In History, Art and Music
Historically, the color of blood was associated with rust, as ancient Romans associated the planet Mars with the god of war since Mars is orange-red. The color of Mars is due to the iron oxide in the Martian soil, but the red in blood is not due to the iron in hemoglobin and its oxides, which is a common misconception. The red is due to the porphyrin moiety of hemoglobin to which the iron is bound, not the iron itself, although the ligation and redox state of the iron can influence the pi to pi* or n to pi* electronic transitions of the porphyrin and hence its optical characteristics.
Artist Julian Voss-Andreae created a sculpture called "Heart of Steel (Hemoglobin)" in 2005, based on the protein's backbone. The sculpture was made from glass and weathering steel. The intentional rusting of the initially shiny work of art mirrors hemoglobin's fundamental chemical reaction of oxygen binding to iron.
Rock band Placebo recorded a song called "Haemoglobin" with the lyrics "Haemoglobin is the key to a healthy heartbeat". French rap artist MC Solaar also had a successful single titled "La Concubine de L'Hemoglobin" in 1994.
Read more about this topic: Hemoglobin
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“We all know that Art is not truth. Art is a lie that makes us realize truth, at least the truth that is given us to understand. The artist must know the manner whereby to convince others of the truthfulness of his lies.”
—Pablo Picasso (1881–1973)
“The basic difference between classical music and jazz is that in the former the music is always greater than its performance—Beethoven’s Violin Concerto, for instance, is always greater than its performance—whereas the way jazz is performed is always more important than what is being performed.”
—André Previn (b. 1929)