Vincent van Gogh, “Self-Portrait” 1889, oil on canvas. Collection of Mr. and Mrs. John Hay Whitney
As esteemed art museums continue to digitize their archives, it’s becoming more and more effortless to view and learn about famous artworks by the world’s master painters, sculptors, and printmakers. So far, with over 45,000 digitally archived artworks, the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC regularly update their featured image collections, which are “designed to facilitate learning, enrichment, enjoyment, and exploration.” Titled according to theme—such as Self Portraits, Mythology, and Nature and Ecology—the collections are packed full of free images for art lovers to search, browse, share, and download via NGA Images.
Among the amazing collections, you’ll find high-resolution images of Van Gogh’s Self-Portrait from 1889, ancient folklore scenes by Giovanni Battista Tiepolo, and Henri Rousseau’s iconic Tropical Forest with Monkeys oil painting from 1844–1910. The best part? You can even become a curator of your own online art collection by using the resources’ Lightbox Arranger. With this tool, you can click and drag to sort, store, and annotate each artwork. When you’re done, you can download your research to create presentations, making NGA Images the perfect resource for art students and scholars.
You can start browsing the gallery’s vast collection via the NGA Images website, where you can sort by artist, title, and date.
Henri Rousseau, “Tropical Forest with Monkeys” 1844 – 1910, oil on canvas. John Hay Whitney Collection.
Paul Cézanne, “Flowers in a Rococo Vase” c. 1876, oil on canvas. Chester Dale Collection.
George Stubbs “White Poodle in a Punt” c. 1780, oil on canvas. Paul Mellon Collection.
Rembrandt van Rijn, “Self-Portrait” 1659, oil on canvas. Andrew W. Mellon Collection.
Giovanni Battista Tiepolo, “Bacchus and Ariadne” 1696 – 1770, oil on canvas. Timken Collection.
Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, “Alfred la Guigne” 1894, oil on cardboard. Chester Dale Collection.
Edouard Vuillard, “Place Vintimille” 1911, five-panel screen, distemper on paper laid down on canvas. Gift of Enid A. Haupt.
Claude Monet, “The Japanese Footbridge” 1899, oil on canvas. Gift of Victoria Nebeker Coberly, in memory of her son John W. Mudd, and Walter H. and Leonore Annenberg.
Gilbert Stuart, “Eleanor Parke Custis Lewis” oil on canvas. Gift of H. H. Walker Lewis in memory of his parents, Mr. and Mrs. Edwin A. S. Lewis.
National Gallery of Art | NGA Images: Website
h/t: [Open Culture]
100,000 Digitized Art History Books Are Now Freely Available Online to Any Art Lover
20,000 Artworks Available for Free Download on LACMA’s Robust Digital Archive
250+ Free Art Books You Can Get on Getty Museum’s Virtual Library
Biodiversity Heritage Library Puts 2 Million Botanical Illustrations Online for Free
The post The National Gallery of Art Releases Over 45,000 Digitized Works of Art as Free Downloads appeared first on My Modern Met.
Did you know: Caribou and reindeer are the same species? (They are different subspecies, though.) Found in Alaska and Canada, caribou can reach 3-4 feet tall at the shoulder, and both males and females grow antlers. Their hooves act like snowshoes to keep them from sinking in the snow. We wonder if this one perfected here is getting ready for the big ride tonight. 🎅 Photo courtesy of Steve Forrest.
My love of the doll imagery of Joseph Cornell and James Ensor, for instance, is partly born of the sense of childhood kept alive. Their work preserves the uncanny perception of dolls’ attractive creepiness, a seeming consciousness. Received ideas are unwittingly incarnated in the manufactured rubber objects and identities emerge. Using artificial breasts, snakes, naked baby-dolls, and other props, I give that consciousness expression, satirizing what was unwitting and making it manifest and visceral: a weird vision ripe with resonant gender tensions, aesthetic hierarchies, neuroses, and perhaps, spirituality.
Do you need inspiring Christmas quotes and cards to send out to your loved ones this holiday season?
Friends, throughout the year, our minds are filled with thoughts of improving our businesses, boosting our productivity and focus, and ultimately creating success. It does get wearying and holidays are the perfect time to pause awhile, take stock, and turn our attention outward to all our blessings and all the people surrounding us.
Send out these inspiring Christmas messages to the loved ones in your life. It’s not about expensive gifts, rather, it’s the simple thought of being remembered that often counts.
Gifts of time and love are surely the basic ingredients of a truly merry Christmas!
He who has not Christmas in his heart will never find it under a tree. – Roy L. Smith
Christmas is the season for kindling the fire of hospitality in the hall, the genial flame of charity in the heart.
Christmas is not as much about opening our presents as opening our hearts. – Janice Maeditere
The spirit of Christmas is the spirit of love and of generosity and of goodness. It illuminates the picture window of the soul, and we look out upon the world’s busy life and become more interested in people than in things. – Thomas S. Monson
Christmas is the season of joy, of holiday greetings exchanged, of gift-giving, and of families united. – Norman Vincent Peale
Christmas is a tonic for our souls. It moves us to think of others rather than of ourselves. It directs our thoughts to giving. – B. C. Forbes
The only blind person at Christmas-time is he who has not Christmas in his heart. – Helen Keller
Christmas isn’t a season. It’s a feeling. – Edna Ferber
The BEST of all gifts around any Christmas tree: the presence of a HAPPY FAMILY all wrapped up in each other.
God never gives someone a gift they are not capable of receiving. If he gives us the gift of Christmas, it is because we all have the ability to understand and receive it. – Pope Francis
Christmas, my child, is love in action. Every time we love, every time we give, it’s Christmas. – Dale Evans
Please visit SayingImages.com for more Christmas Quotes, Messages and Greetings.
Happy Holidays, everyone!
The post 12 Christmas Quotes about Love and Family that will Lift Your Spirits appeared first on Dumb Little Man.
If you don’t suffer from vertigo and are looking for a little thrill, you may want to book your next trip to Switzerland, which has just opened the world’s steepest funicular. Connecting the town of Schwyz with the Alpine village of Stoos, the funicular climbs at a maximum gradient of 110%. The newly opened StoosBahn is fourteen years in the making, climbing a height differential of 2,440 feet over the mile-long track.
The StoosBahn’s barrel design has an automatic leveling system that allows the cylinders to rotate, ensuring that passengers remain level, even at the steepest gradient. A total of 136 passengers can fit in each car to enjoy the quick 4-minute ride. The project opened two years past schedule at a cost of 52 million Swiss francs ($53 million), but the StoosBahn is still a point of pride for the railway company.
We should point out, that although the StoosBahn is the world’s steepest classic funicular railway, there are other railway systems that have it beat. A classic funicular is a system where two trains connected by a cable pass each other halfway down the track, balancing each other out in a manner that lets the system function without much force. The Scenic Blue Railway in Australia has a gradient of 122%, but is an inclined lift—meaning it operates as a single train that moves up and down on a winch.
h/t: [Twisted Sifter]
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The post World’s Steepest Mountainside Railway Opens in the Majestic Swiss Alps appeared first on My Modern Met.
© The Guy Bourdin Estate, 2017
Best known for his provocative fashion photography, Guy Bourdin was a pioneer in the industry, working with Vogue, among other publications, from the mid-1950s until his untimely death in 1991. His campaigns for shoe designer Charles Jourdan, which he shot for almost 15 years, became a sensation for their surreal imagery. Mixing touches of his mentor Man Ray, Magritte, and Balthus, his shocking, slightly sinister and surreal photography made him one of the most well-known fashion photographers of the 20th century.
And while most of the world knows him for these colorful images, there was another side of Bourdin’s work, which, until now, remained largely unseen. Untouched, a new photography book published by Steidl, peels back the layers of Bourdin’s early black and white photography. Captured while roaming the streets of Paris in the early 1950s, Bourdin’s take on street photography is an incredible glimpse into the creative mind of a young artist on the brink of success.
For Bourdin, who discovered his love of photography while in the Air Force, his return to Paris after being stationed abroad was an opportunity to explore his newfound artistry. With over 200 black and white photographs published in Untouched, we see Bourdin testing his creative eye, playing with the shapes and surreal compositions that would later become his trademark. Whether accentuating the geometric form of a bathing costume or ironically positioning an elegantly dressed woman next to a butcher’s window, it’s clear to see Bourdin was pushing the envelope from the moment he picked up a camera.
Lovers of Bourdin’s work will be pleased to know that Untouched is just the first of eight volumes that Steidl will be publishing about the iconic photographer’s work. And with this first volume, viewers are brought along the early journey and development of the legendary late photographer.
© The Guy Bourdin Estate, 2017
© The Guy Bourdin Estate, 2017
© The Guy Bourdin Estate, 2017
© The Guy Bourdin Estate, 2017
‘Untouched’ cover
Gorgeously Surreal Fashion Photography
Surreal Portraits of the Human Form Hiding Behind Reflections of Nature
10+ Photographers Who Have Elevated the Power of Fine Art Photography
The post Guy Bourdin’s Early Unpublished Photos from the Streets of 1950s Paris appeared first on My Modern Met.
Sig Nordal 