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Paris, France |Scientists believe Leonardo da Vinci's super-fast eye may have helped him catch the enigmatic magic of Mona Lisa's smile.
This superhuman trait, which top tennis and baseball players may also share, allowed the Renaissance master to capture accurately minute, fleeting expressions and even birds and dragonflies in flight.
Art historians have long talked of Leonardo's "quick eye", but David S Thaler of Switzerland's University of Basel has tried to gauge it in a new study published Thursday alongside another paper showing how he gave his drawings and paintings uncanny emotional depth.
Professor Thaler's research turns on how Leonardo's eye was so keen he managed to spot that the front and back wings of a dragonfly are out of synch -- a discovery which took slow-motion photography to prove four centuries later.
The artist, who lived from 1452 to 1519, sketched how when a dragonfly's front wings are raised, the hind ones are lowered, something that was a blur to Thaler and to his colleagues when they tried to observe the difference themselves.
Thaler told AFP that this gift to see what few humans can may be the secret of Leonardo's most famous painting.
"Mona Lisa's smile is so enigmatic because it represents the moment of breaking into a smile. And Leonardo's quick eye captured that and held it," he said.
- Freeze frame -
"So often our memories are of a fixed image, not a movement. Leonardo and perhaps other artists had that ability to pick up the point of breaking into a smile" or emotion.
Thaler suspects the Japanese painter Hokusai -- best known for "The Great Wave of Kanagawa" -- had the same ability.
The Edo master (1760-1849) also picked up the difference in dragonfly wings, which led Thaler to wonder if "he saw (in) the same freeze-frame way as Leonardo".
Thaler applied "flicker fusion frequency" (FFF) -- similar to a film's frames per second — to try to judge Leonardo's extraordinary visual acuity in the study for the Rockefeller University in the US as a part of a wider Leonardo DNA Project looking at the Renaissance polymath.
Because of our slower FFF, we construct a single 3D image of the world by jamming together many partially in-focus images, he said.
Leonardo realised he could freeze the separate snapshots with which we construct our perception, Thaler believes.
Thaler told AFP that he was fascinated by the case of Ted Williams, an American baseball legend who claimed to have trained himself to see the seams of a baseball as it flew towards him.
"It is said that elite batters can see the seams" even when the baseball is rotating 30 to 50 times per second, Thaler said.
In Leonardo's case, Thaler estimated that to see the difference in batting dragonfly wings clearly, the artist would have to have an FFF range of 50 to 100 frames per second.
The average person's is between 20 to 40 per second.
Thaler told AFP it was not clear if the gift was genetic or if it could be learned.
- Da Vinci's 'evening' portraits -
The researcher also described in another paper how Leonardo used psychophysics -- much of which still remains a mystery today -- to communicate beauty and emotion.
He said Leonardo's mastery of the sfumato technique -- which subtly blurs the edges of images and creates a 3D effect -- allowed him to render lifelike expressions and gave an intimate gaze to his portraits.
He believes that Leonardo achieved selective soft focus in portraits by painting in overcast or evening light, where the eyes' pupils enlarge to let in more light but have a narrow plane of sharp focus.
The enlarged pupils of his sitters -- also a sign of affection or attraction -- were a mark of beauty in Renaissance portraits.
It appears to confirm what the artist himself wrote in his notebook: "In the evening and when the weather is dull, what softness and delicacy you may perceive in the faces of men and women..."
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© Agence France-Presse
Amsterdam, Netherlands | A Dutch art detective revealed Thursday he has received two recent photographs of a Vincent Van Gogh painting stolen from a museum during the coronavirus lockdown.
Burglars snatched the 1884 painting "Parsonage Garden at Nuenen in Spring", which is valued at up to six million euros ($6.6 million), from the Singer Laren Museum near Amsterdam on March 30.
Arthur Brand, dubbed the "Indiana Jones of the Art World" for tracing a series of high-profile lost artworks, said he was handed the photos a few days ago by a source he declined to identify.
The photographs, of which AFP was given two copies, show the painting, together with a front page of the New York Times newspaper of May 30 to prove when the photos were taken.
"After three months of intensive investigation, I was handed these pictures. This is the first 'proof of life' we have that the painting still exists," Brand said, adding that valuable pictures are often destroyed when the thieves realise they cannot be sold.
He added that the photos were "circulating in mafia circles".
In the photographs, a new scratch can be seen on the bottom of the painting, which Brand said he believed must have happened during the robbery.
The New York Times issue in the photographs of the painting featured an interview with Brand and Octave Durham, the notorious Dutch burglar who stole two paintings from Amsterdam's Van Gogh Museum in 2002.
It also showed a copy of Durham's 2018 book "Master Thief", placed on a black plastic background.
Asked about the authenticity of the painting shown in the photos, Brand said one of them shows the back of the artwork featuring the so-called provenance -- the history of ownership -- which serves almost as a type of fingerprint for the artwork.
"There is no doubt in my mind that this is the genuine article," he said.
- 'Great number of tips' -
Brand, who declined to divulge how he obtained the photos, said he believed there could be a number of reasons the art thieves decided to circulate them.
"It could simply be that they are trying to find a buyer in the criminal underworld," he added.
The photographs "could also be a plan to try and cast suspicion on Durham, because they used his book in the pictures," he said.
Durham however was in hospital in Amsterdam at the time of the latest heist "and has a rock-solid alibi", the detective said.
However, the reasons could be even more personal said Brand, who has recovered stolen art including a Picasso painting and "Hitler's Horses", life-sized bronze sculptures that once stood outside the Nazi leader's Berlin chancellery.
"Perhaps they want to make a deal with prosecutors, using the painting as leverage," the Amsterdam-based detective said.
"Or perhaps they just want to toy with me, because they know I am investigating the case, and that I took it personally when they stole a Van Gogh right from my back yard," he said.
Dutch police video images released shortly after the burglary showed a burglar smashing through a glass door at the museum in the middle of the night, before running out with the painting tucked under his right arm.
Police in their latest statement said "we have received a great number of tips in this case."
Asked if he had passed on the information to the Dutch police, Brand said "he was following the usual channels".
"Parsonage Garden at Nuenen in Spring" comes from relatively early on in Van Gogh's career, before the prolific artist embarked on his trademark post-impressionist paintings such as "Sunflowers" and his vivid self-portraits.
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© Agence France-Presse
Los Angeles, United States | Spotify has penned a podcast deal with DC Comics -- home to Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman -- bringing scripted superhero episodes to the audio streaming platform.
The deal announced Thursday follows a separate Spotify deal with Kim Kardashian West for a criminal justice podcast, as the Swedish platform continues to splurge on a raft of original content.
The multi-year deal with DC parent WarnerMedia for an "original slate of narrative scripted podcasts" will explore "new shows based on the vast universe of premier, iconic DC characters," the companies said in a statement.
It did not confirm which comic book characters would feature, or the cost of the deal, which will also include "new dramatic and comedic podcasts" based on other Warner Bros. titles.
But the deal comes as Spotify ramps up its podcast content, including a reported $100 million outlay last month on "The Joe Rogan Experience," the most downloaded podcast in the United States.
On Wednesday, it emerged Spotify had inked an exclusive deal with Kardashian West, the reality star turned criminal justice advocate.
The show will investigate the case of Kevin Keith, a convicted mass murderer who maintains his innocence for the 1994 deaths of three people including a four-year-old child, according to the Wall Street Journal.
Keith's death sentence was commuted to life in prison by Ohio's governor in 2010 due to unanswered questions in his case.
Several dozen former judges, lawyers and prosecutors believe he may have been wrongly convicted and had called for his execution to be halted.
Spotify confirmed the deal with Kardashian West to AFP, but declined to offer any further details.
For a little over a year, Spotify has slowly been moving into the podcast world.
In early 2019, it bought the podcasting company Gimlet Studios for around $230 million, as well as the production interface Anchor for more than $100 million.
And in February, Spotify acquired The Ringer, a sports and entertainment production studio, for between $141 million and $195 million, depending on several variables.
amz/bgs
© Agence France-Presse
Buenos Aires, Argentina |Argentina's strict coronavirus lockdown has forced hundreds of party venues into bankruptcy since it came into force in March, but many owners are successfully remodelling their businesses to embrace the virtual realities of the pandemic's new normal.
Jisr al-Zarqa, Israel | Standing barefoot on an Israeli beach, Hamama Jarban blew her whistle and watched her students race towards the water clutching their colourful surfboards.
New York, United States |US folk and rock legend Bob Dylan released his first album of original songs in eight years on Friday with the ten-track "Rough and Rowdy Ways."
Belgrade, Serbia | Serbians will elect a new parliament on Sunday in a expected to bolster the rule of the centre-right party that has led the Balkan state for the past eight years.
Here are five facts about the former communist country that loves sports, food and has a long history of balancing East and West.
- Landlocked country -
Like neighbouring Hungary and Macedonia, Serbs have to travel abroad for a seaside vacation. But that wasn't always the case.
Under the former Yugoslavia, Serbia was joined with its Adriatic neighbours Croatia and Montenegro, plus Slovenia, Bosnia and North Macedonia to form the socialist federation.
A series of brutal 1990s wars under Serbian strongman Slobodan Milosevic unravelled the communist country.
Today tensions are still high between Serbia and its former province Kosovo, whose 2008 declaration of independence Belgrade has never accepted.
With no more access to the sea, Serbian navy ships now sail the country's rivers, notably the Danube that winds through the capital Belgrade.
- Balancing powers -
Serbia has for six years been in negotiations to join the European Union, its main economic partner.
But the country also maintains close relations with Russia and China.
Some Serbs have a fondness for Moscow as the country's Orthodox Slav "big brother", while China has become a growing source of investment.
Both powers crucially back Serbia on the Kosovo issue, rejecting its independence and helping shut the former province out of the United Nations.
Serbs are in fact used to looking in different directions: trapped for centuries between the Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman empires, they did not secure independence until the 19th century, though it has been constantly questioned amid the region's changing borders.
- Serbs home and abroad -
According to the 2011 census, ethnic Serbs account for 83 percent of the population and most of them are Orthodox Christians.
There are also about two dozen minorities living in the country including Croats, Roma, Albanians, Hungarians and Slovaks.
While 7.1 million people live in Serbia, several million more Serbs live abroad.
Vienna is considered the second-largest Serbian town in the world, while there are also large Serb communities in Toronto, Chicago, Paris and Australia.
Serbs also make up significant minorities in neighbouring Bosnia, Montenegro, Croatia and Kosovo.
- Sports stars -
The country's most popular ambassador is probably tennis king Novak Djokovic, the top-ranked player in the world.
Though he spends most of his time in Monte Carlo, the Serb regularly visits home and recently brought star players to his native Belgrade for a charity tournament.
Football remains the most popular sport, with a fierce rivalry -- and rowdy hooligan scene -- between Belgrade's main clubs Red Star and Partizan.
Yet Serbs seem to have more success internationally in other team sports such as basketball, volleyball and water polo, where they regularly beat world and European rivals.
The country also takes credit for raising NBA centre Nikola Jokic, a rising star with the Denver Nuggets.
- The raspberry state -
With bucolic rolling hills and rich soil, Serbia is an agricultural country that few may know is one of the world's top raspberry exporters.
In 2019, exports came to around 215 million euros ($242 million), according to the statistics bureau.
Come spring, local markets are full of strawberries, blackberries and other fruits, which can be bought dried in winter.
Yet the real national passion is for grilled meat, the centre-piece of most meals at the lively kafanas -- similar to taverns -- where Serbians go to celebrate and enjoy traditional cuisine.
bur-mat/ev/ks/ssm/bp
© Agence France-Presse
Serbians will elect a new parliament on Sunday in a vote expected to bolster the rule of the centre-right party that has led the Balkan state for the past eight years.
Here are five facts about the former communist country that loves sports, food and has a long history of balancing East and West.
- Landlocked country -
Like neighbouring Hungary and Macedonia, Serbs have to travel abroad for a seaside vacation. But that wasn't always the case.
Under the former Yugoslavia, Serbia was joined with its Adriatic neighbours Croatia and Montenegro, plus Slovenia, Bosnia and North Macedonia to form the socialist federation.
A series of brutal 1990s wars under Serbian strongman Slobodan Milosevic unravelled the communist country.
Today tensions are still high between Serbia and its former province Kosovo, whose 2008 declaration of independence Belgrade has never accepted.
With no more access to the sea, Serbian navy ships now sail the country's rivers, notably the Danube that winds through the capital Belgrade.
- Balancing powers -
Serbia has for six years been in negotiations to join the European Union, its main economic partner.
But the country also maintains close relations with Russia and China.
Some Serbs have a fondness for Moscow as the country's Orthodox Slav "big brother", while China has become a growing source of investment.
Both powers crucially back Serbia on the Kosovo issue, rejecting its independence and helping shut the former province out of the United Nations.
Serbs are in fact used to looking in different directions: trapped for centuries between the Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman empires, they did not secure independence until the 19th century, though it has been constantly questioned amid the region's changing borders.
- Serbs home and abroad -
According to the 2011 census, ethnic Serbs account for 83 percent of the population and most of them are Orthodox Christians.
There are also about two dozen minorities living in the country including Croats, Roma, Albanians, Hungarians and Slovaks.
While 7.1 million people live in Serbia, several million more Serbs live abroad.
Vienna is considered the second-largest Serbian town in the world, while there are also large Serb communities in Toronto, Chicago, Paris and Australia.
Serbs also make up significant minorities in neighbouring Bosnia, Montenegro, Croatia and Kosovo.
- Sports stars -
The country's most popular ambassador is probably tennis king Novak Djokovic, the top-ranked player in the world.
Though he spends most of his time in Monte Carlo, the Serb regularly visits home and recently brought star players to his native Belgrade for a charity tournament.
Football remains the most popular sport, with a fierce rivalry -- and rowdy hooligan scene -- between Belgrade's main clubs Red Star and Partizan.
Yet Serbs seem to have more success internationally in other team sports such as basketball, volleyball and water polo, where they regularly beat world and European rivals.
The country also takes credit for raising NBA centre Nikola Jokic, a rising star with the Denver Nuggets.
- The raspberry state -
With bucolic rolling hills and rich soil, Serbia is an agricultural country that few may know is one of the world's top raspberry exporters.
In 2019, exports came to around 215 million euros ($242 million), according to the statistics bureau.
Come spring, local markets are full of strawberries, blackberries and other fruits, which can be bought dried in winter.
Yet the real national passion is for grilled meat, the centre-piece of most meals at the lively kafanas -- similar to taverns -- where Serbians go to celebrate and enjoy traditional cuisine.
bur-mat/ev/ks/ssm/bp
© Agence France-Presse
Los Angeles, United States | The guitar that grunge rock icon Kurt Cobain played during his legendary 1993 MTV Unplugged performance sold Saturday for a record $6 million, the auction house said.
Paris, France | AFP
From a 14-year-old Japanese racing driver to a 17-year-old Russian goalkeeper to an English striker claiming a maiden professional hat-trick at 18, it was a good weekend for teenagers in sport.
Juju Noda - like father, like daughter
-- Just 14, Noda has motor racing in her blood after her father Hideki who raced in Formula One and Indy Cars in the 1990s and early 2000s.
On Saturday she took victory from pole position to win the Danish Formula 4 race at Jyllandsringen, in what was the first single-seater race in Europe since the coronavirus lockdown.
Such is the hype surrounding Noda, who only turned 14 in February, that she has already been compared to F1 tyro Max Verstappen.
"I think it is something necessary if you want to be competitive and professional," Noda told thepitcrewonline.net.
"If you cannot deal with it, that means you are not good enough. To be honest, sometimes it is a bit hard to handle but I always do my best."
Denis Popov - lets in 10 goals, is man of the match
-- Denis Popov was man of the match in Rostov's loss at Sochi in the Russian Premier League, which might strike some as odd.
After all, he was the goalkeeper buried beneath an avalanche of goals in his team's 10-1 mauling on the banks of the Black Sea.
But the 17-year-old still won rave reviews for pulling off 15 saves, including one from a penalty.
The Rostov team was made up entirely of teenagers after their senior squad was placed into quarantine due to players testing positive for coronavirus.
Sochi refused to postpone the game leaving Rostov with a squad of two 16-year-olds, 12 who were 17, three at 18 and one 19-year-old.
"First of all -- our 17-year-old goalkeeper, Denis Popov, made 15 (!!!) breathtaking saves (including one penalty), which is a Russian Premier League new record! Denis absolutely stole the whole show today and got his well-deserved Man of the Match award," tweeted a proud Rostov club.
Louie Sibley - a Rams man
-- Derby County Academy graduate Louie Sibley grabbed his first professional hat-trick in the 3-2 win against Millwall in the second-tier English Championship, keeping the Rams on course for the play-offs.
"I'm absolutely buzzing. I did well but I just want to keep going, keep playing and to get a hat-trick is unbelievable," the 18-year-old told the Derby website.
"I don't think it will sink in. All my family are big Derby fans and they will all be texting me and ringing me but they will all be over the moon."
dj/td/jc
© Agence France-Presse
Francois Pienaar, even 25 years on, conveys a sense of disbelief and awe when he talks of that crisp Highveld winter's day that the Springboks won the Rugby World Cup for the first time.
The Springbok captain's wonder is not so much about the fact that his team won the Webb Ellis Cup at Ellis Park on June 24 1995, for he says he always felt they could pull it off, but that he received the golden trophy from President Nelson Mandela.
"I am probably the luckiest sports person ever because of the unique relationship (with Mandela)," he says of a man who became a father figure to him.
Their close bond, a young white Afrikaner and the famous black prisoner of Robben Island, grew out of Pienaar's captaincy of the Springboks and Mandela's visionary and altruistic support of a team who played in a jersey many of his followers despised.
It started with a cup of tea, he told AFP.
"The president invited me to visit him in his office at the Union Buildings in Pretoria. We talked about all things –- not just the World Cup. He wanted to know a lot about me.
"There were so many high-powered people waiting outside to see him and every time Mary (Mxadana, Mandela's assistant) would come in to hurry him up he would say to her: "Mary, I'm speaking to my captain."
"I was so nervous before I went into his office and when I left I sat in my car and just felt I had been in the presence of a very wise and caring man and I felt safe.
"I know it sounds bizarre. You have no idea of his aura, the genuineness, the sense of humour. We laughed. There was an immediate bond," says Pienaar.
Mandela visited the Springboks at their final pre-World Cup training session at sports fields in Cape Town and wished the awe-struck group of young men well; receiving in return a Springbok cap from Hennie le Roux, spontaneously removed from the head of Japie Mulder.
To a refrain of "Nelson! Nelson! Nelson!" Mandela officially opened the tournament in Cape Town and the Springboks took what their coach Kitch Christie had referred to as the "high road" by beating defending champions Australia.
Thirty-one days and four more games packed full of dramatic incident later Pienaar and his men contested the rugby championship of the world against their oldest and most respected foe, the All Blacks.
- Epic final -
An epic final went into extra time before Joel Stransky landed his storied knockout blow sending a wave of patriotic harmony that swept over all creeds and hues such as the country had never experienced before.
Pienaar, interviewed on the field immediately after the final whistle, spoke the inspirational words, "not for 60,000 but for 43 million South Africans" that united a euphoric nation.
Pienaar's men had lived up to their motto "One Team, One Nation" with their 15-12 victory and Madiba's captain recalls in wonderment that as the cup was being handed to him they spoke, almost in unison, exactly the same sentence.
"Francois, thank you for what you've done for this country" –- "Mr President, thank you for what you've done for this country."
The bond between the rugby player and the struggle hero would extend well beyond the World Cup.
"He invited himself to our wedding," laughs Pienaar. "We were having a celebration at the Union Buildings and I said I wanted to introduce him to my fiancee Nerine. He took her hand and said "would you feel offended if I come to your wedding Nerine?"
"When my son Jean was born he said he wanted to be his godfather, 'if we didn't mind', and he gave him a Xhosa name: Mkhokheli, which means leader.
"Madiba regularly invited us for tea and our second son, Stephane, who was four or five at the time asked 'why is Mr Mandela only Jean's godfather and not mine too?' We had to explain that he didn't get the call!
"However Stephane ran straight to Madiba and said to him, 'Mr Mandela, will you please also be my godfather? And Madiba didn't miss a beat, saying of course and adding that his Xhosa name would be Gorha, the brave one.
"We had such intimate conversations. I am truly the luckiest sportsman alive by a long way; to be so privileged at that time to be the captain, to share the platform with him, to be influenced by him and to get to know him so well," Pienaar said.
Pienaar was dropped from the Springbok side in 1996 and when he announced he would be leaving to join Saracens in London, Mandela summoned him to lunch and left him with a final request.
"Francois you promise me you will come back one day and you'll make a difference."
On his return to South Africa, Pienaar obliged by establishing the Make a Difference Leadership Foundation (MAD) in Mandela's name with the aim of developing academically talented scholars with leadership potential into future leaders for South Africa.
He runs his own sports eventing company, Advent Sport Entertainment and Media (ASEM), which is responsible for, among other properties, the hugely successful Varsity Cup student rugby competition and the Cape Town Marathon.
Pienaar says the life lesson he learnt from the late president Mandela is that "good leadership is based on good values".
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© Agence France-Presse
