Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The Art Institute of Chicago Has Put 50k High-Res Images Online

kottke.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 115 posts

Re: The Art Institute of Chicago Has Put 50k High-Res Images Online

#51

Post by akvadrako »

sgc wrote: post #38
sizzle wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Virtual reality gallery viewing from your living room will be a thing, it's possible now just a matter of time they hook up these databases of art and perfect the gallery viewing experience to make it accessible.

I have long considered buying high end tvs just to use as slide show viewers in my house. I could probably justify it at this point with the number of available high quality images and the quality of screens. But I would really like a 250 ppi+ screen that is 40+ inches to pull the trigger.

you might want to consider the Samsung Frame TV:

https://www.samsung.com/us/explore/the-frame/highlights/

43" at 4K is 102 PPI, so I guess you would need a 16K TV to get 250+

Re: The Art Institute of Chicago Has Put 50k High-Res Images Online

#52

Post by photoGrant »

jbarham wrote: post #50
photoGrant wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You may want to read 'The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction' by Walter Benjamin; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Work_of_Art_in_the_Age_of_...

Nah, don't bother reading it. The importance of Benjamin's essay has been vastly overrated by academic art theorists. As proof I would point out that the very first image in the linked article is Hokusai's iconic "Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji" which is of course a woodblock print (i.e., a "mechanical reproduction") but no less appreciated as a work of art for being so.

Why do you think your opinion constitutes fact? I found the essay to hold a lot of weight with respects to the aura of art, and the presence of certain art that exists outside of a 2d format. The article goes into the concepts of originality and is worth a read to expand your viewpoints. To dismiss it seems short sighted.

Re: The Art Institute of Chicago Has Put 50k High-Res Images Online

#53

Post by closeparen »

adriand wrote: post #10

This is pretty incredible. There was once a time when the only way for the average person to see a beautiful painting was to go to church. Later on this role was taken up by art galleries. Now anyone can see this stuff from the comfort of their own home. What do you think this means for the future of art galleries? What are they for ? Different ones are answering this question in different ways. Some are reinventing…

Art museums are very pleasant places to be, and create an aura of sacredness that is never going to exist on my living room couch.

This may displace museum visits by people who need to look at paintings for utilitarian purposes (research, homework) but if anything, finding a great painting here will only want to make me go the museum more.

Re: The Art Institute of Chicago Has Put 50k High-Res Images Online

#54

Post by dheral »

veridies wrote: post #16

Is there any sort of organized, searchable index of artwork online? It's sort of a massive undertaking, but it's the kind of thing that a wiki would be good for, and there have been a handful of different museums which have made these kinds of sets available.

(open culture)[http://www.openculture.com/] is maybe such an attempt.

Re: The Art Institute of Chicago Has Put 50k High-Res Images Online

#59

Post by tropdrop »

jbarham wrote: post #50
photoGrant wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You may want to read 'The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction' by Walter Benjamin; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Work_of_Art_in_the_Age_of_...

Nah, don't bother reading it. The importance of Benjamin's essay has been vastly overrated by academic art theorists. As proof I would point out that the very first image in the linked article is Hokusai's iconic "Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji" which is of course a woodblock print (i.e., a "mechanical reproduction") but no less appreciated as a work of art for being so.

To be able to make this point you still had to have read Benjamin's essay. Is academia not a constant conversation, constant disruption of previously unquestioned assumptions?

I would argue the continued usefulness of Benjamin's essay is similar to the writings of McLuhan - it forces you to think critically about the mode and method of the production of an image/artwork (or message), and how that mode affects (or doesn't) a work. It's a radically different and refreshing perspective for looking at art or media as a whole.

For instance - how different (and much more moving) is seeing a woodblock print of Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji in person from seeing a tiny thumbnail in Google Image search, a further step of mechanical reproduction?

Re: The Art Institute of Chicago Has Put 50k High-Res Images Online

#60

Post by sverhagen »

malshe wrote: post #3

The link to the Art Institute of Chicago: https://www.artic.edu/articles/713/behind-the-scenes-of-the-... From the link: Students, educators, and just regular art lovers might be interested to learn that we’ve released thousands of images in the public domain on the new website in an open-access format (52,438 to be exact, and growing regularly). Made available under the Creative Commons Zero (CC0) license, these ima…

Is it common that a museum can release photographs of the works like this? Aren't (maybe just more recent) works copyrighted in a way that would prevent a museum from doing this?
Post reply on HN