Web Gallery of Art, image collection, virtual museum, searchable database of European fine arts (1100-1850)

Web Gallery of Art

Web Gallery of Art, image collection, virtual museum, searchable database of European fine arts (1100-1850)

Collection Principles

The original stated goal of the collection was to be a virtual museum/database of Renaissance art that originated in the Italian city-states of the 14th century. It then grew to incorporate adjoining countries and time-frames, and has evolved into a more comprehensive collection that includes the Medieval roots of Renaissance art to the art it evolved into and subsequent art periods: Baroque, Rococco, Neoclassicism, and Romanticism. It is still mainly geared to paintings and sculpture but some additional sections have been added but their contents are sketchy collections in general.

The information about the collection, including mission statement, legal rights, general information on the objects, how to use the collection, additional services, accessories, etc., is fairly detailed and easily viewable via the Info page. Although they state that the images are only viewable on the web and not downloadable at print resolution, that is somewhat debatable when some are available at 300dpi, albeit at a small size. They also have numerous links by images on the "print friendly" pages or elsewhere, to commercial entities that either sell authorized prints or painted copies of the originals. Kind of makes the funding sources a bit more intriguing...

Funding sources aren't well covered although credit is given to the Computer Networking Center of KFKI Research Institute for Particle and Nuclear Physics of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, which hosts and maintains the server which is hosting the site. Three individuals, Emil Krén and Dániel Marx are apparently the only other people involved in creating and maintaining the site so future funding information is basically unavailable to the viewer. Long-term viability of the site is therefore suspect, especially if "donations" are coming in mainly from the commercial firms mentioned on their sites.

Object Characteristics/Metadata

The images are jpegs and are well-scanned for use on the web but the naming convention pretty much stinks: there isn't one.

The

; there doesn't seem to be a good system at all. The images are displayed with the title, date, media, source, and comment. They state that the information accommpanies the downloaded images. The metadata is sketchy at best and not easily transferable to other systems.