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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 museums: http://projectmirador.org/demo/
[1] https://iiif.io/api/image/2.1/#image-request-uri-syntax [2] https://iiif.io/community/#participating-institutions
Interesting. There seams to be no way to get a list of available images or a search though. How would one us this API without info about available images?
Or am I missing something?
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..
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 images can be downloaded for free on the artwork pages.
We’ve also enhanced the image viewing capabilities on object pages, which means that you can see much greater detail on objects than before. Check out the paint strokes in Van Gogh’s The Bedroom, the charcoal details on Charles White’s Harvest Talk, or the synaesthetic richness of Georgia O’Keeffe’s Blue and Green Music. If you are doing research, you’ll appreciate how our collections search tool makes it easier to drill down and find exactly what you’re looking for.
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?
How is it possible to release public domain images using a CC0 license? That sounds completely unenforceable to me.
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 themselves successfully, others not so much.
I am particularly interested in the destiny of galleries in smaller markets. They are easier to sustain in large cities. In cities with fewer than a million people, the struggle for relevance makes for a challenging environment.
(My questions aren’t rhetorical - I sit on the board of directors for a Canadian gallery in a city of 500k people - we have one of Canada’s largest collections and an incredible program, but nothing is easy...)
> What do you think this means for the future of art galleries? What are they for?
Although it's great being able so see the image on your desktop the experience of seeing the actual artwork is very often much better.
On screen you'll miss out on much of the subtly of texture, surface finishes, scale, framing, the ability to look at it from different angles and distances and more. These all add a lot to the viewing experience.
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.
The advent of digital accessibility is far more impactful for local museums in smaller markets. These institutions now have access to global audiences who may never have heard of the museum (or even the town / city), would certainly never have visited in person, but are perhaps searching a wider database by artist, genre etc and encounter these small collections thus beginning a fruitful journey of potential engagement.
> This is pretty incredible. ... Now anyone can see this stuff from the comfort of their own home.
Agreed. And moreover, the licensing intentionally allows reproductions, so you can print life-size posters of these pieces to hang at home, if you want.
> What do you think this means for the future of art galleries? What are they for?
Hasn’t the primary function of a gallery always been to sell art, more than to be a public museum for the average person? If you think about it that way, maybe having online galleries doesn’t necessarily affect brick and mortar galleries? Perhaps it’s possible that online galleries will push more people will see the premium value of owning original art?
> I am particularly interested in the destiny of galleries in smaller markets.
In theory, Chicago’s move here to release public domain images doesn’t change small galleries, right? Small galleries are showing & selling current work and more by local artists, work that is still under copyright.
As an artist, I hope that the rising tides lift all boats, that public and easy online access to a lot of art will be a force for art education and appreciation. But, who knows, maybe an online flood will have unintended negative consequences.
It's interesting to me that you bring up the topic of churches, because I've yet to find a museum that can rival the feeling of visiting a "proper", Gothic cathedral. I think the main difference is that a museum feels like it "just" holds art, while a cathedral "is" art.
About the future of art galleries, I'm reminded of a Reddit post where someone mentioned visiting a Goya exhibition. The audioguide gave enough background on the pieces that you could trace the evolution of Goya's state of mind, and as a result you could understand the man through his art. I've always been jealous of that story: I love art galleries, I've visited plenty, and yet seeing lots and lots of art has not really improved my understanding of it.
I imagine art galleries could follow a path similar to libraries: a place where you go not because of the paintings themselves, but rather as a place to learn and where the (curated) selection tells a story.
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_...
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.
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.
Even the very best reproductions are not at all the same as seeing the actual work. Having high quality reproductions means I can see a decent approximation of something it would be difficult/expensive for me to go see, but doesn't replicate the experience.
I suspect the role of galleries remains largely unchanged - curation and context will always be relevant. I do think you are on to something with the issue of smaller markets: how do you convince people to come in person, and can you do it at a price point that will attract them?
I recently compared (Canadian, as it happens) ticket and membership costs for galleries in a an approximately 500k market and a > 5million market. Although the individual costs were about the same, the entire physical size of the small market one was far less that one tenth the larger one. Regardless of the collection size, this is pretty limiting. Some of the fixed costs don't scale well, and I do think this makes things more difficult in smaller markets, particularly if you are trying to draw people from outside your core market.
As more and more high quality reproductions from big markets become available, has your board discussed the possibility of curated display/discussion of collections of these? Particularly if you could have the use of a first rate projection system?
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 than a replacement of, visiting the gallery in person.
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.
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.
> average person to see a beautiful painting
I don't think average person like me really understands what a beautiful painting means.
IMO you will need to pivot to calendar-based activity that involves people on your premises ..
The Art Institute has always been very forward looking when it comes to technology. In the mid 90s I was offered a job there creating a new collection tool for curators that would allow them to view ALL of the Art Institute’s collection and help them create new exhibits. I think only 10% of their collection at that time was on display. They were going to build the tool in C. They were also very progressive to hiring as I didn’t know C and the team was willing to teach me. It was a very cool job but I didn’t end up taking it.
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.
Google Arts & Culture [1] aspires to this, and does a great job to a certain extent, however not at scale or in the long tail. For their own reasons institutions have resisted mass uploads to Google - despite the theoretical marriage of CC licences and G A&C non-profit contractual agreements. Art Institute Chicago has been a partner with Google since 2012 yet today we see only ~1% of their artworks on G A&C.
[1] https://artsandculture.google.com/
(open culture)[http://www.openculture.com/] is maybe such an attempt.
http://www.artcyclopedia.com/
I don't know how up-to-date it is.
WikiArt comes to mind: https://www.wikiart.org/
What does high-res mean? I downloaded Hokusai's 'Great Wave' and I got a 6.2MP JPG (3k pixels horizon.). That's not high-res at all when considering the original's size. Am I missing something?
A little bit of a shameless plug but for anyone interested in the intersection of art and tech, Arthena (YC W17) is hiring software engineers and data scientists.
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
The Art Institute of Chicago is where I appreciated art for the first time. It has an amazing collection, and it's not an overcrowded zoo, especially on weekdays.
I'm glad they state on their website that the images are in the public domain.
In a similar thread on HN some time ago, I was very surprised to learn some museums (and commenters) think that they own the copyright to high-resolution digital reproductions of their (pre-1923) collection: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17500312
When I was a kid my parents would take me to Chicago once a year or so and the art institute was always the highlight. This makes me really happy
Is there a link to downloading copies of the images?
When I change time filter from present to 1930 it returns this: https://www.artic.edu/collection?is_public_domain=1&departme...
It gives me server errors.
Example: https://www.artic.edu/artworks/181616/self-portrait-etching-...
Searched for Monet, the first three paintings result in internalservererror:
https://www.artic.edu/collection?q=monet
Truly my favorite museum in America.
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.
In a case like this, would the public domain license be revocable if the copyrightable painting were transferred?
Downloaded an image, it was only 3.6MB.
Is this what I should expect? Seems rather small...
Cloudfront 504 error to https://www.artic.edu/collection?is_public_domain=1 ?
Love the images.
But this does the not-unusual thing of not saving your place if you scroll down a few pages, click through to an entry, and then click back to the catalog.
Site stopped loading many images due to hackernews effect.
whoever makes artpip, can you please include these? I was disappointed from the switch to photography only.
This is wonderful news. Thank you to whoever made this possible!
That’s so cool! I really miss Chicago some days.
website is horribly slow.