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And on the Seventh Day, God rest after a nice cup of coffee. We've featured Karen Eland's coffee art on Neatorama a while ago, but it's always neat to revisit and see her newest creations: Link | More neat coffee pics and art over at Dark Roasted Blend - Thanks Avi!
The official Vatican website has a panoramic view of the Sistine Chapel. If you don’t have the opportunity to go and visit it yourself, this could be your best chance to get up close and personal with Michelangelo’s ceiling and the works of other Renaissance artists. Take your virtual tour with or without music. Link -via Dark Roasted Blend
For years, a painting had been passed around the Kober family of Buffalo, New York. A family legend said that it was painted by Michelangelo. When Martin Kober retired in 2003, he decided to find out if this was true:
He found Antonio Forcellino, an Italian art restorer and historian and told him of the tennis ball, and something more horrifying.
“It wasn’t the story that had scared me, but that it had been exposed to heating commonly found inside a middle-class home,” Forcellino writes in his new book, “La Pieta Perduta,” or “The Lost Pieta,” published in Italy and due out in the United States next year.[...]
Forcellino said Herman Grimm, a noted Michelangelo biographer, saw the “Pieta” in 1868 and attributed it to the master. Additional evidence includes a letter in the Vatican library discussing a Pieta painting for Colonna, he said.
“I’m absolutely convinced that is a Michelangelo painting,” Forcellino said.
Link via Geekosystem | Image: New York Post
A plaster cast from the collections of the Victoria and Albert Museum -
This fig-leaf was hung on the David on the occasion of visits by royal ladies. It was last used in the time of Queen Mary (1867-1953). According to anecdotal information, on her first encounter with the cast of ‘David’, Queen Victoria was so shocked by his nudity that a firm suggestion was made that something has to be done. Consequently, the correctly proportioned fig leaf was created and stored in readiness for any visit the Queen might make, for which occasions it was hung on the figure from two strategically implanted hooks.
The item is presently displayed in a case attached to the back of the pedestal on which the David replica stands.
Link, via A London Salamagundi.
Jason Baalman of Eclectic Asylum created this fantastic sidewalk chalk drawing of Michelangelo’s "The Creation of Adam" over 3 days and 1 night.
Unique Daily has the time lapse video clip: Link
DeviantArt user *TsaoShin re-created the image Michelangelo’s "The Creation of Adam" from the Sistine Chapel with Mario. Playing the role of God is Shigeru Miyamoto, who created the lovable plumber and named him after a landlord who barged in on Nintendo’s company meeting demanding an overdue rent.
Link: *TsaoShin’s DeviantArt page | 10 Mario Fun Facts | Mario Infographics
See also: Mario-related posts over at NeatoGeek
Two experts in neuroanatomy are convinced that Michelangelo’s depiction of God in the Sistine Chapel contains a secret message found in the bumps on the Almighty’s neck: a map of the human brain (meant to represent human intelligence). It seems to me that an expert in vegetables would see a bell pepper, and an expert in clouds would see a cumulonimbus, but their argument is nothing if not exhaustive.
There are plenty of other easter eggs hidden in masterpieces, so maybe it’s true.
Link via 3QuarksDaily
When you were 12 or 13, you liked to draw monsters, didn’t you? Michelangelo did, too! The Kimbell Museum, located in Fort Worth, has acquired a rather unique piece of painting history. The painting, The Torment of St. Anthony, is considered the earliest painting by legendary Rennaisance master Michelangelo (1475-1564), done when he was around 12 or 13 years of age. It is only one of four known to exist in the world, and the only such painting by the master to be exhibited in the United States.
Long held in private hands, apart from isolated showings during the 19th and 20th centuries, The Torment of St. Anthony has been hailed, by turns, as both a prototypical Michelangelo and as a work of questionable pedigree. The consensus today holds with Michelangelo.
A 2008 Sotheby’s auction in London offered the painting in a preliminary range of $200,000-$300,000. Once the acceptance of authenticity had spread, a bidding frenzy surged to approximately $2 million, paid by a New York-based dealer named Adam Williams. Williams cinched the authenticity further with a regimen of X-ray examinations, which revealed alterations that can only belong to a primary-source work-in-progress.
From the Upcoming 
ueue, submitted by Geekazoid.
