Blog

We recently told you about our alliance with ITHAKA. The Exploring Rembrandt project with JSTOR should give you a hint of why we are so excited to be working together! It’s just a proof of concept, but it points to a world of possibilities.

In a nutshell:

1. Pick a Rembrandt painting.
2. View the high-quality Artstor image.
3. Find JSTOR articles about it!

You can learn how the project came about in the JSTOR Labs blog.

Photographer: Robert Howlett | Isambard Kingdom Brunel, builder of the Great Eastern | ca. 1857-1858 | George Eastman House, eastmanhouse.org

Some stories we’ve been reading this week:

• This is happening right now: the Louvre moved artworks from rooms vulnerable to flooding as the Seine rises to its highest levels in three decades. Yikes.
• You may have thought that Lady Gaga’s precarious platform shoes were avant-garde, but they were actually predated by about five centuries: check out the elaborate 16th-century chopines.
• It seems like the 16th century was a hotbed of weirdness. Witness the craze for morbid memento mori.
• And we might as well follow that up with the rise and fall of medical cadaver ceremonies.
• Here is an excellent essay on how concealing the nude bodies of ancient statues, whether for censorship or fashion, adds another troublesome layer to their already complicated politics.

You have questions and Artstor’s Support site has answers! Want to know how to log in from home? Or how to access the Digital Library on your smartphone? Start with our Quick Start Guide. Prefer to watch your instructions? We have you covered. We also have advice on approved image uses, troubleshooting, and much more.

There’s no need to bookmark the site; you can always find the Help link in the top navigation bar of both artstor.org and the Artstor Digital Library.

Photographer: Robert Howlett | Isambard Kingdom Brunel, builder of the Great Eastern | ca. 1857-1858 | George Eastman House, eastmanhouse.org

Some stories we’ve been reading this week:

• Lots of feelings around this prank in which a teen put glasses on the floor of a gallery and visitors thought it was art. We’ll just say one word: context.
• Confusion about art isn’t limited to the contemporary. Consider the Mäanderhöhle cave near Bamberg, which was previously thought to contain some of the oldest cave art in Germany–until an archaeologist demonstrated that they are actually the result of natural processes.
• The Emblem Project Utrecht features nearly 30 beautifully illustrated books about love from The Netherlands’ Golden Age.
• 122 years after the project started, the compilers of a Latin dictionary are still at work. They’re at the letter ‘N’ right now. Tempus fugit.

Heading off for summer break? Did you know you can still access all the features and tools of the Digital Library remotely with a registered user account – it’s Artstor on the go! Create your user account and access our more than 2 millions images and your own image folders and groups. You can even do this from your mobile device. Just remember, you will need to log in through your institution once every 120 days. Can you make it around the world in that time?

Our User Services team is available all summer long if you need help with any of these tools.

https://youtu.be/uoRMg_bI5RQ

On May 5th, Merete Sanderhoff, curator and senior advisor at the National Gallery of Denmark (Statens Museum for Kunst), presented “Sharing is Caring” (you can see her slides here) at the Artstor offices for a group of professionals in the arts and cultural heritage fields, as well as members of the American Friends of SMK. We took the opportunity to do a brief interview.

Artstor: The SMK is working towards releasing its digitized collections into the Public Domain. How does that fit in with the museum’s mission?

MS: The museum is a public institution, and we see ourselves not as the owners but as stewards of our collections. We believe these collections are for everyone, so making them freely available very naturally aligned with our mission.

It’s also a way to show the breadth and depth of our collection, instead of just the canon. The Rijksmuseum provided a great example: they have gone the farthest in making their public domain materials free and providing the tools to work with them, and today everything they have online is being seen and used. It’s the Long Tail in action—the more obscure works get much fewer views than the peak, but together the views of the lesser-known works add up to much more than for the canon.

Photographer: Robert Howlett | Isambard Kingdom Brunel, builder of the Great Eastern | ca. 1857-1858 | George Eastman House, eastmanhouse.org

Some stories we’ve been reading this week:

• Scholars and artists from the American Academy in Rome used to climb the Pantheon on a regular basis. Sounds inviting? Keep in mind that “differences in temperature between the building’s cool interior and the sun-warmed roof created downdrafts that could literally suck someone through the opening.”
• Her nude figure is all over New York City (in public!) yet she’s hardly remembered: the fascinating—and tragic—life of Audrey Munson, once the most famous artist’s model in America.
• Don’t ask how we stumbled onto this link, just trust us, it was for legitimate reasons: Why are Greek and Roman statues so, ahem, modestly endowed?
• A dazzling artwork involving a fleet of 2,000 messenger pigeons draws admirers – and protesters.

Katsushika Hokusai, Under Mannen Bridge at Fukagawa, 1830-1831. Image and original data contributed by Hofstra University Museum

Artstor and the Hofstra University Museum have released approximately 200 images from the Museum’s permanent collection in the Digital Library.

Integral to the academic mission of Hofstra University, the Hofstra University Museum advances knowledge and understanding through experiences with authentic works of art from the world’s diverse cultures. The Museum’s mission is achieved through collection acquisition and preservation, exhibitions, and interpretive resources.

Melvin Edwards; Inside Out; 2008. © Lafayette College; © Melvin E. Edwards; © 2012 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

Artstor and Lafayette College have released more than 500 images in the Digital Library from the Experimental Printmaking Institute.

The Experimental Printmaking Institute (EPI) at Lafayette College is a unique printmaking laboratory that enables students to work hand in hand with professional artists using traditional techniques in concert with experimental approaches. For almost 20 years, EPI has produced editions by artists such as Faith Ringgold, Richard Anuszkiewicz, David Driskell, Grace Hartigan, and Sam Gilliam. The results of these collaborations are included in the permanent collections of many important museums, colleges, and universities. EPI partnered with Lafayette College’s Digital Scholarship Services (DSS) department to digitize and catalog its collection.

Kondane Caves, Caves 1 & 2; 100 BCE; India, Maharashtra. Image and original data provided by David Efurd © David Efurd

Artstor and David Efurd are now sharing approximately 10,000 images of rock-cut Buddhist caves, sites, sculptures, and monasteries in India and Korea; Hindu and Jain sites; and ancient and medieval sculptures from museums in India.

Between the 3^rd century BCE and the 10^th century CE, Buddhist, Hindu, and Jain temples and monasteries were carved into stone cliffs in India. Efurd documented well-known, highly embellished cave sites such as Ajanta, Ellora, Bhaja, Karli, Elephanta, Jogeshvari, and Udaigiri, as well as lesser-known sites like Karadh, Kondana, and Dhamnar. Efurd also photographed many other archaeological sites and works in various museums, such as the Indian Museum in Calcutta.