Category: Images on the Web

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Images on the Web Islamic

Copper Mining Threatens Afghan Site

A recent article in the LA Times describes the threats faced by an ancient Afghan archaeological site, Mes Aynak. The threats include war, looting, and now bulldozing by a Chinese mining company searching for copper.

…a dozen archaeologists and 100 Afghan laborers are working like army ants to finish the dig. Many valuable relics were looted long ago, and the archaeologists won’t be able to save the ancient edifices from the mining company. But they can remove the statues, pottery and gold and silver coins still buried within the buildings.

“We don’t know exactly how much time we have to excavate the site. Sometimes the deadline is 14 months and sometimes it’s two years.”

Photographs of the excavation published online by the LA Times are available here.

Categories
Images on the Web Innovative Technology Photography

See Historical Photographs of Your Neighborhood with WhatWasThere

WhatWasThere is a project based in Ann Arbor, Michigan, which combines GIS data with historic photographs, including many of architecture. Photographs are linked to their location of origin on maps, allowing visitors to the website (or users of the free mobile app) to take a virtual historic tour through cities and neighborhoods. Users may also contribute their own photographs.

The premise is simple: provide a platform where anyone can easily upload a photograph with two straightforward tags to provide context: Location and Year. If enough people upload enough photographs in enough places, together we will weave together a photographic history of the world (or at least any place covered by Google Maps). So wherever you are in the world, take a moment to upload a photograph and contribute to history!

Categories
Images on the Web Modern - Contemporary Museums

Interactive Tour of the Barnes Foundation

The New York Times provides an interactive tour of the old Barnes Foundation museum, which has since closed and will reopen in Philadelphia next year. Click on any painting outlined in white for more information, and click and drag your cursor to move throughout each room.

The Barnes Foundation, an extraordinary collection of art amassed by Albert C. Barnes, has been one of America’s strangest art museums from the day its doors opened in 1925. Barnes’s unique juxtapositions of paintings and objects were intended to help the viewer learn to look closely at art.

 

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Images on the Web Islamic Museums

Islamic Manuscripts of the Walters Art Museum

With the help of a Preservation and Access Grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities, and with additional funding from an anonymous donor, the Walters has completed its program to create digital surrogates of its collection of Islamic manuscripts and single leaves. Images are free for any noncommercial use, provided you follow the terms of the Creative Commons license specified by the museum.

Images of the manuscript are available for download from Flickr, including high-resolution images. Full manuscript PDFs (including data) are also available on the Walters website (see the above example here).

Categories
Exhibitions Images on the Web Luna Modern - Contemporary Museums

Renaissance Society Archive in LUNA

The Renaissance Society Archive is now available to the public in LUNA. In addition to images of individual works, the collection includes installation views of recent and historical exhibitions.

Above image: Apocalypse Ballet by Mai-Thu Perret, installation view. Part of the exhibition “And every woman will be a walking synthesis of the universe” from 2006.

Categories
Images on the Web Innovative Technology

Google Adds Reverse Image Search

Did you know? You can now drag image files from your computer into the Google Image search bar to perform an image-based search. Like Tineye, this ability to do a reverse search for images may help users connect images lacking data with information on the Internet. Google will also tell you the pixel dimensions of your image and link to alternate sizes, if available.

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Images on the Web

South Asian American Digital Archive Featured on Asia Pacific Forum

Samip Mallick, President of the Board of Directors of the South Asian American Digital Archive (SAADA) and Director of the Ranganathan Center for Digital Information was recently interviewed on WBAI New York’s Asia Pacific Forum. SAADA is a resource that is free and available to the public. Mallick discussed the archive’s efforts to document and preserve the history of South Asian Americans, the vision behind the archive, and some stories behind the collections. An MP3 of the interview is available.

 

 

 

Categories
Images on the Web Renaissance - Baroque

Microscopic Study of the Ghent Altarpiece

A new website allows microscopic study of Jan van Eyck’s Ghent Altarpiece:

In 2010, Van Eyck’s renowned Ghent Altarpiece was subjected to an urgent conservation treatment within the Villa Chapel in St. Bavo Cathedral in Ghent. To allow this work, the altarpiece was temporarily dismantled, which in turn made it possible to undertake a technical documentation campaign, funded by the Getty Foundation. This project generated a wealth of high-definition digital images that will be integrally placed on the internet, which will allow anyone to study these paintings in microscopic magnification, and to peek under the paint surfaces by means of Infrared reflectograms (IRRs) and X-radiographs.

The first part of this project is available now, in full resolution. Users are able to study the underdrawings of any two panels side by side.

Via Historians of Netherlandish Art.

Note: In order to see images of the Ghent Altarpiece linked above in LUNA, you must be a member of the UChicago community.

Categories
Images on the Web Museums

Explore Britain’s Paintings Online

Your Paintings is a website which aims to show the entire UK national collection of oil paintings, the stories behind the paintings, and where to see them for real. It is made up of paintings from thousands of museums and other public institutions around the country.

Your Paintings is a joint initiative between the BBC, the Public Catalogue Foundation (a registered charity) and participating collections and museums from across the UK.

Over 60,000 of the 200,000 publicly-owned paintings are currently online. Critics, scholars, and artists also provide virtual guided tours, including Yinka Shonibare who discusses the art that inspires him.

 

Categories
Images on the Web

Reanimation Library Launches New Website

The Reanimation Library recently announced the launch of the newly redesigned www.reanimationlibrary.org. About the collection:

It is a collection of books that have fallen out of routine circulation and been acquired for their visual content. Outdated and discarded, they have been culled from thrift stores, stoop sales, and throw-away piles, and given new life as a resource for artists, writers, cultural archeologists, and other interested parties.

Books may be searched by keyword or browsed by author, title, or subject. Book records are linked to any corresponding digitized images (usually including their covers). Visitors may also browse the digitized images visually.