3:47 PM on August 23, 2010
I really hope they sold it, because if as we suspect they (intentionally or not) let the locker go, the storage owner could have made a killing.
posted by dhartung at 3:47 PM on August 23, 2010
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Oh, tosh. What twaddle. When has anyone ever seen traffic that light going into DC?
posted by norm at 11:58 AM on August 23, 2010 [4 favorites]