Christmas Details Competition - Head Games

Christmas Details 2014 - There are 24 details to find this year. The theme is hats and headgear. I do not think the details are difficult to identify, so there will be no despair this year. Consequently, it is likely that there will be a large number of entrants with the all the correct answers. Arguably, that is in the spirit of Christmas. I won't be posting up the competition images while the paper is still on sale.

I noticed that the competition is online, so readers can go here to see the competition images:

 http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/christmas/entertainment/christmas-details-competition-who-is-beneath-the-hats-in-these-wellknown-paintings-9936255.html

The only other comment I have is that there are two paintings included which are by the same painter.

Another Detail that no-one could identify

It's happened again. This time no-one was able to identify a detail chosen by Jenny Gilbert (Competition 1224).

It was from Forging the Anchor by Stanhope Forbes

Jenny Gilbert states that "no correct solutions (or indeed guesses) came in".

I can only recollect one other occasion when this happened in Tom Lubbock's time. I suspect it partially reflects a lack of interest caused by the downgrading of the prize from champagne to prosecco. There is little incentive except for the personal satisfaction. I suspect many aesthetically visually erudite regulars have abandoned the competition.

One wonders if some Christmas cheer might emerge so that the Christmas Competition, shortly to be published, will once again reward any winning competitors with champagne?

DETAILS 1193 - A CASE OF POOR REPRODUCTION

I wonder if others looking at the Details Competition last week found the reproduction of the detail for Competition number 1193 to be unacceptably poor? I suppose this is the new era of prosecco prizes, so anything is possible.

I think it might be better to offer a bottle of champagne to the "first out of the hat", rather than the print prize, with runners up receiving prosecco, though I accept others might disagree.

If anyone could not identify the detail for 1193 as a result of the poor colour reproduction, it was from a painting by Edouard Vuillard.

Details 1191 The End of the Champagne Years

This Competition marks the end of an era. Anyone who won before this week's competition can count themselves lucky. The champagne has run out. The cellars of the Independent on Sunday can now only accommodate.....Prosecco. The man who is the answer to this week's competition, too, is perfectly in tune with a downgrading of the sensory pleasures, ironically enough. Though perhaps Jenny Gilbert is making a point for Alexander Lebedev, who is reportedly seeking to offload the loss-making paper(s). I am not entirely sure if the owner is Alexander Lebedev or his son, Evgeny, as I have access only to Wikipedia on these points, but the Telegraph indicates as follows:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/mediatechnologyandtelecoms/media/10576763/Independent-owner-Lebedev-looking-for-buyers.html

"Mr Lebedev has had to prop up years of losses at IPL, which made an operating loss of £17.5m in the year to September 2012, the most recent set of figures.

Last year, he warned that efforts to destroy his businesses in Russia meant he was not making enough money to sustain The Independent's losses. The former KGB spy said his banking and airline businesses had been ruined with only his potato farming operation remaining lucrative."

Details 1187 - Another obscure print from the United States - Cleveland Museum of Art, Ohio

One can only say "I told you so" about these impossible print details. We have ended up at the logical consequence of Jenny Gilbert's policy: few, if any can find the details of such prints. The Christmas Competition was proof of this. This recent detail 1187 has achieved something which has not happened for 20 years - there were not three winners, only one correct answer. I hardly see how this will encourage anyone to take an interest in the Competition, or indeed, buy the paper.

A recent correspondent has noted that a very large number of details come from the Art Institute of Chicago and another that many come from the same reference book. It would be interesting to know if the said reference book contains this obscure Altdorfer print.

I think that J Knapman of Weybridge deserves all three bottles this week. (I think it's at least his/her tenth win in ten years or more, so s/he deserves it.)

Salome with the Head  of John the Baptist - Albrecht Altdorfer

Details 1184

Well today and last week we were free, mercifully, from the drawings of infants and cherubs, although the last one - 1182 - was Cupid. Few competitors found the Barocci Cupid, in my opinion, as only long in the tooth regulars were winners. Certainly this week (1184) is a distinct change of scene and indeed not from the Art Institute of Chicago. Quite challenging, I think, and likely to lead in a number of false directions.  

Details 1182

Details 1182

One might have thought that the Details devotees had received enough punishment over the Christmas period searching for image number 9, the Rodin sketch. Apparently not, as were are once again presented with sketch/study/drawing of an infant. It was pointed out to me by a correspondent that number 9 in the Christmas Competition and indeed last week's Bronzino are not in fact paintings, yet Ms Gilbert continues to refer to them as paintings. At least this week's painting (which it is not) is not held in the Art Institute of Chicago.

The elusive detail number 9 in the Christmas Competition was from the drawing below.

I believe that the full result will be published next Sunday.
 

Details returns to normal

After the challenge of the 16 detail Christmas Competition which lingered long after Christmas, we return to the more sedate single detail weekly puzzle. I wonder if others have noticed that there are more details from 19th and 20th centuries and very few now from the Renaissance period.