Talk About Ambitious!

 

 

Check out the World Digital Library, a project of the U.S. Library of Congress, carried out with the support of the UNESCO.  Arranged by theme,  time, place, language, this intriguing resource expands our access to cultural material outside the English speaking world.

The WDL makes available on the Internet, free of charge and in multilingual format, significant primary materials from all countries and cultures.  Go Library of Congress!

Here is the link::http://www.wdl.org/en/topic/

Take This Quiz Like A Liberal Arts Boss!

A Centre education comes in handy at cocktail parties and at ruling over internet quizzes! A little late for April Fool's Day, but of course, I am only joking. Critical thinking skills come in handy every day and everywhere! But just because Centre helped you become a better thinker doesn't mean you can't have a little fun.

 So, try your luck at this little painting identification quiz from Slate!
/art_quiz_name_these_paintings_from_a_small_detail.html

Preaching to the Choir!

Tom Eblen, columnist for the Herald-Leader (and father of Centre alumna and art major Shannon Eblen) has written an excellent essay about the value of learning visual analysis. Click the link to read about why everyone from medical students to detectives are benefiting from learning close observation:  studying-great-art-can-help-improve-everyday-observation-skills/

Visit the GoogleArt Project Again!

 

The Google Art Project isn't new, but it just keeps getting better and better!  It now contains over 45,000 images  viewable in super high resolution.  And check out the street view "indoor" option to do a virtual walk through of some galleries.  The latest flourish is the Google Art Project extension

Add it to your Chrome browser and get a new art image with every tab you open.  It is beautiful!

Virtual Reality Museum

Thieves have taken art from all over the world, robbing not just museums and collectors but all of us, stealing our opportunity to experience these masterworks. The painting above is a Rembrandt stolen from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston in 1990. The thirteen artworks stolen that day have never been recovered.

 Check out this new project, the Virtual-Reality Museum to see the art digitally restored to its proper (virtual) place.   An interesting project that brings together art, computing and international crime.  http://www.wired.com/2015/01/see-worlds-greatest-stolen-artworks-virtual-reality-museum/?mbid=social_fb

All Reproductions Are Not Equal

  

Which Madame X is the correct Madame X?

Google image search is a wonderful thing. I get why we all love it. But if you are interested in accuracy, there are some compelling reasons to become a more sophisticated searcher.Above you can see a reproduction of John Singer Sargent's "Madame X"  from 1883-84, now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The museum's own image is on the left.

On the right you can see a photo collage called "18 Madames X"  created from the top hits of a Google image search.   Which of those hits would you have chosen? 

Notice not only the many different color casts, but in the Metropolitan reproduction, there is great subtlety in the shading of the skin and the painting is not cropped, thus the relationship between the placement of the figure to the painting as a whole is how Sargent intended it to be seen.
http://hint.fm/reproduction/18-madames-x.html
http://www.metmuseum.org/collection/the-collection-online/search/12127

Freer/Sackler Galleries Lead the Way

The Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, the Smithsonian’s museums of Asian and American art are opening a marvelous new digital archive of all their holdings. Beginning January 1st, these museums will offer 40,000 digital images, most at high resolution and completely without copyright restrictions.  Read here for more information: http://www.asia.si.edu/press/2014/digitization.asp