Thursday, February 9, 2017

Met makes high-rez images freely downloadable

The Metropolitan Museum of Art announced on Tuesday that they will now make all 375,000 of their public domain images freely available to the public. You can download the JPEGs and use them however you want, including commercially.


On the website you can zoom into the finest brushstrokes of iconic masterpieces like Madame X by John Singer Sargent, Joan of Arc by Julian Bastien-Lepage, and Juan de Pareja by Diego Velazquez (above).


You can also examine lesser known drawings and watercolors that are rarely exhibited. This pencil study of palms was drawn by William Trost Richards in 1855.



The Met's caption says: "This uncanny study, probably executed at the botanical garden of the Pitti Palace in Florence, anticipates by several years the conservatory and bower compositions that Richards made a specialty after he fell under the sway of John Ruskin and the Pre-Raphaelites. Richards’s sketchbooks of his first trip abroad, in 1855, are full of broad landscape scenery, architecture and statuary, but at the Pitti Palace he dwelt for several days on palms, banana leaves, philodendron and other tropical species. Their intricate beauty alone may well have stimulated the artist, but his unprecedented taste for such motifs probably arose also from his admiration of the tropical landscape paintings of Frederic Church that he had seen recently in New York."
----
Books: New Path: American Preraphaelites
at

17 comments:

  1. Peter DrubetskoyFebruary 9, 2017 at 9:20 AM

    And this amazing gouache by Menzel!

    ReplyDelete
  2. SpectreFebruary 9, 2017 at 9:45 AM

    I wonder if I can save _all_ of them into one, huge, folder...and if that will take a week?

    ReplyDelete
  3. AnonymousFebruary 9, 2017 at 10:07 AM

    441,143 pieces of artwork and not a single dinosaur represented anywhere!

    ReplyDelete
  4. James GurneyFebruary 9, 2017 at 10:09 AM

    Peter, thanks for that link to the amazing Menzel gouache. If anyone else has favorite links, please share.

    Spectre, Hmm, 375,000 images. That's going to take a while. Of course let's hope they're always available online.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Peter DrubetskoyFebruary 9, 2017 at 10:34 AM

    Another favorite:
    Rockwell Kent (not zoomable, unfortunatelly)

    And the famous Sibyl study by Michelangelo

    ReplyDelete
  6. UnknownFebruary 9, 2017 at 10:56 AM

    Spectre good luck my friend...375000 images at let's say 5MB per (JPG) file, that would yield a whooping 1,875000 MB. Knowing that 1000MB equals ONE Terabite (TB) that would mean you would need 1875 external Harddrives at ONE TB each. Let's assume a one TB Harddrive costs $200 that would cost you around $375000. Cheers

    ReplyDelete
  7. Peter DrubetskoyFebruary 9, 2017 at 11:03 AM

    Adolph, 1000MB = 1GB, not 1TB. We're talking about 1.8TB, very cheap nowadays. Looks like not all the images are zoomable hires, by the way...

    ReplyDelete
  8. AnonymousFebruary 9, 2017 at 11:29 AM

    Absolutely Peter. You can buy a 2TB drive for less than $100 nowadays. I have two 4TB drives on my desk right now and they cost me less than $250 together.

    ReplyDelete
  9. UnknownFebruary 9, 2017 at 11:33 AM

    Peter Drubetskoy it'll still cost a small fortune (somewhere around 60000-100000), not to mention the hook-up..but yes you're right my math was off-so there gonna be some savings...

    ReplyDelete
  10. UnknownFebruary 9, 2017 at 1:46 PM

    Thank you so much for telling us! Web surfing is going to be so fun!😄

    ReplyDelete
  11. rock995February 9, 2017 at 2:11 PM

    Wow, thanks J.G.!

    ReplyDelete
  12. Peter DrubetskoyFebruary 9, 2017 at 2:43 PM

    Jast found "A Circus Boy" by Antonio Mancini (for an interesting story of a portrait of Mancini by Sargent see here. This portrait is stunning in real life - I saw it last year at the Met. Supposedly it was done in an hour!!!)
    I find it interesting in the Circus Boy paining is how thin the right leg is. I wonder if that's a result of some childhood sickness or malnutrition.

    ReplyDelete
  13. UnknownFebruary 9, 2017 at 5:37 PM

    Thanks for the info James, it's a really great site. Do you, or anyone else, know how Sargent got that granulated brushstoke for that highlight on the edge of the table in the Madame X painting? Is that like a dry brush technique, or how exactly did he get the brushstroke to come out grainy and granulated like that?

    ReplyDelete
  14. Peter DrubetskoyFebruary 10, 2017 at 10:14 AM

    Robert, yes, this looks to me simply dragging not too loaded brush lightly over the canvas.

    ReplyDelete
  15. James GurneyFebruary 10, 2017 at 2:08 PM

    Robert, I would agree with Peter. A brush loaded with a warm white and gently dragged over the edge of the table. Sometimes you can go in after it's dry and do a glaze that sinks down into the hollows. Gives an impasto stroke more dimension.

    Peter, thanks for the info about the Mancini. His work is wonderful in the original and of course Sargent was a big fan of his work.

    ReplyDelete
  16. UnknownFebruary 11, 2017 at 12:14 AM

    James and Peter, ok thanks. I have to practice making paint strokes like that.

    ReplyDelete
  17. AnonymousFebruary 13, 2017 at 9:29 PM

    Thanks James! I am really enjoy the Artist Project section of the site.
    So cool to listen to inspiration's and muses from other Artists. I also
    like seeing Sargent's sketch's.. He made better use of his time other than
    commenting on a Blog..Lol, but neat to see his simple sketch's and a perceived
    idea for perhaps a bigger work..

    ReplyDelete

Due to a high level of spam we must moderate comments. Please identify yourself by name or social media handle so we know you're not a 'bot.'