Turner's Gallery

Part of the Turner Online exhibit put together and hosted at the website of the Tate, Turner's Gallery is made up of the 34 paintings that are assumed to have been once hanging in Turner's own gallery in his West End home towards the end of his life. It's presented both as an illustrated list of items which can be clicked-through to their full catalog entries at the Tate, and also a Java-based, three-dimensional representation of the gallery room (in which the paintings may be clicked through to their entries).

1. Selection Decisions
The paintings included in the exhibit are those presumed to have been in Turner's gallery towards the end of his life. Turner set up his own gallery in order to control the hanging and arrangement of thew work himself, but rarely let anyone into thew room, so evidence of what might have been in the collection is sparse. The Selection is partially based on two paintings done in 1852 by George Jones depicting the gallery. The final determination of which works to include was based on scholarship by Selby Whittingham, a Turner scholar.


2. Metadata
There are two levels of metadata for each work. In the 'Turner's Gallery' section, each painting from the room is presented with a large thumbnail, dimensions and media, date of creation, provenance, catalog number, and a brief description and contextualization. If the painting is then clicked through, the user is brought to the Tate's catalog entry for the painting. Here the metadata is similar, but also includes an interesting page for subject terms. Each painting is assigned subject terms based on the paintings content which are presented in classed taxonomies. The subject terms at the most specific level can be clicked to search for any similar works in the Tate's catalog.

3. Object Characteristics
The images of the paintings themselves are presented as somewhat large thumbnails on the 'Turner's Gallery' page, and a larger image can be found in the work's catalog entry. Still, the largest images, while well captured, are still rather small, and these are the only two sizes available for study.


4. Audience
The audience seems specific and well addressed. The Turner Online section of the Tate's pages provides a very general introduction to Turner, much more historical than aesthetic, and the representation of his own gallery seems like an appropriate way to interact with his works, capturing his reclusive, domineering personality. The Java based 3D gallery is not really that useful and is both buggy and slow as Java often is, but the list of paintings themselves is adequate for browsing, and still seems engaging.