Archivists at the Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection are currently processing the papers of Robert L. Van Nice and blogging about the process. Robert L. Van Nice undertook an extensive architectural survey of Hagia Sophia between 1937 and 1985. His collection includes fieldwork materials, architectural drawings, and photographs, and some of these have been digitized and posted to the blog.
The Bayerische Staatsbibliothek now presents 20 manuscripts from its voluminous Oriental collection in the form of an application for iPads and iPhones. The “Oriental books” are available free of charge in the Apple App Store.
The Bayerische Staatsbibliothek also presents the application “Famous books – Treasures of the Bavarian State Library” for iPads and iPhones, which features 52 highlights of the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek’s collections.
The city’s landmarks commission will vote this week to decide if eight major Chicago parks–and the 26-mile boulevard system that connects them–deserves a spot on the National Register of Historic Places… If ultimately approved by the National Park Service, the designation would recognize the importance of the city’s park and boulevard system and open the door to the possibility of state and federal historic tax credits to assist the rehab of pre-World War II buildings along the thoroughfare.
Via WBEZ.
A high-resolution, searchable, and zoomable copy of the Gough Map of Great Britain is now available online through the Linguistic Geographies project. The map may be searched by modern or medieval place name and browsed by place alphabetically.
The Gough Map is internationally-renowned as one of the earliest maps to show Britain in a geographically-recognizable form. Yet to date, questions remain of how the map was made, who made it, when and why… This website presents an interactive, searchable edition of the Gough Map, together with contextual material, a blog, and information about the project and the Language of Maps colloquium.
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.
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.
Last week The New York Times published an opinion piece titled “Opportunity on Madison,” or What the Met Should Do When It Moves into The Whitney. The author discusses The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s recent lease of The Whitney Museum’s Marcel Breuer building on Madison Avenue (to be vacated by The Whitney in 2015) and the Met’s decision to display collections of modern and contemporary art there.
I love the 1966 Breuer design. With its trapezoidal windows and stepped-back facade, it’s what the Guggenheim isn’t: starchitecture with the right amount of ego, meaning that it works for art. Almost everything looks good in it. And the Met’s residency, contracted to last at least eight years, seems like a great idea on paper. The Whitney Museum of American Art gets to keep its celebrated building, and the Met, which can never show more than a small fraction of its encyclopedic collection, gets some desperately needed space.
But the Met’s use of that space primarily for new art would be a big mistake.
What do you think? Should The Met utilize the space to house curated shows that include art from many eras, as the author suggests, or for contemporary and modern art, or something else?
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).
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.
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.