The Modern Prometheus

by Blake N. Behrens

Watercolor

Victor Frankenstein is a fictional character, the protagonist of the 1818 novel Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus, written by Mary Shelley. He is the scientist who, after studying chemical processes and the decay of living beings, gains an insight into the creation of life and gives life to his own creature (often referred to as Frankenstein's monster).

While many subsequent film adaptations (notably the 1931 movie Frankenstein and the Hammer Films series starring Peter Cushing) have portrayed Frankenstein as unbalanced or insane (the prototypical "mad scientist"), the novel portrayed him as atragic figure.

In addition, the Victor Frankenstein of the novel is not a doctor, as he is typically portrayed in adaptations, but a college dropout. Nor is he a "Baron"; and no title is given to his father, either, although they are clearly a wealthy family.

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I find that Dr. Frankenstein is a very interesting character because I knew very little about him. He had an assistant, Igor, and he created a monster. His physical description is so varied that I could have painted him a hundred different ways. In the end, I chose to conceal his face and play off of his work instead of his features for his portrait.

For the Dr. Frankenstein piece I wanted to create something in the campy pulp magazine art style. I ended up using water colors, which I hadn't used in quite some time, for a soft fleshy depiction of the good doctor and his monstrosity. I became very frustrated with the medium and spent more time on this project than I intended. I feel as though my painting skills have really become rusty in the last decade. Eventually I added some india ink to really define the edges and further that old pulp magazine style.

Luckily, when I showed the final piece to my lovely wife, she groaned and almost had to throw up. I guess that's a success?

Vincent Vega - Chemist

Guest Artist

Preston Herring

Graphite on Cold Press

8"x7"

Vincent Vega's scientific achievements as a chemist are best displayed in the true film Pulp Fiction.

In perhaps the most scientific of scenes, Vincent is explaining to his friend Lance about his superior knowledge of powdery substances by stating "Remember, I just got back from Amsterdam." Which Implies that EVEN WITHOUT a lab and his equipment he can decipher the chemical compound and purity level of heroin simply by shooting it up.

Classic science.

Siegbahn Makes A Last Minute Adjustment

Aaron Cahill

Collage

Karl Manne Georg Siegbahn (3 December 1886 - 26 September 1978)[1] was a Swedish physicist who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1924 "for his discoveries and research in the field of X-ray spectroscopy".[2]

Siegbahn was born in Örebro, Sweden. He obtained his Ph.D. at the Lund University in 1911, his thesis was titled Magnetische Feldmessungen (magnetic field measurements). He was acting professor for Johannes Rydberg when his health was failing, and succeeded him as full professor in 1920.

Following his Ph.D., he started research on X-ray spectroscopy. This work continued when he moved to the University of Uppsala in 1923. He developed improved experimental apparatus which allowed him to make very accurate measurements of the X-ray wavelengths produced by atoms of different elements. He developed a convention for naming the different spectral lines that are characteristic to elements in X-ray spectroscopy, the Siegbahn notation. Siegbahn's precision measurements drove many developments in quantum theory and atomic physics.[3]

In 1937, Siegbahn was appointed Director of the Physics Department of the Nobel Institute of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.

Siegbahn married Karin Högbom 1914. They had two children: Bo Siegbahn (1915-2008), a diplomat and politician, and Kai Siegbahn (1918-2007), a physicist, who also received the Nobel Prize in Physics, in 1981, for his contribution to the development of X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy.

He won the Hughes Medal 1934 and Rumford Medal 1940. In 1944 he patented the Siegbahn pump.

Radium Girl

Life is not easy for any of us. But what of that? We must have perseverance and above all confidence in ourselves. We must believe that we are gifted for something and that this thing must be attained. -Marie Curie

Radium Girl

24"x 24"

Spray paint, stain on wood panel

Karl Kroenen

By Vince Conn

Digital, Wacom Tablet

"Here's Karl Kroenen from Hellboy, evil Nazi scientist and Hitler's top assassin."

A German scientist working for the Nazis, and a member of the Thule Society, Dr. Kroenen became one of the top scientists for Project Ragna Rok, and a close disciple of Grigori Rasputin, along with Ilsa Haupstein and Leopold Kurtz. He was present with Rasputin at the secret ritual in Scotland that brought Hellboy to the world.

When von Klempt's head was re-animated, he tried to convince Kroenen to abandon Rasputin's plan to awaken the Ogdru Jahad - and instead to use the Army to retrieve von Klempt's work in South America. Overhearing, Kurtz became furious and attacked von Klempt's head, screaming, "Rasputin is master!" In a panic, Kroenen seized a knife and killed Kurtz. When their plan failed, an enraged Rasputin struck Zinco blind. Wandering around, Zinco accidentally pressed a self-destruct button in the base, destroying it completely and taking Kroenen with it.

Copernicus' Contribution

Blake N. Behrens

AI & PS

18"x18"

Nicolaus Copernicus was a Renaissance astronomer and the first person to formulate a comprehensive heliocentric cosmology, which displaced the Earth from the center of the universe.

I wanted to create a concentric portrait featuring the planets. In my initial ignorance I thought Galileo was the scientist who originally suggested the sun as the center of our universe. After some wiki-research I discovered out that Copernicus, the Polish/Prussian/German Astronomer and Catholic clerk, was the one who founded heliocentric cosmology and Galileo, the Italian Physicist, created the telescopes that helped prove the theory.

In the time of Copernicus, astronomers noticed that the stars moved in a fixed motion but there were five 'wandering' stars that seemed to move in their own paths. The word planet is greek for 'Wandering Star.' In my illustration, I only used the planets that could be seen in Copernicus' time. You may also notice that Saturn does not have rings. They could not see the rings that have become iconic for that particular planet.

I built this in Adobe Illustrator then pulled it in to Photoshop to add texture.

Aldous Huxley, The Observatory

The Observatory, by guest artist Aaron Cahill:

Aldous Huxley

By the end of his life Huxley was considered, in some academic circles, a leader of modern thought and an intellectual of the highest rank, and highly regarded as one of the most prominent explorers of visual communication and sight-related theories as well.

On his deathbed, unable to speak, Huxley made a written request to his wife for "LSD, 100 µg, intramuscular". According to her account of his death in This Timeless Moment, she obliged with an injection at 11:45 am and another a couple of hours later. He died, aged 69, at 5:20 pm on 22 November 1963, several hours after the assassination of John F. Kennedy. Huxley's ashes were interred in the family grave at the Watts Cemetery, home of the Watts Mortuary Chapel in Compton, a village near Guildford, Surrey, England.

The Wizard of Menlo Park

Eric Lyons

Oil on Canvas

Thomas Alva Edison was both a scientist and an inventor. Born in 1847, Edison would see tremendous change take place in his lifetime. He was also to be responsible for making many of those changes occur. When Edison was born, society still thought of electricity as a novelty, a fad. By the time he died, entire cities were lit by electricity. Much of the credit for that progress goes to Edison. In his lifetime, Edison patented 1,093, earning him the nickname "The Wizard of Menlo Park." The most famous of his inventions was an incandescent light bulb. Besides the light bulb, Edison developed the phonograph and the "kinetoscope," a small box for viewing moving films. He also improved upon the original design of the stock ticker, the telegraph, and improved on Alexander Bell’s telephone. He believed in hard work, sometimes working twenty hours a day. Edison was quoted as saying, "Genius is one percent inspiration and 99 percent perspiration." In tribute to this important American, electric lights in the United States were dimmed for one minute on October 21, 1931, a few days after his death.