[HN Gopher] Louvre makes its entire collection available online
___________________________________________________________________
Louvre makes its entire collection available online
Author : colinprince
Score : 734 points
Date : 2021-03-27 04:08 UTC (18 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (collections.louvre.fr)
(TXT) w3m dump (collections.louvre.fr)
| gozzoo wrote:
| > Error 503 Backend fetch failed
| OliverGilan wrote:
| When will these be available as NFT?
| anoncow wrote:
| The website seems to have been slashdotted.
| ahnick wrote:
| It's the HN hug of death now. :)
| sunsetSamurai wrote:
| it's nice they're doing this, but I wonder when they're gonna
| start returning all the stolen pieces to their rightful owners,
| like Egypt for example.
| malwarebytess wrote:
| >Stolen
|
| Dubious opinion
|
| >Rightful owners
|
| All long dead
| anoncake wrote:
| If property can be rightfully inherited, either the
| descendants of whatever Pharaoh/other ancient Egyptian or the
| successor state of ancient Egypt are the rightful owners of
| what was taken from them. If your property may end up in a
| _foreign_ museum millennia after you die, why even bother
| working?
| malwarebytess wrote:
| Your argument relies on a number of premises that are not
| necessarily true.
|
| First of all "Rightful inheritance" is a matter of human
| law not natural law. Whatever state or laws existed
| surrounding inheritance clearly do not exist anymore for
| artifacts more than a few hundred years old. It is absurd
| to say property rights of states existing thousands of
| years ago apply today. You won't find any courts arguing
| that. Absurd.
|
| Second, descendants of millennia old property owners are
| both impossible, and too easy to find. Because of the way
| human genetics works you yourself may be a descendant. I'm
| a descendant of 13th century nobility, does that mean I and
| the millions of others with this ancestry inherit their
| various artifacts such as a cup or textile? Absurd.
|
| >If your property may end up in a foreign museum millennia
| after you die, why even bother working?
|
| I don't know. You'd have to decide that for yourself. To me
| the question is absurd. When I die I may will what is left
| of my estate, but I don't absurdly believe that thousands
| of years later my will be respected. Totally ridiculous.
|
| These artifacts belong to the world. Any attempts by states
| to force other states or organizations to "return stolen
| items" is a mealy mouthed way of saying they want the value
| they perceive they have lost. This is absurd greed. Just
| like conquering land, the losers have no right to their
| lost land. That is never the case. And you will never see
| these same states trying to return the land they have
| "stolen" to the descendants thousands of years later, now
| spread myriad around the world, because it's fucking
| absurd.
|
| When people die and a lot of time passes things become just
| things. Some novel state that has no true connection to,
| and in fact had no knowledge of, some past state has no
| right to property of millennia-dead people of that state.
| It's ridiculous.
|
| If this was about doing the right thing then one would
| recognize that these are artifacts of our shared human
| heritage, and as such they should be kept in trust for the
| benefit for all humanity unbound to any particular regime
| cultural or legal. Of course it isn't about doing the right
| thing it's about stupid politics.
| anoncake wrote:
| Okay, I should stop using sarcasm on the internet. You're
| completely right.
| malwarebytess wrote:
| I'm shocked you were joking. I've read the argument you
| posed made seriously lots of times.
|
| Thanks for the reminder that not everyone has gone nuts.
| vaillant wrote:
| Dang, this is going to crash the NFT market for digital images of
| Lourve paintings.
| amelius wrote:
| NFTs are a sign that we really need to do something about
| wealth inequality.
| bsenftner wrote:
| No, NFTs are a sign we really need financial literacy. They
| are nothing.
| andybak wrote:
| So is money except when everyone agrees it isn't.
| logicchains wrote:
| Aka "people should spend money on what I want them to instead
| of what they want to, because I'm morally superior to them"
| anoncake wrote:
| No, it's a sign that some people have _way_ more money than
| they need. Which is a waste as long as other people have to
| worry about getting food on the table.
| amelius wrote:
| Buying NFTs is the public equivalent of wiping your -ss
| with money. Not sure how to feel morally neutral about it.
| fortran77 wrote:
| How many poor people were harmed because of NFTs? In
| fact, it seemed to transfer a great deal of wealth to an
| artist who was formerly of modest means.
| afterburner wrote:
| Seems mostly to transfer wealth to already famous or rich
| people. The rich buying stuff from each other. Perhaps
| even laundering money as they do so.
| fortran77 wrote:
| I will concur that the art market in general seems like a
| way to store, hide, and transfer wealth.
| Jolter wrote:
| You think the NFT money goes to the artist? What are you
| basing that belief on?
| dorkwood wrote:
| It can costs upwards of 200 dollars to mint an NFT, and
| it's quite common to see artists who have minted several
| NFTs but not sold anything yet. I'd say the likelihood
| that poor people are being harmed is quite high.
| mikewarot wrote:
| >Buying NFTs is the public equivalent of wiping your -ss
| with money.
|
| If the money goes to some random person who has managed
| to with the largess of the rich person lottery, instead
| of down the drain... it's different.
| BurningFrog wrote:
| If someone destroys their own money, that is a _pure
| gift_ to the rest of society.
|
| If that doesn't make sense to you, you have not
| understood what money is!
| amelius wrote:
| A gift in the form of an insult.
|
| There are more productive ways to deal with wealth
| inequality.
| BurningFrog wrote:
| Maybe you get your feelings of rage and envy get in the
| way of clear thinking.
|
| In my experience, that doesn't serve one well.
| amelius wrote:
| You can't be emotionless about money. If this were false,
| then rich people could make you do anything they want,
| which I hope for you is not the case.
| DenisM wrote:
| When someone wipes their ass with money they remove the
| bill from circulation making the rest of the money worth
| a little bit more.
| specialist wrote:
| Yup.
|
| The $1000 iPhone app [2008]
| https://kottke.org/08/08/the-1000-iphone-app
| 0xmohit wrote:
| Not sure what it'd do to the NFT market, but it has crashed
| their servers for sure.
|
| > Server error. Continue to search the Louvre collections
| coldcode wrote:
| Even when it's not crashing, the performance is terribly
| slow. Also the translations for English are mostly missing.
| BurningFrog wrote:
| The plot of the Louvre IT Department to get more resources is
| working as planned.
| heckerhut wrote:
| I know you're joking but lots of people still struggle with the
| reason why NFTs exist, including Apple's unofficial PR
| department John Gruber. But it seems he finally understood it
| now thanks to this article:
| https://jackrusher.com/journal/what-does-it-mean-to-buy-a-gi...
|
| [0] https://daringfireball.net/linked/2021/03/26/rusher-nfts
| arkh wrote:
| > the reason why NFTs exist
|
| Money laundering.
| coldtea wrote:
| > _but lots of people still struggle with the reason why NFTs
| exist_
|
| Huh? Isn't it obvious? They exist because some people have
| more money than sense.
|
| > _including Apple's unofficial PR department John Gruber_
|
| Edgy. Do you also spell that Seattle-based OS company with a
| dollar sign for the S?
| HenryBemis wrote:
| > The most expensive autograph ever sold as of the writing of
| this essay is John Lennon's signature on a copy of Double
| Fantasy that he signed the day he died. It fetched $900,000
| at auction in 2010.
|
| People imho buy the "uniqueness" of an item. This is why a
| poster of "the Kiss" by Klimt costs $10 and the original
| costs a $gazillion. The article mentions an autograph of
| Lennon. Not just _any_ autograph, but one on the day he died.
| That means "no more after that". Maybe one will resurface,
| but
|
| A friend who is a painter was telling me that one of the
| reasons painters become famous after death is because they
| don't dilute the value of their works by creating more.
| Imagine they paint _one_ bridge, and it is great! Someone
| buys it for $10k. Then they go ahead and paint 50 more
| bridges. Now they will sell for 2k. So the $10k-buyer just
| got screwed. And we don 't know if one day thay paint 50 more
| bridges, or that was it (dilution ends).
|
| Now, she could be a bit bitter because she wasn't selling as
| high as she would wish, but she does make a good point.
| Barrin92 wrote:
| That explains why original signed artworks are valuable, not
| really why NFTs are valuable
|
| after all if I wanted to buy a Jack Dorsey signature tweet
| for two million dollars or a Beeple collage for 70 million
| I'm sure Beeple would have gladly put it on a usb stick,
| signed me a card, printed it billboard sized and driven it to
| my house while taking me out for a steak dinner
|
| It's absolutely nebulous what the 'digital' part adds.
| BuyMyBitcoins wrote:
| I tend to view the NFT craze as just that, a craze. It
| started as a massive and intriguing stunt that spread far
| and wide because of how absurd it all seems. It's the
| perfect storm of "I don't get this at all" combined with
| "you just don't understand how revolutionary this is". You
| also have the appeal of "why don't I just make a few of
| these NFT things and make some money too?"
|
| Additionally, I've read that the supposed $69 million
| dollars worth of ethereum used to purchase that famous NFT
| isn't actually a transaction on the Ethereum blockchain. So
| there's a good chance this whole thing was a farce to
| jumpstart interest in the NFT market itself.
|
| Ultimately a few whales, famous people, and early adopters
| have already made out like bandits while the vast majority
| of people are barely going to make any money in the NFT
| market and it will sizzle out rapidly.
| m12k wrote:
| You're missing an important use case here: Money laundry.
| While regular cryptocurrency is quite useful for this, it
| comes with the drawback of having a well-defined market
| value at any given point in time, making it harder to
| cook the books since there is some "ground truth" to get
| audited against. NFTs don't have that limitation - the
| price at any moment can be as high or as low as you need
| it to be to shift any amount of money, instantly, from
| anywhere in the world to anywhere else in the world.
| Regular art has historically been used for this too, as
| has high-end real estate (basically anything where rich
| "eccentrics" can pay whatever they want for something),
| but these come with the hassle of needing to also move a
| physical good, sign deeds, set up companies - plus there
| is a limited supply of these, limiting the bandwidth with
| which you can shift money around. NFTs overcome all these
| limitations, it's an entirely digital, global, endless
| supply of goods with no fixed marked value and a
| plausible cover story of why it's worth millions. If
| you're in charge of bookkeeping at a cartel, NFTs are
| probably the most exciting thing that has happened this
| decade if not longer.
| Tarsul wrote:
| I have no problem believing this. Nonetheless, I'd like
| to see a good hypothetical example to really understand
| how it would work. Would the seller have to be in on the
| deal? Probably, or not?
| cmeacham98 wrote:
| One hypothetical where the seller _is_ in on the deal:
|
| Let's say I want to send you money for something illegal.
| You, however, don't want the government getting
| suspicious about how you're spending $large_amount on
| $small_salary.
|
| I could gift you the money, but if we don't have an
| existing relationship or reason to do so that looks
| mighty suspicious, and additionally gift tax can end up
| being more than income tax.
|
| The next option is for me to "buy" something from you.
| This needs to be something you can obtain for a low price
| but sell for a high price. You could sell me a loaf of
| bread for $1million, but that's going to look equally (if
| not more) suspicious than the gift.
|
| Enter art: Art can be produced for extremely low cost,
| but sold at massive markups (and often is so). The value
| of art is almost entirely subjective (i.e. "what is
| someone willing to pay for this"), so unlike with a piece
| of bread it's not obvious that I'm paying for something I
| consider near worthless. Each piece of original artwork
| is unique, so there's no market to prove that nobody else
| would be willing to pay such a sum for your art.
|
| Therefore, with art you can receive the money, pay taxes
| on it, and claim to the government it's totally legit.
| NFTs have similar properties to art: they're unique, can
| be minted at very low cost, people are willing to pay
| large sums for them, and nobody really has any way of
| determining their "true" value.
| BoiledCabbage wrote:
| Yup, that's NFTs in a nutshell.
|
| And there is almost certainly a large real world
| contingent salivating at the thought that they can soon
| launder huge amounts of money, based on infinite
| products, that are impossible to value and trivial to
| create.
|
| And as usual there will be a handful of technology people
| afterwards standing around _shocked_ , saying they had no
| idea they enabled the 21st century's money laundering
| platform, and
|
| Just like the cliche "I just wanted to make an anarchist
| digital currency, I didn't think it would impact society
| in negative ways we can't control!"
| KingMachiavelli wrote:
| If he did that, it would be hard to then sell it in the
| future because now you have to verify if the signature is
| real or fake. The frequency of art forgeries demonstrates
| the issue.
|
| With an NFT, Jack just has to say that this one NFT is the
| original. Every subsequent transaction can verify the NFT's
| validity just using math.
| Barrin92 wrote:
| There's a basic problem with that argument. There is no
| telling whether you're actually buying an NFT from Jack
| himself. In fact the NFT world already seems to have a
| fake and forgery issue of people who claim to have rights
| or be authors of creations they aren't even affiliated
| with.[1] Crypto just shifts the goalpost of what's being
| faked. Which is why the Beeple NFT sale didn't happen
| somewhere in the nether of the internet, but through
| Christie's, a 300 year old seller of art, after buyer and
| seller had communicated personally. They buyer didn't
| just fork over millions to a pseudonymous wallet-address.
| The actual verification of the transaction happened in
| the real world.
|
| Also as a sidenote, you have actually no idea whether
| this particular blockchain will still be around in the
| future. In fact given the volatility of tech that's not
| really that likely to be honest.
|
| [1]https://www.theverge.com/2021/3/20/22334527/nft-scams-
| artist...
| capableweb wrote:
| > There is no telling whether you're actually buying an
| NFT from Jack himself
|
| It's fairly easy to verify the origins of statements
| here, especially since Jack is on Twitter announcing his
| NFT on his timeline. What more than that do you need?
|
| Same as you verify any celebrities selling movie props on
| ebay or whatever, if they haven't announced the sale via
| some other channel where they are already verified, don't
| trust that it's the real deal in the marketplace.
|
| > Which is why the Beeple NFT sale didn't happen
| somewhere in the nether of the internet, but through
| Christie's, a 300 year old seller of art, after buyer and
| seller had communicated personally.
|
| This is a feature, not a drawback. You can make the sale
| however you want, via bank transfer, cash in hand or
| actually transfer Eth to a wallet. What matters in the
| end is who stands as the owner in the blockchain, but how
| it gets there, is irrelevant.
|
| > Also as a sidenote, you have actually no idea whether
| this particular blockchain will still be around in the
| future. In fact given the volatility of tech that's not
| really that likely to be honest.
|
| This is a separate issue from NFTs and applies to the
| whole cryptocurrency space. For now, the $1.5 trillion
| market is disagreeing with you that it can disappear in
| the future, as otherwise people wouldn't put so much
| money into the ecosystem.
| UncleMeat wrote:
| > It's fairly easy to verify the origins of statements
| here, especially since Jack is on Twitter announcing his
| NFT on his timeline. What more than that do you need?
|
| Now you rely on a tweet being durable. The entire
| blockchain history is based on something not on the
| blockchain that can be edited by people with root at
| Twitter.
| capableweb wrote:
| Easy to solve by storing inter-chain links, signatures,
| immutable data structures and content addressing
| UncleMeat wrote:
| And if Jack doesn't want to bother with that? Clearly he
| didn't do any of that this time.
| capableweb wrote:
| Is not needed for him to do anything, most of mainstream
| internet is already archived via Archive.org and similar
| efforts
| robjan wrote:
| Doesn't that mean that in the future Jack can just mint a
| new NFT and say that the new one is in fact the canonical
| NFT for his first tweet? The only way to do it would be
| for NFTs to support non-repudation, but they don't.
|
| The trust layer is in the physical world either based on
| hearsay or a physical contract with two parties. In any
| case, it's off-chain.
| Hjfrf wrote:
| I can sell Jack's tweet right now.
|
| That's a bigger issue than Jack being able to sell it
| multiple times.
| capableweb wrote:
| You can. Is it the same? No.
|
| Just as it's not the same if a random person tries to
| sell movie props from famous movies, compared to if the
| person actually being in that production in the first
| place.
| ctdonath wrote:
| It's the creator certifying that _this_ file is the
| definitive copy, and having an instance of it to get paid
| for.
|
| In an age of trivial copying, editing, recompressing, and
| other alterations, "original" can get lost. This gives
| means to identify, transfer, and prove originality.
| sn_master wrote:
| Not really. NFTs give 'ownership' to things that were already
| online and widely shared, sometimes for decades (first tweet,
| nayan cat gif).
|
| The Louvre can still NFT all the images as they please at
| millions for each one. If anything, it makes it easier now that
| people can start valuing the items before deciding to make a
| 'purchase' vs the museum starting auctions immediately.
| chris_wot wrote:
| Malcolm Gladwell has an episode of his podcast, _Revisionist
| Histories_ , where he talks about how he considers museums are
| like Smaug's horde. [1]
|
| I wonder if digitising collections like this might go some way
| towards resolving this sort of problem?
|
| 1. http://revisionisthistory.com/episodes/42-dragon-
| psychology-...
| pletnes wrote:
| Is there an API or a way to do <<polite scraping>>? Could be a
| fun AI dataset.
| kirubakaran wrote:
| I hope to explore via VR soon. That's the only way I can spend as
| much time as I'd like to spend in the Louvre (besides packing up
| and moving to Paris and getting a job as a guard in the museum)
| neartheplain wrote:
| Are 3D scans available for the Louvre's, or any other museum's,
| collections of sculpture and artifacts? I would love to import
| them into Unity and set up more museum worlds in apps like
| VRChat. A few such worlds already exist, and are among my most
| favorite VR experiences.
| Jerry2 wrote:
| In the past year, quite a few collections went online. I remember
| seeing that Van Gogh collection from Dutch museums was digitized
| and released recently. Does anyone know if there's a list of
| various online art collections? I'd really like to go through
| some.
|
| Edit: Van Gogh collection: https://vangoghworldwide.org
| abbe98 wrote:
| Not limited to art but for cultural heritage collections in
| general.
|
| There is the OpenGLAM Survey, a list of Galleres, Libraries,
| Archives, and Museum sharing their collections under open
| licenses:
| https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1yc8z0z7XdhVKvhTbD2_z...
|
| Then there are also aggregators like dp.la, cultural.jp,
| digitalnz.org, europeana.eu etc that might also be of interest.
| microtherion wrote:
| Featuring everybody's favorite piece of Asterix fan art:
| https://collections.louvre.fr/en/ark:/53355/cl010059199
| andybak wrote:
| Sorry to ask but can you explain the joke?
| nmc wrote:
| See the first item in this post:
| https://auntymuriel.com/2012/12/23/asterix-in-translation-
| th...
|
| Was: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22678816
| puddingnomeat wrote:
| They're referring to https://auntymuriel.files.wordpress.com/
| 2012/12/medusa.jpg?w...
|
| This is the part where we all laugh and the credits roll out
|
| Someone not knowing the two can't make the connection. Can
| AI?
| cool-RR wrote:
| LOL, it's finally time for Paul Graham's first startup to shine.
| [deleted]
| ezequiel-garzon wrote:
| I'm puzzled by this statement on the Mona Lisa entry [1]:
| "Artwork recovered after World War II, retrieved by the Office
| des Biens et Interets Prives; to be returned to its rightful
| owner once they have been identified. Online records of all MNR
| ('National Museums Recovery') works can be found on the French
| Ministry of Culture's Rose Valland database."
|
| Does anybody know how World War II affected ownership in this
| case, considering by the time Louis XIV [edited, thanks
| julienchastang] died (1715) the painting was already in the
| Palace of Versailles? [2]
|
| [1] https://collections.louvre.fr/en/ark:/53355/cl010066723
|
| [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mona_Lisa
| ridaj wrote:
| It's because that one is a copy of the original (still old, but
| ~100 years posterior to Da Vinci's).
|
| According to
| https://www.pop.culture.gouv.fr/notice/mnr/MNR00265 its last
| known owner was Friedrich Welz, an Austrian gallery owner, so
| the work must have come to Paris postwar to figure out whether
| it needed to be restituted to a previous owner.
|
| The original Joconde is
| https://collections.louvre.fr/en/ark:/53355/cl010062370
| devchix wrote:
| And here's a good accounting of the Mona Lisa's journey in
| hiding during WW2, and the existence of the other copies.
|
| https://www.artcuriouspodcast.com/artcuriouspodcast/1
|
| It's underwhelming in real life, very small, dimly lit, under
| thick glass, teeming with tourists.
|
| Online art is a great endeavor but there's no context for art
| without the space in which it lives, and in this I think the
| Musee d'Orsay is the better space.
| musicale wrote:
| > there's no context for art without the space in which it
| lives
|
| Interesting - I tend to think of context in terms of things
| like social, cultural, or historical context rather than
| the physical space.
|
| Potentially online museums and galleries can provide a lot
| more historical context than a physical museums could, not
| only by providing supporting information but also by
| including many works that would not necessarily be located
| in the same physical museums.
|
| But I'm intrigued by the physical space issue - perhaps
| using 3D graphics, VR, and AR could help virtual gallery
| attendees to gain a better spacial understanding of the
| work as well as how it is displayed in the physical museum.
|
| In terms of current social, cultural, and historical
| context, I think virtual galleries can certainly present
| works in the context of current culture and recent history,
| and I also wonder if there are effective ways to provide a
| shared experience of visiting a gallery with other people,
| including people that you know as well as random members of
| the public, much as you might have in a physical gallery or
| museum.
| ezequiel-garzon wrote:
| Thanks for clarifying this. Is it standard to use the
| original painter's name even though it's not their own work?
| shakow wrote:
| It's filed as "Da Vinci [...], d'apres"; which basically
| means "copied from Da Vinci".
|
| When the name of the copyist isn't known, it's common to
| file the copy under the name of the original artist - and
| with the "d'apres" at the end not to break the alphabetical
| order.
| ridaj wrote:
| It's sort of written backwards, but the notice says
| something like "Da Vinci _(after)_ " ("d'apres"), meaning
| it's a copy after the work of Da Vinci's. The actual artist
| isn't known.
| julienchastang wrote:
| Louis XIV not Louis IV.
| mromanuk wrote:
| Is there an API to consume it?
| stefanvdw1 wrote:
| Recently the Amsterdam Rijks Museum made their collection
| available via API, which I used to create website which will show
| you a random artwork on each button press:
|
| https://randomrijks.com
| [deleted]
| barry27 wrote:
| this is great. I'd love to be able to navigate to previous
| results though.
| notanote wrote:
| Here's the searchable collection of the Rijks:
| https://www.rijksmuseum.nl/en/rijksstudio
| vor0nwe wrote:
| Ooh, that sounds like a fantastic 'new tab' page. Thanks!
| njacobs5074 wrote:
| Seems to be struggling under the load...of HN art lovers? :)
| hkt wrote:
| There is hope for us yet!
| noblethrasher wrote:
| Which, if true, would be hugely ironic.
| Qahlel wrote:
| This museum became so full of art, the only thing it was
| afraid of was losing access to this art...which, eventually
| of course, it did. Unfortunately, it had many visitors who
| saw everything it had, then this visitors tried to visit its
| web site all at once and killed it in combined DOS attack.
| Ironic. It could enlighten others from ignorance... but not
| itself.
| DenisM wrote:
| The resolution of (some) images is vary disappointing, especially
| the downloads versions which seem even worse...
|
| https://collections.louvre.fr/en/ark:/53355/cl020579933
|
| MOMA on the other hand has very high quality imagery of Durer.
| afterburner wrote:
| At least Tineye works well in this case.
| sn_master wrote:
| The Peterson Museum (basically the Louvre of automobiles) did the
| same -or very close- with wonderful video tours of areas that
| only paying 150$ would get you to see (The Vault).
|
| https://www.youtube.com/user/PetersenMuseum/videos
|
| The Seattle flight museum also started a series where the main
| curator would talk about individual planes in long format, way
| better experience than looking at photos online.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCda1wjNf7JaYgx9ukXRqgIQ
|
| Those are just the ones I noticed as an Aviation and Automobile
| enthusiast. If anyone knows others please share ;_;
| reaperducer wrote:
| A bunch of the Chicago museums have done the same thing:
|
| https://www.chicagoarchitecture.org/2020/04/16/things-to-do-...
| Arech wrote:
| Thanks for the links, absolutely great channels. I wonder if
| there exist something like curated "awesome list" of museums
| online? Because I don't even think it's possible to find these
| gems just doing a search on Google/YouTube which returns mostly
| low quality to spam results.
| sn_master wrote:
| Maybe we can start an HN or Reddit thread and then link it
| from AwesomeMuseamsOnline.(whatever cheap tld)
| faheel wrote:
| Or an "Awesome list" on GitHub.
|
| https://github.com/topics/awesome
| sofixa wrote:
| Thought of the same, if no one else beats me i'll get
| started on this in a few hours
| sofixa wrote:
| To everyone, the list has been created, the rest is easy
| :D
|
| https://github.com/sofixa/awesome-museums-online
|
| Tomorrow/early next week I'll throw in the boilerplate (
| contributing.md, PR template, and see about
| organisation/generation/TOC/etc.) and then i'll start
| adding the mentions from this thread and others i know
| of.
|
| Once it's decent and ready for wide contributions, i'll
| post on HN, Reddit and co.
| specialist wrote:
| Please do this.
| squirrelmaker wrote:
| some more virtual tours:
| https://artsandculture.google.com/project/streetviews
| donarb wrote:
| Google has art from over 2000 museums online.
|
| https://artsandculture.google.com
| MgB2 wrote:
| The Tank Museum (formerly Bovington Tank Museum) is also doing
| a long-running series of "tank chats" on their exhibits. They
| don't only give some very interesting details (if you're into
| that sort of thing) but also give some deep historical context
| behind the vehicles.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLBAEOsdxIbLPFEomzphaZ...
|
| https://www.youtube.com/user/TheTankMuseum
| geniium wrote:
| The company that is behind their digitalization is Zetcom. They
| have thousands of museum around the world and some are accessible
| online. You can check their web site https://www.zetcom.com.
| oldman77 wrote:
| Give us back our bloody Gioconda!
| kaminar wrote:
| Did Bill Gates buy the digital/electronic rights to the Louvre
| collections in the 90s? I seem to recall an article about it, but
| cannot find it.
| sn_master wrote:
| He bought the DaVinci Codex and made them free as a Windows 98
| screensaver :D
|
| https://news.softpedia.com/news/did-you-know-bill-gates-boug...
|
| Rant: I have much more respect to that than the modern NFT
| craze. He didn't have any obligation to make them free to the
| public.
| 29athrowaway wrote:
| I am getting HTTP 500 errors when I try to see a collection.
| sn_master wrote:
| I am getting 500 even when doing a search.
| aristofun wrote:
| Like everyone really cares about old dead art these days :)
| specialist wrote:
| Why don't these photos to have color calibration targets?
|
| https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/163309-REG/Kodak_1907...
|
| And maybe some meta data about the camera and settings.
|
| I don't recall any online collections using targets. Surely these
| curation and archivist domain experts record this stuff. I've
| casually asked a few times, but no leads.
|
| --
|
| My partner likes to create master copies. Portrait, still life.
|
| I've ordered fine art prints of dozens of originals. Always
| frustrating. I just get one of every option (matte, gloss, each
| type of medium). And let my partner pick the one that seems to
| match most closely. (Then I give away the extras as 'just
| because' gifts, which people seem to like.)
| tyre wrote:
| Where do you get these printed? I've searched for places that
| will do high quality prints and generally have come up empty
| handed. Maybe it's just something that must be done locally?
|
| Has anyone ever raised copyright concerns?
| tafda wrote:
| You can request color calibrated TIFFs from the Rijksmuseum
| collection: https://www.rijksmuseum.nl/en/research/image-
| requests
| specialist wrote:
| > _FOR PROFESSIONAL USE
|
| You can also request free high-res TIFF files with colour
| reference for professional use. To order TIFF files, please
| fill in the form below._
|
| Nice. Hopefully this becomes the norm.
|
| Just one anecdote: During a VIP tour of a museum, eg browsing
| the warehouse of stuff not on display, I asked about digital
| archiving. Blank looks. I'm guessing it's just not part of
| the curriculum for minting new archivists, curators,
| historians. I hope I'm wrong. Surely the younger cohorts know
| this stuff...?
| reaperducer wrote:
| _Why don 't these photos to have color calibration targets?_
|
| You should ask for your money back.
| Palomides wrote:
| if you look at the terms and conditions for downloading, as
| with most museums, it's clear that they want to still sell
| prints and "licensing" images of any art they own
|
| they definitely have color-calibrated images, but not for the
| public
|
| edit: for those unaware, in the US, reproductions/photos of
| public domain 2D art are themselves public domain and not
| subject to copyright
| specialist wrote:
| We've definitely ordered prints directly. At best, they've
| been IKEA poster quality. Might as well just use Kinkos.
|
| There's a modest niche opportunity for a high end print shop
| to just handle it. White label the service so museums can
| reskin, rebrand, integrate.
|
| I pitched the notion to the two local shops I use (high end,
| preferred by artists). Build relations with some museums,
| create a simple e-commerce site. No interest. I get it; Print
| is a dying industry and the old farts are just holding on
| until retirement.
|
| I'm happy to pay real money for real prints. I hate fussing
| with this stuff and being responsible for the results. While
| I wrote software for print production manufacturing, I never
| touched the color calibration stuff. I'm just not
| temperamentally suited for that kind of work.
|
| FWIW, the best source of true color images, for doing master
| copies, have been art coffee books from the 80s and 90s. When
| the print industry was basically printing money, some
| publishers took quality seriously.
| reaperducer wrote:
| _There 's a modest niche opportunity for a high end print
| shop to just handle it._
|
| Maybe, or maybe not. In my experience, a lot of print
| shops, especially the chains, won't touch paintings for
| fear of liability, copyright or otherwise.
|
| I tried to get one of my wife's paintings scanned and
| printed in a major American city, in order to send the
| print to her mother for Christmas. I must have gone to at
| least 30 places over two or three months, and none of them
| would touch it because there was no way to prove ownership.
| They wouldn't take our word for it. Some wanted paperwork
| from a lawyer.
|
| I ended up taking it to a friend who is an architect, and
| he had it done in his office.
| brm wrote:
| I think you answered your own question.
| ppod wrote:
| This is a tangential point, but I've recently noticed that I
| discover a lot of art through wikipedia. Many pages that deal
| with abstract concepts are illustrated with wonderful and varied
| selections of art, e.g.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Justice
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Love
| kzrdude wrote:
| That is indeed beautiful but also a sad reminder that current
| copyright systems have frozen this situation in time - we can
| only ever use antique art freely in this way, and all recent
| art is locked behind pseudo-immortal copyright terms.
| Black101 wrote:
| The Met Museum did something similar a while back:
| https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection ... A list of (all?)
| images https://github.com/gregsadetsky/open-access-is-great-but-
| whe... .
| throwawaysea wrote:
| I'm confused who this is for. It's not the same experience seeing
| art online. Part of what makes the Louvre or other museums
| special is being in a beautiful and decorated historically
| important space. It puts you in a different mindset where you can
| wander, ponder, and appreciate. I'm no Luddite but a digital
| experience simply can't recreate that, at least not today.
| arvinsim wrote:
| I guess that's why they did it? Because people who want the
| real experience will still go in person. As such, they aren't
| really losing any customers.
| occamrazor wrote:
| The Louvre is a state owned museum. It's purpose is not to
| sell tickets, but to disseminate culture. The purpose of the
| tickets is limiting the visitors to a number that can fit in
| the building.
|
| If many people opt to look at the works online and not in
| person, the Louvre can reduce the ticket prices without
| increasing the number of visitors and this would be
| considered a _success_.
| dmje wrote:
| Hmm, sorta. Depending on the country, museums are usually
| financially supported by both private individuals and the
| state. Many museums rely on physical visitors to pay ticket
| prices either for entry or for temporary exhibitions. Also
| visitor numbers are quite often the metric of success by
| which funding can then be sought. So yeh, there's some
| limiting because of space / damage to artworks etc but on
| the whole museums want more visitors both physical and
| online.
| dmje wrote:
| Yeh. I've spent years working with museums online and
| encouraging them to be more open about what they do - digital
| experiences enhance their standing in many ways. Partly it's
| access, partly marketing, partly education. And yes, the more
| people know about thing X online, the more likely that will
| "convert" to real physical visits to the organisation, which
| is normally the primary metric by which they guage success.
| kgeist wrote:
| I don't plan to go to Paris in the near future due to lack of
| time but being able to view it online allows me to "wander,
| ponder, and appreciate" at least to some extent
| sn_master wrote:
| I don't plan to go to Paris because I don't want to become
| another victim of the Paris Syndrome.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paris_syndrome
| yesenadam wrote:
| I think Stendhal syndrome is more likely. If you appreciate
| art and architecture, anyway.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stendhal_syndrome
| julienreszka wrote:
| That's exactly their point. Even a digital collection doesn't
| replace the experience of visiting the museum.
| irrational wrote:
| I will never go to Paris, so this is the only way I could ever
| experience it.
| misterkrabs wrote:
| I think I kind of understand the Truth that you're getting at -
| from a similar point of view, aren't artists usually particular
| about the medium that their art is presented in? because the
| medium can cause the work of art to have a different effect on
| the audience. [1]
|
| In any case, it's certainly no substitute for the real thing
| (but I'm sure everyone kind of understands that).
|
| [1] https://www.britannica.com/topic/philosophy-of-art/The-
| mediu...
| dmje wrote:
| There are multiple audiences for museum collections in the
| flesh, and multiple audiences for online collections, too. It's
| not and never has been "real" Vs "virtual". Well, to be fair
| this was a concern in the very early days when museums thought
| a virtual visit would jeopardise a real one - but not for years
| now...
|
| So yes, nothing makes up for the visceral experience of seeing
| real art and heritage face to face but if you can't get there
| or are a researcher or school teacher or artist looking at
| historical techniques or...[insert many other use cases here],
| online collections play a hugely valuable role.
|
| Plus of course, art like this is often paid for by the state
| and so the public "owns" it and should get the widest possible
| access to it.
| ramraj07 wrote:
| You literally satisfy the definition of a Luddite to a T,
| perhaps not in the most negative way, but some way nonetheless.
| cambalache wrote:
| > Part of what makes the Louvre or other museums special is
| being in a beautiful and decorated historically important
| space.
|
| This is true in theory, in practice you will meet arrogant and
| unhelpful museum guides, tons upon tons of people not
| respecting all the basic rules (no flash, be relatively quite,
| etc) and a labyrinthine place which can give you anxiety if you
| are just visiting one day and want to see as much as possible.
| I went there like 8 years ago in very low season I cannot
| imagine how it would be today in a post-covid summer with all
| the instagramers and tik-tokers. So in the meantime I would
| enjoy all those marvels a my leisure pace in my computer. There
| are million of things we cannot experience directly and they
| are still worthwhile to see in original or imagined
| illustrations, from celestial bodies to ancient civilizations.
| ezequiel-garzon wrote:
| Well said; awesome username!
| cambalache wrote:
| "Que el mundo fue y sera una porqueria..."
| chevill wrote:
| Its an amazing resource for people studying art or people
| teaching art.
|
| Its a different experience than seeing it in person. However,
| there are benefits to both. I've seen gigapixel scans of some
| of the greatest paintings in history that let you zoom in on
| the tiniest details and see the brush strokes, the texture of
| the dried paint, the cracks and aging, etc. For some of the
| same pictures if I saw it in person I'd be a dozen feet or so
| away from it because its too valuable to let people get close.
| Entire objects are virtually invisible viewing some paintings
| in person.
|
| One of the ways that budding artists rapidly improve is by
| copying the works of master artists as a study. It should be
| pretty clear how this tool might be useful to them.
|
| >Part of what makes the Louvre or other museums special is
| being in a beautiful and decorated historically important
| space.
|
| Architecture is great, but what makes the Louvre special is the
| caliber of their art collection. Some people will never be able
| to afford to see it in person. Why not let those people
| appreciate the art from afar?
|
| Even if a person can afford to go on an expensive vacation,
| there's a million breathtaking places to visit in the world.
| One can't visit them all.
| specialist wrote:
| Exactly. Putting these collections is a boon.
|
| My partner does fine art painting (portraits, still life),
| and has created many a master copy. Many times actually
| working in a museum every day with all the gear for weeks.
| (Patrons _love_ this novelty.)
|
| We've ordered many a high quality print selected from online
| collections for further study.
| sn_master wrote:
| I know what you're saying. I used to think digital was
| everything until my first museum visit (Dublin museum), and it
| changed my mind when I could lean in and look at each
| individual brush stroke, and the related paintings next to one
| another, and even the chatter of people around me.
|
| The chatter and humming of people around, by itself was worth
| going to the museum, seeing how fathers describe the items to
| their children, and how sophisticated-looking folks talk and
| such.
|
| It was a magnificent experience that nothing compares to it in
| the digital world (yet).
| itisit wrote:
| Short of booking a ticket to Paris and taxiing to the museum,
| this is a fine way to explore the collection.
| mattlondon wrote:
| I was kinda hoping for "gigapixel" scans so I can zoom right
| right right in to a painting or sculpture etc, and see the
| details.
|
| Am I missing something or is it just a bunch of medium-res
| photos?
| dt3ft wrote:
| Getting a 503: "Backend fetch failed"
| ever1 wrote:
| As a French I feel (somehow) ashamed and absolutely not
| surprised XD.
| dade_ wrote:
| Paris was my last destination before COVID hit and the Louvre was
| worth every moment, but impossible to cover in a day. It is great
| to be able to revisit a museum from the web.
|
| Besides the food, the other highlight was
| https://www.centrepompidou.fr/ Easily my favourite hideous
| building, somehow I love it. Fascinating works and a great view
| from the rooftop patio.
| acomjean wrote:
| This is cool. Though a lot of it was. When I went to the Lourve I
| bought the guide app.
|
| After leaving one could browse through some of the collections
| and listen to the descriptions.
|
| I'm glad everyone can check these out now.
| inflorescer wrote:
| Very cool, I like that! I went there once, it's overwhelming how
| large it is. I was frustrated only EU folks could get a student
| discount, when here in the states I don't think anyone's threat
| model is someone faking a student ID to get a discount on entry
| to a museum.
| mlthoughts2018 wrote:
| I'm only getting 503 varnish cache errors when I try to actually
| visit any artworks through this.
| robin_reala wrote:
| I know this potentially sounds ungrateful, but it's a shame they
| didn't follow the example of Paris Musees and place their
| collection under CC0. [1] As it is it's really useful for
| attribution and generalised research, but it doesn't give you
| many options for reuse.
|
| [1] https://creativecommons.org/2020/01/10/paris-musees-
| releases...
| mytailorisrich wrote:
| The works themselves are all in the public domain, apart
| perhaps from rare exceptions.
|
| So my understanding is that it is the photographs of those
| works that are copyrighted. In my view it goes against the
| spirit of public domain to use this in order to restrict the
| use of the collections put online.
| WORLD_ENDS_SOON wrote:
| In the United States a photograph of a public domain 2D image
| is still also public domain if the photograph is considered a
| faithful reproduction of the public domain 2D image: https://
| en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bridgeman_Art_Library_v._Corel....
|
| However, I think the laws for this vary quite a bit across
| countries, and in many countries the photograph is considered
| a new copyright work. In general it's pretty frustrating how
| many legal barriers there are to accessing and reusing old
| works of art. Thankfully a growing number of museums have
| made things easy with clear copyright releases (Rijksmuseum,
| Paris Musees, the MET), but others seem more interested in
| preserving their ability to sell prints.
| jimhefferon wrote:
| Ths is their license:
|
| _The downloading and re-use of medium-format photographs
| published on the collections website representing works that
| are not protected by copyright (hereinafter called the
| "Photographs") are permitted, free of charge, for any non-
| collective use within a strictly private context and for the
| following exhaustively-listed museographic, scientific and
| educational purposes: - projection and distribution for the
| purpose of museographic, pedagogic and scientific activities,
| such as their reproduction on labels and exhibition signs, the
| presentation of guided tours, the running of educational
| workshops, the delivery of teaching and training sessions and
| the holding of symposia and seminars; - publication of
| exhibition and permanent collection catalogues, scientific
| papers and Ph.D. theses for publishers whose registered office
| is in the European Union, within a limit of one thousand five
| hundred (1500) copies, republication included: - digital
| scientific and educational publications._
|
| It is more permisive than I expected it would be, frankly.
| tomkuk wrote:
| If you are looking for more art collections from France please
| check https://www.videomuseum.fr/en they encompasses 67
| institutions (like Centre Pompidou - Musee national d'art moderne
| or Musee national Picasso) engaged to standardize the inventory
| of their collections and presently includes 36 000 artists, 390
| 000 works and 355 000 images. Very interesting! Nukomeet is the
| company which is developing the project. You can find their case
| study https://nukomeet.com/work/navigart/
| bibinou wrote:
| Here's Mona Lisa:
|
| https://collections.louvre.fr/ark:/53355/cl010066723
| santiagobasulto wrote:
| The date of creation seems wrong, right? Shouldn't it be ~1500?
| hnarn wrote:
| Maybe it's one of those things where someone mixed up the
| centuries. The page states "XVIIe siecle" (17th century), if
| someone somewhere mixed up "16th century" (which is correct)
| with "the 1600s", that could explain the error.
|
| Personally I'm really not a fan of using the "century"
| notation, and in my native language it's never used.
| shakow wrote:
| > and in my native language it's never used.
|
| So how do you handle fuzzy dates? What language is it, if I
| may ask?
| hnarn wrote:
| Swedish. It's exactly like English except we only use
| exact dates or "the X-hundreds" or "the X-ies", never the
| "off by one" count of centuries.
|
| Just for the record, I'm not saying this is a feature of
| Swedish specifically. I'm sure there are other languages
| that do the same.
| bibinou wrote:
| as spotted by sl956, I mistakenly linked to a copy.
| sl956 wrote:
| The correct link to the actual Mona Lisa is this one:
| https://collections.louvre.fr/ark:/53355/cl010062370
| eternalban wrote:
| Delighted to see a Persian Miniature grace the portal.
| [deleted]
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