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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

#101

Post by neuromantik8086 »

ConceptJunkie wrote: post #89
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 don't think this kind of resource is going to decrease attendance at art museums. People who want to go are still going to go, but while I live near Washington D.C., and have been to the National Gallery of Art many times, there are hundreds or thousands of museums and art galleries in cities I will most likely never travel to. I think it's reasonable to consider these digital resources as a supplement to, rather t…

I mean, part of the appeal of the Louvre at least isn't just that you can see the art in the physical world, but that you're practically bathed in it. This sense of being overwhelmed and the serendipity factor in discovering new works constituted a lot of the appeal when I used to visit there. You could go into there once every weekend for a year and never have the same experience twice.

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

#102

Post by ska »

jmkd wrote: post #78
faitswulff wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

No one ever complained of flickr "Oh it's okay but you need to see the real thing", so it's interesting how this viewpoint is absolutely medium-specific. I would argue plenty of paintings are better viewed online, sculptures far less so. Is it better to have a restricted view at the back of a live performance or see a perfectly edited video later? It's hard to be moved shuffling through queues at the Louvre.

Many types of paintings are fundamentally three dimensional - something that really isn't captured in an image.

You make a good point about the different value of different presentations. In some ways the bad seat is better than the video, in others not.

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

#103

Post by lb1lf »

steve19 wrote: post #100
ZenPsycho wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

in Australia, yes a photographic reproduction of a 2D artwork is copyrightable. this was a point of conflict between the wikimedia foundation and a gallery i used to work for, which made a significant income from licensing photos of artworks, many of which were themselves in the public domain. this might seem unreasonable but it’s worth pointing out that producing highest quality photo reproductions of artwork is a s…

A Xerox machine is a complicated, specialist piece of equipment but using one to duplicate the work of someone else is not and should not allow copyright on the duplicate. What your colleagues did is literally reproduce the work of another, and assert copyright on the copy. What if I took the image your gallery took, used state of the art JPEG compression software on it and created a new optimized file, would I know…

But a Xerox machine does not add any creative aspect; if you are going to shoot a painting and do it well, you'd need to decide on what lighting you wanted, then rig that - say, side lighting to highlight the brush strokes or a more head-on, softer light to subdue them.

In your jpeg example, I think (IANAL!) you might have had a stronger case if you artifacted the heck out of it, rather than faithfully recreating the original photo - the artifacts could be argued to be some form of artistic expression.

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

#104

Post by steve19 »

lb1lf wrote: post #103
steve19 wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A Xerox machine is a complicated, specialist piece of equipment but using one to duplicate the work of someone else is not and should not allow copyright on the duplicate. What your colleagues did is literally reproduce the work of another, and assert copyright on the copy. What if I took the image your gallery took, used state of the art JPEG compression software on it and created a new optimized file, would I know…

But a Xerox machine does not add any creative aspect; if you are going to shoot a painting and do it well, you'd need to decide on what lighting you wanted, then rig that - say, side lighting to highlight the brush strokes or a more head-on, softer light to subdue them. In your jpeg example, I think (IANAL!) you might have had a stronger case if you artifacted the heck out of it, rather than faithfully recreating the…

How can it be creative if it literally is attempting a faithful reproduction? You are confusing work with creativity. It might not be easy, it might require a lot of effort by specialists, but it is not creative. Therefor should have no copyright protection.

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

#105

Post by lb1lf »

steve19 wrote: post #104
lb1lf wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But a Xerox machine does not add any creative aspect; if you are going to shoot a painting and do it well, you'd need to decide on what lighting you wanted, then rig that - say, side lighting to highlight the brush strokes or a more head-on, softer light to subdue them. In your jpeg example, I think (IANAL!) you might have had a stronger case if you artifacted the heck out of it, rather than faithfully recreating the…

How can it be creative if it literally is attempting a faithful reproduction? You are confusing work with creativity. It might not be easy, it might require a lot of effort by specialists, but it is not creative. Therefor should have no copyright protection.

As I suggested - the photographer may decide to highlight the brush strokes, for instance - or subdue them. Both approaches would be a faithful (as such things go) reproduction of the original artwork; its appearance would depend, among other factors, of the light you saw it in.

That being said, I am not convinced such reproductions should have full copyright protection on par with that granted an original work of art - but there ought to be some mechanism to recognise the effort and skill which went into creating it; otherwise there would hardly be any incentive to create high quality reproductions.

Tricky, that.

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

#106

Post by Noos »

I'm not sure what to think. It's a form of accidental post-modernism.

The translation and simulation of the art ends up being very post-modern in its implementation. There really is no one experience to viewing this collection; some of us may view it on our phones while at work, some people on a gorgeous hi-res screen to see every brushstroke, some on a washed-out $199 laptop screen, some on a $50 Kindle Fire as a homework project, and some secondhand, like the pictures on the blog that links to it. It's very much anti-modernist in that it denies the physical presence of art and is arguing a little for the death of the artist (i do not mean literally) by severing viewing his art from viewing the actual piece; that the meaning can be adequately shown by a simulation designed to be accessible to all, and that is reductionist to boot.

The weird thing is that this is accidental-the postmodern presentation is not done specifically for effect, but it's a byproduct of a very modernist idea about the importance of viewing great art. The simulation is created and is given weight and importance, but there is no commentary or reflection on it; the format is simply there because postmodernism is the only way to simulate in this media. To render physical artwork on the net will always be a simulated, reductionist project in some manner.

The person who goes to a museum, somehow records his experience on video, and narrates his thoughts is making in his own way an equal simulation yet superior. He is also reducing the art into a simulation, because its attributes cannot be fully transmitted to another medium without reducing it, but he enriches it in a sense by the depiction. There is the post-modern interplay between viewer and viewed, between work and audience, on display and then reflected again by the person watching his video on youtube.

Here there is still these elements, but in an odd situation. Maybe it would be like those old VHS tapes that tried to faithfully reproduce a Broadway show performance, or records that did opera. The goal is fidelity but the medium transforms it just by the simulation. It may be valuable in the sense simulations are, but it's also transformative due to the medium used. It creates a weird thing divorced from itself, but with no commentary or reasoning that acknowledges it.

So mixed feelings. Maybe its just my mountains of sketchbooks filled with amateurish art talking, but i'd prefer even an art book to this, I guess.

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

#107

Post by Fuzzwah »

Noos wrote: post #106

I'm not sure what to think. It's a form of accidental post-modernism. The translation and simulation of the art ends up being very post-modern in its implementation. There really is no one experience to viewing this collection; some of us may view it on our phones while at work, some people on a gorgeous hi-res screen to see every brushstroke, some on a washed-out $199 laptop screen, some on a $50 Kindle Fire as a ho…

I'd be interested in reading your thoughts on a virtual museum experienced via a VR headset and room scale tracking?

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

#108

Post by ldarby »

ohnonotyouagain wrote: post #29

On a technical note, the Art Institute of Chicago images are being served using an API called IIIF, which allows you to scale, extract regions of interest, etc. [1]. There are about 1-2B images worldwide being served from museums and libraries using the API [2] and viewers that can work with the content from multiple institutions at the same time, for instance to compare two van Gogh self-portraits from different mus…

I think using IIIF is why this site is so broken.

Trying to load an image sends 50 separate requests, when the entire image is less than 400kb. This is the exact opposite of what web optimizers try to do, which is combine lots of small images into 1 large one and use clever CSS to show small parts of the image in the right places on the webpage..

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

#109

Post by ohnonotyouagain »

ldarby wrote: post #108
ohnonotyouagain wrote: post #29

On a technical note, the Art Institute of Chicago images are being served using an API called IIIF, which allows you to scale, extract regions of interest, etc. [1]. There are about 1-2B images worldwide being served from museums and libraries using the API [2] and viewers that can work with the content from multiple institutions at the same time, for instance to compare two van Gogh self-portraits from different mus…

I think using IIIF is why this site is so broken. Trying to load an image sends 50 separate requests, when the entire image is less than 400kb. This is the exact opposite of what web optimizers try to do, which is combine lots of small images into 1 large one and use clever CSS to show small parts of the image in the right places on the webpage..

Whether to tile the image (or use client-side CSS) is entirely up to the developer. If you want to show regions of interest from large objects, it's much better to be able to extract the ROI as an independent image. For example, this scroll is nearly 100Kx4K pixels: https://dpul.princeton.edu/eastasian/catalog/1z40kx353#?c=0&...

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

#110

Post by ldarby »

ohnonotyouagain wrote: post #109
ldarby wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think using IIIF is why this site is so broken. Trying to load an image sends 50 separate requests, when the entire image is less than 400kb. This is the exact opposite of what web optimizers try to do, which is combine lots of small images into 1 large one and use clever CSS to show small parts of the image in the right places on the webpage..

Whether to tile the image (or use client-side CSS) is entirely up to the developer. If you want to show regions of interest from large objects, it's much better to be able to extract the ROI as an independent image. For example, this scroll is nearly 100Kx4K pixels: https://dpul.princeton.edu/eastasian/catalog/1z40kx353#?c=0&...

Yes, that's fine for images like that, that's several GB in size, but there's a cut off point where tiling becomes less efficient and slower than just downloading the whole image in one request, I'd guess it's around 1/2MB, which a lot of images on this art site are.

Even if the actual efficiency is no where near that, a 1080p jpg fits in that so it's not like people would want the IIIF functionality on images that small anyway.

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