Murals and Street Art

 From Miriam In Seattle

Ann Arbor

On First Street

In the University Art Museum coffee shop

Students’ shoes decorating the electric wires. An art form?

photos © 2026 mae sander

Statues at Cranbrook Inst.

Night and Day

 Overnight to London

Detroit last night: waiting for the overnight flight to take us to London.
Despite having expectations for a pleasant flight, our seats were uncomfortable and the food was icky.

Heading out of Heathrow Airport by taxi to our hotel in London.
If blogger and web access will allow me to do it, I’ll be posting more as our trip continues.

The National Gallery, London

This is a huge museum, and every painting in it is a masterpiece! 
Although we flew all night in challenging conditions, we slept a bit this morning,
and then spent a few hours seeing the wonderful works of art. I’m just showing a few.

Portrait of Cezanne by Camille Pissarro. (1874)

Self Portrait as Saint Catherine of Alexandria by Artemisia Gentileschi (1615-17)

The Este Diptych by Ercole de’ Roberti (about 1490)
You can see another museum goer behind the case where this is displayed.

Blog post © 2026 mae sander

Easter Island History

 

Mike Pitts’ history of Easter Island (Rapa Nui) and how it was understood 

and misunderstood was published January 27, 2026.

Island at the Edge of the World: The forgotten history of Easter Island primarily views the history of this very remote island in the Pacific Ocean through the history of one couple who spent several years there a little over a century ago. Katherine and Scoresby Routledge were well-known on the island, where they conducted a survey of the famous stone statues and collected oral histories from some of the older inhabitants of the island. Unfortunately, they only managed to publish a small part of their research. In the following decades a great deal of their material was effectively lost, and much misinformation obscured the actual facts about the native islanders and their accomplishments. 

This book is an effort to correct the errors that have accumulated. It’s interesting, though the author frequently offers more detail than an ordinary reader like me might want to absorb. In 1994, a popular film titled “Rapa Nui,” produced by Kevin Costner increased general awarenes of the island. In 2005, a popular book summarized the island’s history: Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed by Jared Diamond. I think this book will contribute to the overall understanding of the island’s history. 

Photo advertising tourism to Easter Island.

Beginning in 1722, when the first European ship stopped at the island, the enormous sculptures by the seemingly primitive inhabitants fascinated voyagers, including the famous Captain Cook and many others. One historic fact that I found very sad is that early explorers noted a variety of birds on the island, but now there are far fewer species — or so says the author. 

In the British Museum

In the British Museum: an Easter Island statue (photographed from various angles).

Fascination with monumental sculptures from Easter Island has lasted for centuries! The sculpture in the above photos was brought to England on the ship HMS Topaze, in 1868. 

The Movie “Rapa Nui”

If you are intrigued by historic mysteries, you might enjoy Mike Pitts’ book. And though I haven’t seen the movie, I found a review written in 1994 by critic Roger Ebert, who wrote: 

“Rapa Nui” slips through the National Geographic Loophole. This is the Hollywood convention which teaches us that brown breasts are not as sinful as white ones, and so while it may be evil to gaze upon a blond Playboy centerfold and feel lust in our hearts, it is educational to watch Polynesian maidens frolicking topless in the surf. This isn’t sex; it’s geography. … 

Concern for my reputation prevents me from recommending this movie. I wish I had more nerve. I wish I could simply write, “Look, of course it’s one of the worst movies ever made. But it has hilarious dialogue, a weirdo action climax, a bizarre explanation for the faces of Easter Island, and dozens if not hundreds of wonderful bare breasts.” I am however a responsible film critic and must conclude that “Rapa Nui” is a bad film. If you want to see it anyway, of course, that’s strictly your concern. I think I may check it out again myself.

Horror Show in Minneapolis

Signs and Marches

Artists’ Visions

Sources of this Art in Minneapolis

It’s very wrong of me not to credit each art work and photo, but I don’t have time and I want to share these important insights. Here are the sources:

https://www.fastcompany.com/91481771/minneapolis-protest-art

https://www.uuworld.org/articles/ice-march-photos-unitarian-universalism

https://www.fastcompany.com/91480108/these-clever-anti-ice-signs-are-taking-over-minneapolis

https://illoz.com/edel/news/9186

https://mspmag.com/arts-and-culture/protest-art-anti-ice/

Overwhelmed by the Renaissance

A not-quite reading success…

“Every day of our lives we’re targeted by at least one lie about history.” (p. 25)

“The plague is as important as the Mona Lisa to our effort to understand this Renaissance, both terrible and great.” (p. 193)

“When you zoom in on a moment in the past, it’s always (A) messier than you thought, and (B) includes more women.” (p. 234)

“If you know only one thing about Savonarola it’s the Bonfire of the Vanities, the Renaissance’s darkest hour (nope), a mass book burning (nope) and art burning (nope), invented by Savonarola (nope) to exert the stifling force of Church and Faith against the broadening of art, science, and thought that he hated (still nope).” (p. 291)

“ I’ve looked through one of Galileo’s telescopes, it’s in Florence, and realizing it’s less powerful than the plastic Hamburglar binoculars I once got in a McDonald’s Happy Meal filled me with new awe that a cunning mind armed with the right questions can get a long, long way with simple tools.” (p. 570)

My Reading

I only managed to sort-of-carefully read the first 500 pages of Ada Palmer’s tome Inventing the Renaissance. I scanned the rest. It’s much much too long, and it has a number of flaws, the main one being that it is precious in the sense of being affected and self-congratulatory. Worse yet, it’s constantly offering rather ordinary and boring  bits of the author’s autobiography — mainly about her experience as a graduate student and her students’ reactions to the subject matter.

Inventing the Renaissance manages to cover several hundred years of humanist thought, to define many concepts, and to provide sketches of the accomplishments of dozens of thinkers of the age and many patrons of these thinkers. I’m a fan of Leonardo da Vinci, Isabella d’Este, Michelangelo, Lucrezia Borgia, Pico della Mirandola, Niccolò Machiavelli, several members of the Medici family, Benvenuto Cellini (“the Florentine goldsmith-sculptor-assassin-jailbreaker-necromancer”), and so on. It’s interesting to read a not-so-critical view of Savonarola. But eventually the level of detail seems brutal, especially when one’s boredom is amplified by details of the author’s academic career.

Of course the book provides a huge dose of historic narrative, character studies of many Renaissance figures, summaries of philosophical narratives, introductions to the major thinkers and interests of the age (both famous ones and obscure ones), a bit about the politics of art works like Michelangelo’s Sistine chapel, and much more. At the end, there’s even a brief history of printing — which in my opinion deserves more prominence: the author characterizes the introduction of printed books as “an information revolution: not new technology (we’re on the Gutenberg-type press until the nineteenth century) but a distribution network revolution.” (p. 587) I felt that her view was weak.

Unless you are a glutton for an extreme level of detail about obscure points, and unless you are a fan of the author’s fascination with her own life and academic achievements, I strongly doubt that you would enjoy reading this book. And although I have in the past immersed myself in some of the biographies of the same individuals featured here, I found it horrendously dense and challenging to follow, which is not a compliment. I say: leave the reading of this academic stuff to the professionals!

Thinking of Famous Art in the Renaissance

I enjoyed the art history, such as discussion of Michelangelo’s slaves.

Michelangelo: The Sistine Chapel. One of the most amazing mural paintings in history:
the book has interesting historical info about this art work and its creator.
Shared with Deb’s Sunday salon at Readerbuzz.

Leonardo’s portrait of Cecelia Gallerani, mistress of Ludovico Sforza, the Duke of Milan was painted when Leonardo was “sent there by Lorenzo de Medici as something between an ambassador and a gift for his Sforza allies.” (p. 326) The ermine is shared with Eileen’s Critters!

Blog post © 2025 mae sander

Photos of art works from Wikipedia

Weekend

Coffee, Wine …

We tried a new coffee shop in Saline, Michigan, down the road from Ann Arbor.
It’s Ok, not great.

The coffee cups are upbeat.

Street art in Saline across from the cafe.

Jam omelet at home

A New Year wine tasting with our neighbors Mary and Marty.
I admire Mary’s Christmas china

Reading

New mystery author. Not terrible, but too long and not really well plotted.
I forced myself to finish this book (showing that the suspense wasn’t so great).
I think I’ll skip all the sequels to this, the first in a series

Free book from amazon.com
I hated it. Not remotely up to this author’s other books.
It’s smarmy and preachy.

Probably my next book.

History Article in the Guardian

Putting the new mayor and his political party in historic context is interesting.
It’s more interesting to me because one of the currently-living people mentioned is someone I knew.

 Photos © 2026 mae

Last Day of Chanukah

Saturday night was the seventh night of the holiday. 
Sunday evening we will light eight candles (plus the one used to light the others).

Sunday morning on the shortest day of the year. The sun struggles to rise over our neighbor’s house.
The lights of Chanukah are sympathetic magic: one more each evening to coax the sun to stay longer.

Alice’s plants are enjoying a brief moment of sunshine in our living room while she is traveling.

Chanukah Murals

“Israeli graffiti artist Dudi Shoval delivers a powerful message through a mural created in the wake of the Bondi Beach Hanukkah massacre.” (link)

Recent work by an Israeli muralist (from Facebook)..
Shared with Sami’s Murals.

Chanukah Mural After a Shooting 5 Years Ago (link)

Blog post © 2025 mae sander