Priceless Art

March 11, 2013 12:46 PM

The Metropolitan Museum of Art has many "educator resources" on Korean art, Islamic geometric design, African art, and more (i.e. books filled with beautifully reproduced images of art and artifacts, along with extensive background history). They are available for download as PDF files.

For example:
The Art of the Ancient Near East is 50+ pages on the history, purposes, and techniques of art in the Near East, followed by 30 works of art, each shown and discussed in detail.

Note: You may have to navigate a few pages to find the download links. (via Cave To Canvas blog.)

posted by benito.strauss (8 comments total)

Damn, that's awesome. I am going to download all of them onto my iPad tonight.
posted by Admiral Haddock at 12:59 PM on March 11, 2013

Fantastic find. I am also off to download all of it.
posted by immlass at 1:02 PM on March 11, 2013

Previously, with some good recommendations in the thread. It's really awesome that they made these available.
posted by oulipian at 1:30 PM on March 11, 2013 [1 favorite]

Dang, how could I have missed that one? Thanks for catching it, oulipian, it's a more detailed post.
posted by benito.strauss at 1:39 PM on March 11, 2013

thank you. i've lived in NYC for nearly 18 years and i reckon i've spent a solid month of days perusing the Met and have yet to see it all. in the past year i've started using their maps and, aside from reroutings due to the installation of shows and remodeling, i can now kind of find my way around. having this resource is great for back story to my stoner ramblings about the place.
posted by Conrad-Casserole at 2:34 PM on March 11, 2013

This is AMAZING. Thank you so much for sharing.
posted by azarbayejani at 3:04 PM on March 11, 2013

Always great stuff from The Met! The school where I teach art is only a couple blocks east of the museum, so we use it as a regular resource!
posted by blaneyphoto at 3:14 PM on March 11, 2013

This is magnificent. Thank you!
posted by methinks at 9:06 PM on March 11, 2013