Hidden Beached Whale Revealed in 17th-Century Dutch Painting - Polidicks

[img]http://i.imgur.com/gJdLErf.jpg[/img] [img]http://i.imgur.com/Ch3becF.jpg[/img] [i]View of Scheveningen Sands, before and after conservators uncovered a beached whale in the painting. (Fitzwilliam Museum)[/i] [quote]When art conservators in the United Kingdom were cleaning a 17th-century Dutch seascape, they found a surprise: an image of a beached whale that had been hidden for at least 150 years. Until recently, the painting — "View of Scheveningen Sands," created by Hendrick van Anthonissen around 1641 — simply showed groups of people gathered on a beach in The Hague in the Netherlands. "It seemed a very unassuming painting depicting a very calm beach scene set in winter," Shan Kuang, a conservation student at the University of Cambridge's Fitzwilliam Museum, said in a new video explaining the strange find. "There were clusters of people gathered. I was unclear why they were there, but it didn't seem too out of normal." Kuang was tasked with removing a coat of varnish, which is typically found on oil paintings, but unfortunately yellows over time. When she began cleaning, a figure emerged on the horizon of the ocean next to a shape that looked like a sail. This was "extremely peculiar and unexpected," Kuang said. But further cleaning with a scalpel and solvent revealed the floating figure was actually standing on top of a whale, and what at first appeared to be a sail was actually the whale's fin.[/quote] [url=https://news.yahoo.com/hidden-beached-whale-revealed-17th-century-dutch-painting-120128166.html]READ MORE[/url] [url=http://www.livescience.com/46096-beached-whale-revealed-in-mysterious-dutch-painting-video.html]VIDEO[/url]

In medieval England the King technically owned all whales. Fun fact!

thats pretty damn cool

Huh, I don't like this painting -Why? The great rotting sea beast upsets me -I'll fetch the colouring smudges

Am I the only one that thinks the whale was painted on recently?

I wonder if whoever painted over it figured that there was too much going on in the painting with the whale, or that it was just more pleasing without a rotting animal carcass.

Maybe it's an ARG Just in time for E3

Oh Title made me think someone started digging in the sand where the actual location of the scene is in real life and found like a whale skeleton or something Still neat though, makes you wonder why it was altered in the first place.

[QUOTE=xamllew;45040258]I wonder if whoever painted over it figured that there was too much going on in the painting with the whale, or that it was just more pleasing without a rotting animal carcass.[/QUOTE] [t]http://www.thehistoryblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/View-of-Scheveningen-Sands-by-Hendrick-van-Anthonissen-after.jpg[/t] The whale certainly detracts from the scene.

It think it makes the painting much better. Instead of being a dime a dozen ~tranquil beach~ scene it actually shows group of people checking out a beached whale.

Erase it more and you'll uncover an exploded rotting whale.

Wow i didnt know they knew what ur mum looked like in the 17th century!!!!!

It would be interesting if one day you removed a coat of paint from a painting and found everyone in the painting was naked. Removed another and suddenly their skin was gone. Removed another and found their muscles were removed. Something similar has to have been done before. Artists paint over their own shit all the time, surely at some point they must have thought to do it on purpose.

[QUOTE=GunFox;45041124]It would be interesting if one day you removed a coat of paint from a painting and found everyone in the painting was naked. Removed another and suddenly their skin was gone. Removed another and found their muscles were removed. Something similar has to have been done before. Artists paint over their own shit all the time, surely at some point they must have thought to do it on purpose.[/QUOTE] ...Someone get me some rubbing alcohol and the Mona Lisa. Might make that piece of crap worth lookin' at if it got titties on it! [editline]9th June 2014[/editline] Oh, two seconds of googling tells me that's already a thing. [t]http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3f/Monna_Vanna.jpg[/t] [sp]It's not really NSFW if it's classic historical art, is it?[/sp]

You may be cool, but you'll never be as cool as finding a fucking [I]beached whale[/I] from 150 years ago in a paintin.

[QUOTE=Riller;45041152]...Someone get me some rubbing alcohol and the Mona Lisa. Might make that piece of crap worth lookin' at if it got titties on it![/QUOTE] Someone at some point painted over the eyebrows of the Mona Lisa according to xray analysis.

Oh, I see. It wasn't the original artist that painted over it. If it was I'd be a little ticked that they peeled it off. It'd have been how he wanted it shown.