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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.

Editor’s note: this post was updated to reflect Artstor’s platform changes.

John Reps, Monpazier, 1951 (founded 1284)

In the 13th century, southwestern France gave birth to several hundred new planned towns, partly to replace villages destroyed in the Albigensian Crusades and partly to revivify a stagnating economy and tame areas of wilderness¹. Some were designed as fortress communities, while others were laid out as simple agricultural villages. The great majority, however, had a different function. Known as bastides, they were created as market towns with the aim of concentrating the population in secure places for ease of administration while returning a profit to their sponsors. Their founders were the great feudal lords of the region: kings, dukes, counts, and viscounts.

John Reps, Monpazier: Southeast Arcade Entrance, 1966 (founded 1284)

John Reps, Mirepoix: Consul House Double Brackets Detail, 2009 (founded 1279)

John Reps, Fleurance: Market Building Ceiling Framing, 2009 (founded 1274)

Governor’s Chair, London, England, ca. 1750, Colonial Williamsburg Foundation

Portrait of Louisa Airey Gilmor and Her Daughters, Jane and Elizabeth, Charles Willson Peale, Baltimore, Maryland, 1788, Colonial Williamsburg Foundation

The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation is pleased to collaborate with Artstor to make available approximately 1,000 images of works from the Foundation’s collections in its Digital Library. Spanning the breadth and depth of the collections, works from all aspects of the collections including paintings, drawings, maps, prints, textiles, ceramics, glass, metals, furniture, numismatics, and mechanical arts and arms will be shown, effective May 15, 2016.

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:

• We continue to be on the lookout for anything that legitimizes our more self-indulgent interests, so we’ve fallen in love with @ArtGarments, an Instagram account that zooms in on the most fabulous fashion in art history.
• On a less cheerful direction, here’s a comparison of the Rich Kids of Instagram to the paintings of European elites.
• And on a tangentially related note, while attempting to take a selfie, someone knocked over a revered 126-year-old Portuguese statue, smashing it to bits.
• Moving away from Instagram and selfies, these Russian portraits “can bring us closer to its subject than any new-fangled photograph could do.” And without breaking anything, either.
• On a recent episode of Antiques Roadshow, an expert pronounced a clay jug to be worth “up to $50,000.” Sadly, it turned out to be someone’s high school ceramics project.

Elizabeth Catlett; Dancing, 1990. Image and original data provided by Amistad Research Center, Tulane University. Art © Estate of Elizabeth Catlett / Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY. This work of art is protected by copyright and/or related rights and may not be reproduced in any manner, except as permitted under the Artstor Digital Library Terms and Conditions of Use, without the prior express written authorization of VAGA, 350 Fifth Avenue, Suite 2820, New York, NY 10118. Tel.: 212-736-6666, fax: 212-736-6767, email: info@vagarights.com.

Artstor and the Amistad Research Center are now making available in the Digital Library nearly 300 images from the Center’s art collection, focusing on works by Harlem Renaissance masters from the Harmon Foundation.

The collection in Artstor includes Jacob Lawrence’s The Life of Toussaint L’Ouverture, the artist’s first historical series, as well as the work of many other important African American artists such as Romare Bearden, Hale Woodruff, Aaron Douglas, and Elizabeth Catlett.

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:

• Another great way to justify our nerdy interests as scholarly: an argument that the most recent Star Wars movie is a classical epic in the same relation to the original trilogy as Virgil’s Aeneid is to Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey. (Btw, you did see our links about Game of Thrones from two weeks ago, didn’t you?)
• We’ve all experienced difficulties finding a good plumber, so surely we can all relate to the Guggenheim Museum when they say that serious technical issues are holding up production of Maurizio Cattelan’s 18-karat gold toilet.
• Hieronymus Bosch’s picture of Saint Wilgefortis is not as strange as the works he’s best known for, but that’s not saying much. It depicts a bearded woman being crucified.

Reliquary of Sainte-Foy, from Conques, ca. 1000, with gothic additions. Image and original data provided by Erich Lessing Culture and Fine Arts Archives/ART RESOURCE, N.Y., artres.com

Tlatilco, Female figure, 1200-900 B.C. Image and data from: Princeton University Art Museum, Image © Princeton University Art Museum, photo: Bruce M. White.

Jean Antoine Houdon, George Washington Statue; overview, 1785-1788, Richmond, VA. Image and original data provided by Art on File; artonfile.com.

Made for Prince al-Mughira, Pyxis of al-Mughira; the prince seated with his lutist and fan-bearer, 968. Image and original data provided by Walter B. Denny.

Each May, around the world, almost twenty five thousand students sit for the AP® Art History exam. This year’s test falls on the third of May (a date not lost on many seasoned Art History teachers). It is also quite different from the AP® exam you or your children may have taken. This time, students will be taking a test that covers a newly designed AP® Art History curriculum. This is the first year that the exam is truly global in nature.

This curriculum includes works from the European tradition that we all learned in our survey course, such as the Acropolis, but also goes beyond that to include artists from Native American tribal traditions, the rest of the Americas, and works from the Pacific, Africa, and Asia. There are now 250 key works of art or architecture that a student must know quite well in addition to those the teachers and students explore to round out the experience. For the first time, the AP® Art History exam covers something of the cultural heritage of each student in the room while providing them the chance to learn about our global artistic production.