Robert Van Vranken
Untitled (Where Do Thoughts Come From, Where Do They Go?)
oil and paper on board
4’ 10” x 12’ 6” x 7”
2002

Robert Van Vranken’s imagined laboratory is filled with a history of instruments of learning, as well as references to the trials of the intellectual life. The most notable of these is the quotation of Albrecht Durer’s figure of Melancholy (Melencolia I, 1514), surrounded by instruments of learning; in the upper right, we find the meditative figure of Darwin – inspired by the figure on the bronze doors of the National Academy of Sciences at 2101 Constitution Avenue. The imaginary studio looks out on nature – the inspiration behind the inquiry. In the sky, the star chart from the Atlas Coelestis (Celestial Atlas) of John Flamsteed and Sir James Thornhill (1729) refers not only to human investigation, but also to the engraved image in the lobby of this building.

The National Academies commissioned Van Vranken’s painting for its building at 500 Fifth Street, NW.

Keck Center of the National Academies
500 Fifth Street, NW, Washington, DC
Second Floor
Open to the Public: Selected Third Thursdays, from 5 – 8 p.m.
For more info, contact arts@nas.edu, 202.334.2436