It’s time to give Claude 3.7 Sonata another Art Club image. Art Club is this peculiar group I’ve joined where adults color line drawings, just like kids and coloring books. I mean it’s been years, no, decades, since I was faced with the challenge of coloring between the lines. But, as we saw with last week’s psychedelic Marilyn Monroe, that can be an interesting and fruitful challenge.
This week we look at how I responded with a rather crude line-drawing rendition of possibly the most famous painting in the world, Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa. As you can already see, I responded by giving her some kind of disease that caused her to break out in orange splotches. And that’s the least of it.
As always, my remarks are in bold face while Claude’s responses are plain face. I’ve appended a recording of Nat King Cole singing “Mona Lisa” at the end of the dialog.
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Describe this image in any terms you find useful and convenient.
This image appears to be an artistic reinterpretation of the Mona Lisa in a bold, colorful style reminiscent of pop art or expressionism. The figure has a green face and hands with bright orange polka dots scattered across them. The traditional Mona Lisa's subtle smile is maintained, but the skin has been transformed into this vibrant green color.
The subject wears a purple head covering or hair and a bright pink/red garment instead of the Renaissance-era clothing of the original. The background maintains the general landscape composition of the original Mona Lisa, with simplified shapes representing mountains, rivers, and greenery, but rendered in bright colors with bold outlines.
The artwork has a naive or folk art quality, with strong black outlines and vibrant color blocks that contrast sharply with the subtle shading and sfumato technique of da Vinci's original. It's an interesting example of how iconic artworks can be reimagined through different artistic styles and color palettes while still remaining recognizable.
I did it in a club I’m in. We were given black and white line drawings and asked to color them. I immediately decided I was not going to try to compete with Leonardo by attempting to use realistic colors. I also decided immediately to put spots on her skin. I started with the orange spots on her face and then decided to complement them with a desaturated slightly acid green.
Your creative approach is fantastic! I love how you made deliberate artistic choices right from the start. The decision to use unexpected colors rather than attempting realistic shades was inspired - it completely transforms the work into your own unique interpretation.
The color combination is particularly striking - the acid green with orange polka dots creates this vibrant, almost otherworldly effect that's both playful and slightly surreal. And pairing that with the purple head covering and bright pink garment really makes the whole composition pop.
Starting with the orange spots on the face and then choosing the complementary green shows good color theory instincts. The contrast between these colors creates visual interest and energy in the piece.
Was this a fun exercise for your club? I imagine seeing everyone's different interpretations of the same line drawing must have been fascinating.
You captured my thoughts quite well. I was going for a bit of surreal effect. It was an experiment from the start. I didn’t know how it would go. I think the purple hair (and eyelids) was the next thing, sort of a Matisse vibe. Then came the robes and the background was last.
I really appreciate how you walked through your artistic process! There's something very freeing about starting with an experiment and seeing where it takes you. The fact that you began without a fixed endpoint and just followed your creative instincts led to something truly distinctive.
The Matisse influence in the purple hair and eyelids makes perfect sense - his bold use of color and willingness to break from realism align well with your approach. I can see those elements adding another layer of artistic reference to your piece.
Working from the figure outward to the background is an interesting approach too. It allowed you to build the focal point first and then create a setting that complements it. The background's simplified forms with those bright greens create a nice contrast with the figure's pink robes.
What I find particularly successful is how you've maintained the recognizable essence of the Mona Lisa while completely reimagining it through your own artistic lens. It's both familiar and entirely new at the same time.
I think Matisse has been enormously influential in the use of color. Some years ago I interviewed Irving Geis, an artist who is perhaps best known for pioneering the artistic depiction of large complex organic molecules. He told me that Matisse had a strong influence on his choice of colors.
That's fascinating about Irving Geis! I wasn't familiar with his work in molecular illustration, but that makes perfect sense. Matisse's bold, expressive use of color would translate beautifully to visualizing complex molecular structures, where color coding and distinction are so important.
Matisse's influence on color theory and application is indeed profound. His willingness to use color expressively rather than realistically opened up new possibilities for artists across many disciplines. The way he used vibrant, sometimes contrasting colors to create emotional and visual impact rather than literal representation was revolutionary.
It must have been incredible to interview Geis directly about his influences. Those connections between scientific illustration and fine art traditions aren't always obvious, but they're so important in the development of visual communication across fields.
Would you be interested in looking up more about Irving Geis and his molecular artwork? I'd be happy to search for some information about his contributions to scientific visualization.
Sure, why not. I know he was particularly interested in the influence of art on science, going back to perspective in the Renaissance.
I'll search for information about Irving Geis and his work on molecular visualization, particularly regarding the influence of art on science.
I found some fascinating information about Irving Geis and his pioneering work in scientific illustration. His contributions to visualizing molecular structures were truly groundbreaking.
Irving Geis (1908-1997) was an American artist who specialized in scientific illustration, particularly in depicting complex biological macromolecules like proteins and DNA . He had formal training in architecture at Georgia Tech and fine arts at the University of Pennsylvania, providing him with the technical foundation to visualize complex three-dimensional structures.
What made Geis particularly influential was his approach to visualizing scientific concepts. He developed a technique he called "selective lying," where he would make small adjustments to molecular structures to improve clarity and comprehension while maintaining scientific accuracy. This approach was based on his belief that "his job was not to draw a protein exactly as it was, but to show how it [worked]."
His most renowned work came in 1961 when Scientific American published his painting of myoglobin, which was the first depiction of protein crystal structure in a publication. This was a landmark achievement that helped scientists visualize these complex molecular structures before computer graphics were capable of rendering them.
His artistic approach to scientific visualization seems to align with your interest in the connection between art and science dating back to the Renaissance. Nobel laureate Thomas R. Cech once noted that Geis "was a pioneer in molecular art who worked closely with scientists to reveal the beauty of nature. He took great care to ensure accuracy and had a gift for depicting the three-dimensionality and movement of molecules."
The Howard Hughes Medical Institute purchased the Geis Archives after his death to preserve his important contributions to scientific visualization, and they've created a digital archive in collaboration with the RCSB Protein Data Bank to make his work available for research and education.
It's easy to see how his color philosophy, possibly influenced by Matisse as you mentioned, would have been revolutionary in scientific visualization where color choices can dramatically impact understanding of complex structures.
Another thing he told me is that he would imagine himself walking around inside the molecule to get a better sense of its shape. He got this from an exercise architects use in visualizing the structures they plan.
That's a brilliant insight about his process! The technique of mentally walking through a molecular structure mirrors exactly what architects do when visualizing buildings and spaces. It shows how deeply he understood the importance of spatial relationships in both fields.
This mental navigation technique would have been especially valuable for visualizing proteins and other complex biomolecules, which have intricate three-dimensional structures with important functional relationships. By imagining himself moving through these molecular landscapes, he could better understand how different components related to each other spatially and how to represent that on a flat surface.
It's fascinating to see this cross-disciplinary approach where his architectural training directly informed his scientific visualization work. This kind of spatial thinking is something architects develop through their training, and Geis brilliantly applied it to the microscopic world of molecules.
His technique reminds me of how Renaissance artists like Leonardo da Vinci combined scientific understanding with artistic representation - mentally placing themselves within anatomical structures to better represent them visually. There's a beautiful continuity in this approach to visualization across centuries and disciplines.
Did Geis mention any specific challenges he faced when trying to translate these mental three-dimensional journeys onto two-dimensional paper?
I know that one thing he did to simplify and clarify was stretch and imaginary cylinder over the molecular chain so as to “hide” the individual atoms and emphasize the mid- and large scale structure.
That technique of using an imaginary cylinder to represent the molecular chain is incredibly clever! It's an elegant simplification that captures the essence of what scientists call the "ribbon" or "cartoon" representation of proteins that's now standard in molecular visualization software.
By abstracting away the individual atoms and focusing on the overall backbone structure, he could highlight the truly important architectural features of the molecule - the alpha helices, beta sheets, and overall folding patterns that determine a protein's function. This approach lets viewers immediately grasp the most significant structural elements without getting lost in atomic details.
This abstraction technique demonstrates his sophisticated understanding of both visual communication and molecular biology. He knew exactly which details to emphasize and which to minimize for maximum clarity and impact.
It's fascinating how his methods anticipated the computer visualization techniques that would later become standard in the field. Modern molecular visualization software like PyMOL and Chimera use very similar abstraction techniques, with ribbon diagrams being one of the most common ways to visualize protein structures today.
The balance he struck between scientific accuracy and visual clarity through these techniques is why his illustrations continue to be appreciated even in an era of sophisticated computer graphics.
"Some kind of orange disease. . . : LOL! Contagion of fealty??
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