To infinity and beyond, indeed

Magnet #1003 - Fredric Edwin Church's Aurora Borealis

What a gorgeous painting. My friends brought this back for me a few weeks ago.

Do you suppose, back in 1860, when Fredric Edwin Church painted his Aurora Borealis, that he ever thought that man would be Tweeting the same image...from space?

While I get it's totally a PR mechanism for NASA, I can't even believe that all the astronauts are allowed to Tweet...much less from space. And holding Tweet Ups? Wha?

It's like the coolest thing - ever. The astronaut who Tweeted that image (@astro_soichi) has already gone home, so I've started following @astro_wheels and @NASA_Astronauts. I won't lie, it's mainly because in my head, I'm totally envisioning how the kids from Space Camp would have Tweeted. (@JinxtheRogueRobot: "@Max and @Jinx, friends foooooreeeeeever!" or @ImTish: "Whip me, beat me, take away my charge card, NASA'S TALKING!")

Anyway, from this Church painting to those Twitpics, it's truly unbelievable how far we've come in the last couple of centuries.

Back then, it was amazing that Dr. Isaac Hayes was leading an expedition to the Arctic, and that he made it back alive. He's the one who brought back sketches from his trip, and gave them to Church to paint. Folks actually considered this painting a portent of doom, an omen for the ensuing conflict between North and South.

Now, we're marveling over Twitpics from space. Whew.

Church's waterfall

Magnet #946 - Frederic Church's Niagara

Frederic Edwin Church is the classic Hudson River School artist who painted this canvas that hangs at the Corcoran in DC. That's where I picked up this magnet. (Or, stamp, if you want to get technical.)

Niagara is one of the few paintings I've seen that do justice to the actual waterfalls. Of course, it's seven-feet-wide, so that probably helped a bit. Plus, in the deafening quiet of the gallery, you can almost hear the pounding of the falls on the rocks below. Very cool.

The giant piece is overwhelming and amazing, and is likely the painting that solidified Church's place in art history.