2.07 Art History

Order

2.05

Status

::PROTO::

Location Status

Initial contact made

GC Point of Contact

Erik

Location Notes

Kaffeehaus in San Mateo; Allen made initial contact; need to negotiate deal to be open at this time.

Type

Mandatory Puzzle

Plot Setup

Prof. Chronus has bounced through time; the machine is mostly fixed but the View-O-Scope is still broken, so they can't communicate with her directly to learn where she wants to go. However, the time machine has sensed significant temporal disturbances in the vicinity of [Location]. (Interpreting time machine data to find the Location can be an optional puzzle.) Doctor When will tell the players that she probably tried to find some alternate way to communicate her request...but in a way that was likely to withstand the passage of time. And she'd want to be very subtle so as to not alter the timeline.

That location might turn out to be the Louvre. Or a series of locations that are famous around the world for works of art.

Props

Books of famous paintings altered to include Chronos (American Gothic, Mona Lisa, etc.)

Plot Point to Convey

Chronos wants to go back to... the same date & place as When did in Act I (perhaps 1 hour later).

Short Description

Prof. Chronus has managed to insert herself into famous works of art to "tell" the teams where she wants them to send her next.

Detailed Description

Prof. Chronus has, while bouncing through time, managed to insert herself into famous works of art, in order to convey a message to the teams (without risking "screwing up the time sequence" by trying to create an overt message). Examples include her face on the Mona Lisa, her standing in American Gothic, and so on. Solving the puzzle reveals where she wants to be sent - Painful Memories High School, at 3pm on June 1, 1986. The answer could just be the date & time (150006011986 or 3PMJUNE11986 or something like that), or something like HSSCIENCEFAIR3PM, or something equivalent. (Draft of puzzle completed, but it doesn't quite match our vision - in particular, Prof. Chronus isn't yet part of the art pieces, and the solution rested on an element that wasn't strictly part of the art pieces.)

Puzzle Answer

time/space coordinates almost identical to those in Fix the Time Coordinates from Act I.

Puzzle Solution

The paintings all have changed titles, each of which has the homophone of a number embedded in it. Ordering by years and using the number homophone to index into the title yields the message FOURTHWORDS.

Step 1

Title	Year	Number homophone	Number	Indexed letter
The Forbearance of Caterina	1513	For	4	F
Woman with a Parasol to Shade Her	1875	to	2	O
Day at Le Moulin - Parisians Attending	1876	ten	10	U
Tensions Erupting	1893	Ten	10	R
The Courtesans Luxuriate	1907	ate	8	T
The Tutor of Love	1908	Tu	2	H
Nude Woman Descending (Amplify Verticality)	1912	fy Ve	5	W
Hard Work: American Basics	1930	sics	6	O
American Fortitude (Cathie the Carpenter)	1943	For	4	R
Dream in a Wonderland	1944	Won	1	D
Nine Katys	1962	Nine	9	S

Each clip on the audio tour matches to a painting. The pairs are:

Step 2

1st two words of clip	Painting
Composition, balance	The Forbearance of Caterina
I am	Woman with a Parasol to Shade Her
Lovely details	Day at Le Moulin - Parisians Attending
This brilliant	Tensions Erupting
The young	The Courtesans Luxuriate
Look closely	The Tutor of Love
This modernist	Nude Woman Descending (Amplify Verticality)
Simple, plain	Hard Work: American Basics
Female laborers	American Fortitude (Cathie the Carpenter)
Realistic landscapes	Dream in a Wonderland
From chins	Nine Katys

The fourth words of each audio clip, still ordered by painting year, read "ORDER BY HIDDEN PAINTER NAMES FIND NUMBERS IN THEIR NATIVE TONGUES".

Each audio clip contains two embedded words - the painter's name plus an additional letter, and a number in the painter's native language. Putting them in alphabetical order by painter's last name, the transcribed clips (highlighting the embedded pieces) are:

         Normal  0          false  false  false    EN-US  X-NONE  X-NONE

Dali: (extra letter D, number CINCO)

Realistic landscapes and native animals are not a hallmark of this surrealist masterpiece, which has little logiC IN COmmon with reality, comprising flying tigers, a woman sleeping on some sort of tiDAL DIvide, and an opened pomegranate among its disparate elements.

Da Vinci: (extra letter A, number TRE)

Composition, balance, and order - plus one of the most famous smiles in Western art – define this painting, which first comes across as having portrayeD A VAIN CItizen of the nobility. However, the arT REvisited instead reveals a woman of humbler serenity.

Duchamp: (extra letter T, number UN)

This modernist classic numbers among the most influential of the twentieth century. The painter, never one to have his conDUCT HAMPered by convention or an impromptU Naturalist style, decomposes static elements of the human form and dynamic elements of its motion in this masterpiece.

Klimt: (extra letter E, number EINS)

Look closely to find and examinE IN Small detail the rich textures of this piece – particularly the gold leaf's sparKLE. I'M Thrilled every time I study this painting.

Monet: (extra letter A, number NEUF)

I am exhilarated by this painting every time I see it, with the colors and shadows on the grass, the clouds shimmering almost like some airborNE UFO, and the overall panorama one takes in.

Munch: (extra letter N, number ATTE)

This brilliant Norwegian painter asks if we will condeMN UNCHivalrous passions or recoil from the greAT TError expressed in this moving work.

Picasso: (extra letter D, number SEIS)

The young prostitutes' names are lost to history, but their provocative figures live on – from one's mask-like face to another's ePIC ASS. DOubters were shocked by the aggressive portrayal of the women, which – of courSE – IS the point.

Renoir: (extra letter T, number UN)

Lovely details are hidden throughout this work – yoU Need, almost literally, a magnifying glass to examine the tiny hats, clothes, and lighting in the backdrop of this pictuRE. NOT IRonically, it is renowned for its masterful brush strokes and richness of form.

Rockwell: (extra letter I, number FOUR)

Female laborers have their diligence memorialized in this classic painting. In the war effort, Cathie the Carpenter represented a pillar of strength – a real ROCK. I, WELL, I have nothing but admiration for the women who worked tirelessly for the preservation oF OUR freedoms.

Warhol: (extra letter M, number ONE)

From chins to tongues to eyes to hair, the bright colors ON Every face in this popular painting resemble those you might expect to find on a WARM HOLiday in the tropics.

Wood: (extra letter E, number FIVE)

Simple, plain folk in modest surroundings – that's the America shown in this painting, from the spartan clothes to the peaked rooF. I'VE long been tempted to think of the subjects' ceaseless toil as leading to WOE; ODdly, though, for these hardy farmers it's the opposite.

The extra letters spell DATEANDTIME, and the numbers translate to 5-3-1-1-9-8-6-1-4-1-5, giving a date & time of May 31, 1986, 2:15 PM.

Manager

Justin

Response to Correct Answer

?

Other Notes

Some of the art might show her with her bolt-cutters, and some without. Also, instead of having pointers to locations, we could just have Doctor When point to a particular art history coffeetable book and say that it was her favorite--she practically memorized it.