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

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

#11

Post by faitswulff »

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…

I feel like reducing historical art pieces to "beautiful images" doesn't really capture what it means when something is art. For instance, you can view reproduced images of famous artwork whenever you want online, so what makes it valuable, therefore, is not just the imagery.

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

#12

Post by tptacek »

fermienrico wrote: post #9
hiei wrote: post #4

Truly my favorite museum in America.

How does it compare with the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York?

It's a great museum, among the best museums (full stop) in the country, but it's less than 1/4 of the size of the Met.

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

#13

Post by photoGrant »

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…

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_...

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

#14

Post by brett40324 »

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…

Checkout https://library.artstor.org

They opened up a bunch of university collections this summer. Their institution subscription gives students access to millions of images for research.

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

#16

Post by veridies »

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.

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

#17

Post by an4rchy »

It's great to see museums working towards spreading the reach of their collections and reaching new audiences.

Also for folks interested: SF MoMA was doing something similar where if you texted them a word they would send you a picture related to it (from their collection)

https://www.sfmoma.org/send-me-sfmoma/

The museums could also start selling prints online as well, perhaps create new means of funding for the museums

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

#19

Post by forapurpose »

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.

http://www.artcyclopedia.com/

I don't know how up-to-date it is.

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

#20

Post by forapurpose »

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…

What expresses the most in art, IMHO, is the nuance and not the broad strokes. In music, for example, many people can play the notes in the right order; it's the great musician's nuance that makes it art. In acting, it's the tone and subtleties in the actor's voice and expression. Reproductions don't capture that; nothing matches seeing it in person. I've tried high quality reproductions of 2-dimentional works I love, and it's not even worth it.

Also, much artwork these days is 3 or 4 dimensional (time), so 2-D reproductions have even less fidelity.

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