Sandro Botticelli, “Primavera” (1482), tempera (via Uffizi Gallery/Wikimedia)
Sum of the Arts is a periodic tabulation of numbers floating around the art world and beyond.
- Years Botticelli fell out of fashion after his death in 1510 = 250
- Percentage of the streets in Paris named for historic women = 2.6
- Seconds London’s Big Ben clock has been running fast this month = 6
- Percentage of the US coastline covered in concrete = 14
- Number of abandoned baby carriages artist Nari Ward found on the streets, which he later installed in an exhibition about motherhood at Milan’s Palazzo Reale = 280
- Pounds of unsalted O-At-Ka Butter in the 2015 New York State Fair’s crowning butter sculpture, which includes the Statue of Liberty and Niagara Falls = 800
- Number of messages in bottles thrown by a scientist into England’s North Sea between 1904 and 1906 = 1,020 (one of which was discovered this month, the oldest message in a bottle ever found)
- Gallons of water in the on-stage river for the dance-theater performance Pearl at Lincoln Center = 4,200
- Number of people Olafur Eliasson estimates will cross his new five-platform Cirkelbroen bridge every day in Copenhagen = 5,000
- Tons of copper ore buried beneath the ancient ruins of Mes Aynak in Afghanistan = 12,500,000
