User:NotThatJohnF

Drafting a post/section about The World Is To Dig's cover art saga. It's still developing at time of writing.

Cover Art

There will need to be more prose here. This is currently just a collection of quotes and links and dates.

Original cover art reveal on 2026-02-17<ref name="tumblr-20260217-1">album reveal tumblr post</ref> - Can probably find more references if we want. Maybe bluesky. I know it was on the email list; do we have an archive of that to reference?

Discussed problems with the process on tumblr<ref name="tumblr-20260217-2">tumblr post in response to the question "(apologies for getting the artist's name wrong in a previous comment) What led you to choose the specific painting used on the cover of the new album?"</ref>

This album cover has been a very long trial for me, as a number of things didn’t come together as planned. Can’t really talk about it now but someday when I’ve fully recovered I bet it will sound close to a funny story.

Same tumblr post, discussed the attribution<ref name="tumblr-20260217-2" />, but had the artist incorrect

There is a curious aspect to this exact image which is it is “After” Thomas Hill. And while it looks very much like dozens of his most famous paintings of Yosemite Valley, it evidently is not by his hand. “After” is a high falootin’ way of saying it is a very close copy of another painting. Back in 1880 painters would have assistants and students who might copy their work for various patrons or galleries overseas or as examples for reproduction (like if a lithographer was reproducing a famous painting they’d need a really good example, and since photography might not be available, these highly accurate copies were the source material)

Posted album art on Bluesky<ref name='bluesky-1">@tmbg.bsky.social post 2026-02-18 6:54 AM EST</ref>

The painting is Yosemite Valley after Thomas Hill, circa 1882.

Ten minutes later<ref name="bluesky-2">@doubtingapostle.bsky.social post 2026-02-18 7:04 AM EST</ref> bluesky user doubtingapostle responded to this post and pointed out the real artist was Mary Park Seavey Benton

So we were discussing this on Facebook, while the title of the painting is “after Thomas Hill”, because it was inspired by a Thomas Hill painting, it was painted by Mary Park Seavey Benton

That wikipedia page shows an image of a painting A View of Yosemite Valley circa 1855.

A View of Yosemite Valley, circa 1855

An hour and a half later John Flansburgh posted a response<ref name="bluesky-3">@tmbg.bsky.social post 2026-02-18 8:41 AM EST</ref><ref name="bluesky-4">@tmbg.bsky.social post 2026-02-18 8:43 AM EST</ref> with his own research into the artist.

JF: I just did a semi-deep dive into this. Not a ton of info about Benton, but her painting appears to have been done years before Hill's Yosemite series. The heavenly cloudburst, the tiny people on horseback, the rust-colored trees--those are all from Benton...

But oddly enough, while our cover painting is almost EXACTLY like the wikipedia post of Benton's, it is clearly a DIFFERENT PAINTING ENTIRELY--like a very accurate academic copy!

Our artwork went to the printer last night, and it is unclear if we can stop the presses-but we will try our best.

He acknowledged this on tumblr<ref name="tumblr-20260218">[1]</ref>conversation

So it looks like we already have a correction. The artist of the painting we licensed was mislabeled, but it is still an academic copy…

User:CapitalQ posted on discord<ref name="capq-gif">[2]</ref> a comparison of the album art with the same painting from Getty images. Probably can't post that here because of copyright issues. But is it possible to link to Getty images?