The Details Competition appeared in the Independent on Sunday's New Review magazine until March 2016. The Competition was no longer included in the online newspaper. Consequently, the whole of this Blog is historical and it is unlikely to be updated.
Wednesday 28 January 2015
Christmas Details 2014 - Answers
The answers to the Christmas Competition were published last weekend. The results are to be found below. There is little to be said except that Tom Lubbock never laid "crafty tripwires". Others may wish to comment.
4 comments:
Anonymous
said...
I absolutely agree. Setting trip wires is unhelpful and detracts from the fun and serious nature of the quiz. I also wish the Details were selected more carefully; this year the Christmas Details in many cases showed far too much of the painting - we needed just to see Durer's stripey hat not his giveaway hair and profile.
What irritated me was not so much being a victim of the "tripwire" (assuming that the reference is to Detail 18), but the rather smug comments that Jenny Gilbert made when the results were published.
She seems to assume that everyone who answered "Portrait of a Lady by Rogier van der Weyden" failed to spot the very obvious differences between the two paintings with that title - one by van der Weyden himself, the other (the one featured in the competition) that she says is "known to be a copy".
Whilst it's true that the National Gallery website describes the painting as by the "Workshop of Rogier van der Weyden", at least three of the online galleries that I accessed (Web Gallery of Art, Art Unframed and Olga's Gallery/abc Gallery) attribute it to van der Weyden himself. That is why I "tripped up", and I suspect why most other entrants did too, so Ms. Gilbert's comments just add insult to injury. If she is trying to discourage readers from entering the Details competition, then she's going the right way about it.
Rogier van der Weyden never signed his work. But J Gilbert's correlation of the detail with the version attributed to his Workshop is correct.
If Ms Gilbert intended to lay that particular trap, it does not reflect well on her understanding of the traditions in the competition. I remain to be convinced that the so called tripwire was laid at all. For me, it has all the hallmarks of post facto rationalisation.
I was surprised to read that the van der Weyden caused the most problem.. The colours in the John Singer Sergeant were so different to the actual painting....
4 comments:
I absolutely agree. Setting trip wires is unhelpful and detracts from the fun and serious nature of the quiz. I also wish the Details were selected more carefully; this year the Christmas Details in many cases showed far too much of the painting - we needed just to see Durer's stripey hat not his giveaway hair and profile.
What irritated me was not so much being a victim of the "tripwire" (assuming that the reference is to Detail 18), but the rather smug comments that Jenny Gilbert made when the results were published.
She seems to assume that everyone who answered "Portrait of a Lady by Rogier van der Weyden" failed to spot the very obvious differences between the two paintings with that title - one by van der Weyden himself, the other (the one featured in the competition) that she says is "known to be a copy".
Whilst it's true that the National Gallery website describes the painting as by the "Workshop of Rogier van der Weyden", at least three of the online galleries that I accessed (Web Gallery of Art, Art Unframed and Olga's Gallery/abc Gallery) attribute it to van der Weyden himself. That is why I "tripped up", and I suspect why most other entrants did too, so Ms. Gilbert's comments just add insult to injury. If she is trying to discourage readers from entering the Details competition, then she's going the right way about it.
Rogier van der Weyden never signed his work. But J Gilbert's correlation of the detail with the version attributed to his Workshop is correct.
If Ms Gilbert intended to lay that particular trap, it does not reflect well on her understanding of the traditions in the competition. I remain to be convinced that the so called tripwire was laid at all. For me, it has all the hallmarks of post facto rationalisation.
Something to be proud of, it is not, I think.
I was surprised to read that the van der Weyden caused the most problem.. The colours in the John Singer Sergeant were so different to the actual painting....
Post a Comment