The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York has been offering high res digital image files for some time, but now they're making additional high-res files available for free download. This link takes you to the browse page.
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| William Trost Richards • Metropolitan Museum |
A museum spokesman says: "Through this new, open-access policy, we join a growing number of museums that provide free access to images of art in the public domain. I am delighted that digital technology can open the doors to this trove of images from our encyclopedic collection."
With these files you can get a close up look at the technique and textures. Though the quality of the scans varies from piece to piece (and
some pieces have multiple files), this represents an enlightened step for a major institution, and I hope other museums follow suit to put public domain images online.
Via Kottke.org, thanks
Eric
This is cool for students, but it's not in line with US Copyright law. Their website says that these images can only be used for "scholarly" purposes. But in the US, images that are simply "slavish reproductions" of existing artwork cannot be copyrighted. Since the original art is in the public domain, these images are absolutely free to use, even for commercial purposes, without any license or credit required. But the Met's going to make anyone who wants to challenge them to obey the law pay a lot in legal fees to do so.
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