In Pliny the Elder’s encyclopedic Natural History, written in the first century AD, he recounts the story of a painter, Protogenes. Attempting to capture the foam around a dog’s mouth, Protogenes became so frustrated that he threw a sponge at the canvas. The resulting impression created just the look he had wanted.
“For Pliny,” says Verity J. Platt, associate professor of classics, “it becomes this wonderful archetype of how nature is herself an artist. The human artist is the unwitting agent of nature, grappling with raw materials, and also shaped by their properties and affordances. Pliny uses this to convey the material nature of painting and the complex relationship between nature and culture.”
Ryan Young/Cornell University
Semiconductors are at the core of the economy and national security. Their importance makes them a target. Sarah Kreps, director of the Tech Policy Institute in the Cornell Jeb E. Brooks School of Public Policy, discusses how Cornell is helping to keep the semiconductor supply chain safe.
A party in the Temple of Zeus for retiring Zeus manager, Lydia Dutton. Left to right: A.R. Ammons, Cecil Giscombe, Dutton, David Burak, Phyllis Janowitz, James McConkey and Tony Caputi.
