comic sans art history @comicsansarthistory - Tumblr Blog

ducissatenebrarum

Hieronymus Bosch

archiveswizard

He looks a bit different than I imagined.

#ANOTHER Bosch joke

baldingfemale

In my early-twenties I was addicted to photoshopping my nudes into Hieronymus Bosch paintings, though there came a point when the cohesiveness of the end products began to offend me

#another Bosch joke

#Obama #Art history meme #I guess this is also a music history meme

jahsonic

Detail of The Life of Saint Dymphna (1505) by Goswin van der Weyden

comicsansarthistory

when u tweak ur neck but u just wanna relax with a. Book

vitoriabas

Some wacky illustrations for a short dissertation I wrote for my Masters, exploring the relationship between medieval illuminations, marginalia, and online ads.

Markers on cartridge paper.

absentlyabbie

hey. hey, you, us american adult who has to file taxes.

that shit has to be done by wednesday. it's almost april 15.

do not panic, you got this. this is just to help make sure you got this by wednesday. wednesday, april 15. you got this.

also google your state + "state return free file" and the state's tax dept website probably has a list of services that will e-file your federal AND state returns for free if you meet the income restrictions.

(you probably do.)

fuck turbotax. there are better, still easy options not trying to nickle and dime your broke ass for this nonsense out there, and you can probably use a few of them to file fed AND state for free.

by wednesday.

wednesday, april 15. 2026.

you got this.

lierdumoa

Here's the official IRS website's list of free filing services. I've used both FreeTaxUSA® and OLT, and they both let you file state and federal returns together.

ouroborosorder

this is such a profoundly stupid thing to be mad about but. i periodically think about how banksy made one of my single favorite pieces of art of all time, and everything else he's ever done has sucked. man, how did you nail it once

ouroborosorder

It's this piece, titled The Banality of the Banality of Evil. Because on first glance, you're like. Yeah, okay, it's obvious what it's saying. Even nazis, even evil people can appreciate beauty, too. But then you learn its name, and suddenly the interpretation shifts a bit. The idea that evil is banal has in itself become banal. my first response to seeing a nazi on a bench is "oh it's about the banality of evil" and not "jesus christ there's a nazi on the bench."

and like. i dunno i think that's a really interesting way for a title to recontextualize a piece. it's finding nuance by tearing out the nuance you want to project onto it. it's not the greatest piece of art ever made, but i'd be lying if i said i didn't have a huge soft spot for it

manwhorewednesdays

Okay but I have to add to this

what I find really interesting is how the way this is drawn (especially considering who drew it) the art style seems extremely deliberate. This type of nostalgic landscape painting is very reminiscent of nazi art and specifically, Hitler's art.

Nazis were extremely judgmental of "entartete Kunst" (degenerate art). Bansky's usual work very well fall into this category! So for him to go for this style of painting in particular is another choice I find very interesting, because I can see some people react to this painting with some variation of "oh, I didn't know he could actually draw! I thought he is a hack but he is a real artist!" - and that is where they would agree with the Nazis.

I dunno I just find this piece very compelling

ouroborosorder

oh that is actually fascinating. in fact, to add on- a detail I omitted because I just kinda forgot to mention it. The reason there’s two signatures in the corner is because it was a painting in a thrift shop, Banksy adding the Nazi, and then returning it to the shop.

I think there’s something interesting about recognizing the lineage of this type of art and wanting to mess with it, subvert the intent, and explore the topic and legacy. It’s potent. I really like this piece

rifa

I was thinking this out in the tags but I think it deserves to be here.

So in summer of 2024 I was on an Alaskan cruise that ended up also having a gathering of 800+ Christian nationalist qanon people, no hyperbole at all. And it was one of the weirdest weeks of my life.

But one experience from it was this very strange feeling that this painting reminds me of. When you view this painting youre observing the nazi observing the landscape. When I was I'm Alaska looking at melting glaciers and massive untouched mountains and wilderness, I was also looking at nazis looking at it. And it made me wonder how they saw it, where their appreciation for the natural world sits.

I wondered if they knew that the landscape was only there because it was protected from mining and oil refinery. Or how they were taking in the visibly shrinking glacier without reflecting in horror about the effects on climate change. I looked and thought about the people whose land it was well before settlers, I sought out that history on our excursions, I know they didn't. When we all watched whales together I wondered if they cared, or if they were looking at sacrifices they were willing to make.

It was very surreal because I could hear them talk about how beautiful it all was. But I knew we weren't looking at the same thing, not really, and I wondered *what* exactly they saw.

Just like I wonder about what this nazi sees in this landscape, and how that vision aligns with his others for the world. If it's something he feels entitled to, something he sees as a sacrifice, something cold and aesthetic without any wonder or love for the natural world and the people in it.

Because if beauty and nature can't shift evil what the fuck can

officialdamonalbarn

where is that renaissance painting with those two fellers and a giant fucking random skull on the floor that looks like it was accidentally stretched out in photoshop

officialdamonalbarn

THANK YOU

hickeywiththegoodhair

somebody please explain

dykemisspiggy

Someone once told me it’s like that because it was designed to be hung in a stairwell so the skull pops out as you walk past.

iwilltrytobereasonable

…I guess it works but you have to be at a pretty sharp angle

caecilius-est-pater

There was a whole trend at one point where artists would include something in their paintings (usually a skull, for whatever reason) that’s super distorted in just the right way so that it looks normal if you hold the painting up to a convex/concave mirror. I have absolutely no idea why. But I think that’s what’s going on here.