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Louvre makes its entire collection available online

collections.louvre.fr

31–40 of 215 posts

Re: Louvre makes its entire collection available online

#31
post #8

I’m confused who this is for. It’s not the same experience seeing art online. Part of what makes the Louvre or other museums special is being in a beautiful and decorated historically important space. It puts you in a different mindset where you can wander, ponder, and appreciate. I’m no Luddite but a digital experience simply can’t recreate that, at least not today.

I guess that's why they did it? Because people who want the real experience will still go in person. As such, they aren't really losing any customers.

The Louvre is a state owned museum. It’s purpose is not to sell tickets, but to disseminate culture. The purpose of the tickets is limiting the visitors to a number that can fit in the building.

If many people opt to look at the works online and not in person, the Louvre can reduce the ticket prices without increasing the number of visitors and this would be considered a _success_.

Re: Louvre makes its entire collection available online

#32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know you’re joking but lots of people still struggle with the reason why NFTs exist, including Apple’s unofficial PR department John Gruber. But it seems he finally understood it now thanks to this article: https://jackrusher.com/journal/what-does-it-mean-to-buy-a-gi... [0] https://daringfireball.net/linked/2021/03/26/rusher-nfts

That explains why original signed artworks are valuable, not really why NFTs are valuable after all if I wanted to buy a Jack Dorsey signature tweet for two million dollars or a Beeple collage for 70 million I'm sure Beeple would have gladly put it on a usb stick, signed me a card, printed it billboard sized and driven it to my house while taking me out for a steak dinner It's absolutely nebulous what the 'digital' p…

I tend to view the NFT craze as just that, a craze. It started as a massive and intriguing stunt that spread far and wide because of how absurd it all seems. It’s the perfect storm of “I don’t get this at all” combined with “you just don’t understand how revolutionary this is”. You also have the appeal of “why don’t I just make a few of these NFT things and make some money too?”

Additionally, I’ve read that the supposed $69 million dollars worth of ethereum used to purchase that famous NFT isn’t actually a transaction on the Ethereum blockchain. So there’s a good chance this whole thing was a farce to jumpstart interest in the NFT market itself.

Ultimately a few whales, famous people, and early adopters have already made out like bandits while the vast majority of people are barely going to make any money in the NFT market and it will sizzle out rapidly.

Re: Louvre makes its entire collection available online

#33

I’m confused who this is for. It’s not the same experience seeing art online. Part of what makes the Louvre or other museums special is being in a beautiful and decorated historically important space. It puts you in a different mindset where you can wander, ponder, and appreciate. I’m no Luddite but a digital experience simply can’t recreate that, at least not today.

There are multiple audiences for museum collections in the flesh, and multiple audiences for online collections, too. It's not and never has been "real" Vs "virtual". Well, to be fair this was a concern in the very early days when museums thought a virtual visit would jeopardise a real one - but not for years now...

So yes, nothing makes up for the visceral experience of seeing real art and heritage face to face but if you can't get there or are a researcher or school teacher or artist looking at historical techniques or...[insert many other use cases here], online collections play a hugely valuable role.

Plus of course, art like this is often paid for by the state and so the public "owns" it and should get the widest possible access to it.

Re: Louvre makes its entire collection available online

#34

The Peterson Museum (basically the Louvre of automobiles) did the same -or very close- with wonderful video tours of areas that only paying 150$ would get you to see (The Vault). https://www.youtube.com/user/PetersenMuseum/videos The Seattle flight museum also started a series where the main curator would talk about individual planes in long format, way better experience than looking at photos online. https://www.you…

Thanks for the links, absolutely great channels. I wonder if there exist something like curated "awesome list" of museums online? Because I don't even think it's possible to find these gems just doing a search on Google/YouTube which returns mostly low quality to spam results.

Re: Louvre makes its entire collection available online

#36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know you’re joking but lots of people still struggle with the reason why NFTs exist, including Apple’s unofficial PR department John Gruber. But it seems he finally understood it now thanks to this article: https://jackrusher.com/journal/what-does-it-mean-to-buy-a-gi... [0] https://daringfireball.net/linked/2021/03/26/rusher-nfts

That explains why original signed artworks are valuable, not really why NFTs are valuable after all if I wanted to buy a Jack Dorsey signature tweet for two million dollars or a Beeple collage for 70 million I'm sure Beeple would have gladly put it on a usb stick, signed me a card, printed it billboard sized and driven it to my house while taking me out for a steak dinner It's absolutely nebulous what the 'digital' p…

If he did that, it would be hard to then sell it in the future because now you have to verify if the signature is real or fake. The frequency of art forgeries demonstrates the issue.

With an NFT, Jack just has to say that this one NFT is the original. Every subsequent transaction can verify the NFT's validity just using math.

Re: Louvre makes its entire collection available online

#37
post #34

The Peterson Museum (basically the Louvre of automobiles) did the same -or very close- with wonderful video tours of areas that only paying 150$ would get you to see (The Vault). https://www.youtube.com/user/PetersenMuseum/videos The Seattle flight museum also started a series where the main curator would talk about individual planes in long format, way better experience than looking at photos online. https://www.you…

Thanks for the links, absolutely great channels. I wonder if there exist something like curated "awesome list" of museums online? Because I don't even think it's possible to find these gems just doing a search on Google/YouTube which returns mostly low quality to spam results.

Maybe we can start an HN or Reddit thread and then link it from AwesomeMuseamsOnline.(whatever cheap tld)

Re: Louvre makes its entire collection available online

#39

Dang, this is going to crash the NFT market for digital images of Lourve paintings.

I know you’re joking but lots of people still struggle with the reason why NFTs exist, including Apple’s unofficial PR department John Gruber. But it seems he finally understood it now thanks to this article: https://jackrusher.com/journal/what-does-it-mean-to-buy-a-gi... [0] https://daringfireball.net/linked/2021/03/26/rusher-nfts

> The most expensive autograph ever sold as of the writing of this essay is John Lennon’s signature on a copy of Double Fantasy that he signed the day he died. It fetched $900,000 at auction in 2010.

People imho buy the "uniqueness" of an item. This is why a poster of "the Kiss" by Klimt costs $10 and the original costs a $gazillion. The article mentions an autograph of Lennon. Not just any autograph, but one on the day he died. That means "no more after that". Maybe one will resurface, but

A friend who is a painter was telling me that one of the reasons painters become famous after death is because they don't dilute the value of their works by creating more. Imagine they paint one bridge, and it is great! Someone buys it for $10k. Then they go ahead and paint 50 more bridges. Now they will sell for 2k. So the $10k-buyer just got screwed. And we don't know if one day thay paint 50 more bridges, or that was it (dilution ends).

Now, she could be a bit bitter because she wasn't selling as high as she would wish, but she does make a good point.

Re: Louvre makes its entire collection available online

#40
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't plan to go to Paris in the near future due to lack of time but being able to view it online allows me to "wander, ponder, and appreciate" at least to some extent

I don't plan to go to Paris because I don't want to become another victim of the Paris Syndrome. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paris_syndrome

I think Stendhal syndrome is more likely. If you appreciate art and architecture, anyway.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stendhal_syndrome

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