NGA Images: High Resolution Images and Open Access Policy at the National Gallery of Art

On Friday the National Gallery of Art (NGA) announced the launch of its new online image resource, NGA Images. Here you can find  over 20,000 high-resolution open access images from the NGA collection. These images depict works that the NGA believes to be in the public domain, and are available free of charge for any commercial or non-commercial use. There is no need to seek permission before using these images.

"As the Gallery marks its 71st anniversary, it is fitting that we introduce NGA Images and an accompanying open access policy, which underscore the Gallery's mission and national role in making its collection images and information available to scholars, educators, and the general public," said Earl A. Powell III, director, National Gallery of Art. "In turn this supports research, teaching, and personal enrichment; promotes interdisciplinary research; and nurtures an appreciation of all that inspires great works of art."

This is good news for scholars, and represents the continuation of a welcome trend in museums to make public domain images freely available.

See the NGA press release here.

Google Art Project: 'Street View' for Museums Plus Artworks in High Resolution

Today Google announced the launch of Google Art Project, an exciting development for anyone interested in art or art museums. From the Official Google Blog: "You’ll find a selection of super high-resolution images of famous works of art as well as more than a thousand other images, by more than 400 artists—all in one place. And with Street View technology, you can take a virtual tour inside 17 of the world’s most acclaimed art museums."

To get started,  just choose a museum from the home page and then select ‘View Artwork’ or ‘Explore the Museum'. From there you can use the drop-down menus at the upper left of the page to select a museum (box on left) or choose among the artworks within a given museum (box on right). You can virtually explore selected portions of museum spaces in 'Street View' mode with the ‘Explore the Museum' option -- note that the resolution in this mode is not particularly high. But in the ‘View Artwork’ mode you can zoom into lovely detail views, and even enjoy truly magnificent, super-high resolution, gigapixel details among selected images (indicated by a 'plus' symbol on the list of artworks).

Note the 'i' button at the top right of the page, which provides valuable information about the selected museum (Web site, floor plan, Google Maps location, museum history, and more works in the museum) or the selected artwork (such as viewing notes, additional artwork information, artwork history, tags, artist information, more works by the artist, and more works in the museum).

Finally, you can also ‘Create an Artwork Collection,’ where you can save and share specific views and comments on any of the 1000+ artworks included in Google Art Project. Note that FAQs can be found here.

The participating museums currently are:

• Alte Nationalgalerie, Berlin - Germany
• Freer Gallery of Art, Smithsonian, Washington DC - USA
• The Frick Collection, NYC - USA
• Gemäldegalerie, Berlin - Germany
• The Metropolitan Museum of Art, NYC - USA
• MoMA, The Museum of Modern Art, NYC - USA
• Museo Reina Sofia, Madrid - Spain
• Museo Thyssen - Bornemisza, Madrid - Spain
• Museum Kampa, Prague - Czech Republic
• National Gallery, London - UK
• Palace of Versailles - France
• Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam - The Netherlands
• The State Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg - Russia
• State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow - Russia
• Tate Britain, London - UK
• Uffizi Gallery, Florence - Italy
• Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam - The Netherlands

While it current state is impressive, the relatively small number of museums and artworks is immediately obvious. It is exciting to imagine what this could become in time, with more contributions from these and other institutions around the world. While you can't beat viewing artworks in person, it is not possible for most of us to visit all of the museums that pique our interest. Further collaboration between Google and museums will make more cultural objects accessible to many more people, which will ideally inspire more museum visits and overall support for museums.

More Ultra-High Resolution Images from HAL9000

Italian company HAL9000 has added more images to its portfolio of ultra high-resolution images depicting Italian Renaissance art, with the latest additions coming from the Uffizi Galleries.  A while back I wrote about HAL9000's 16-billion pixel image of Leonardo's Last Supper. Their recent additions include Caravaggio's Bacchus (3.4 billion pixels), Verrocchio and Leonardo's Baptism of Christ (11.7 billion pixels), Leonardo's Annunciation (10.3 billion pixels), Botticelli's  Birth of Venus (20.4 billion pixels) and Primavera (28 billion pixels), and Bronzino's Portrait of Eleanor of Toledo (4.8 

billion pixels).

Nothing compares to standing in a gallery in the Uffizi with one of these masterpieces, but at the same time the features we can see here are not possible to witness in person.  These are the macro views that only a conservator might see in such dazzling detail, like brushstrokes, craquelures, the dirty fingernails of Bacchus, or the light reflecting off of a single pearl. The small price we pay is a little patience while waiting for the pictures to load, and tolerating the 

presence of the Haltadefinizione watermarks.

For more information about HAL9000 and the process used to photograph these works, see this post over at Wired.

16 Billion Pixels

Have you seen the 16-billion pixel reproduction of Leonardo's restored Last Supper? Created jointly in 2007 by the Italian Ministry of Cultural Assets and Activities, De Agostini, and HAL9000 (a high-definition photography company), this image boasts pixel dimensions of 172,181 x 93,611. One can zoom into areas as small as a square millimeter to reveal minute cracks and chips that are invisible to those viewing the painting in situ. While the imaging company's ubiquitous and perhaps unavoidable watermarks may detract a bit from the experience, one can still study the Apostles' toes, the tablecloth, and the landscape in the background in close detail. The Last Supper is the most famous of HAL9000's high definition projects, but the company's web site also features an 8.6-billion pixel  image of Gaudenzio Ferrari's 1513 Life of Christ, from S. Maria della Grazie in Varallo Sesia, and a 9.8-billion pixel image of Andrea Pozzo's Glory of St Ignatius Loyola (1691-1694), from San Ignazio in Rome.

Image: Leonardo da Vinci, Last Supper, ca. 1494-1498, Santa Maria delle Grazie, Milan, Italy.  From Wikimedia Commons.