Visual review of art history

March 25, 2009 8:29 AM

Are you looking to review your art history knowledge but find google too chaotic, and Prof. Christopher L. C. E. Witcombe's site is overwhelming and has a few too many dead links? Maybe wikipedia lacks the visuals you associate with an art history review, and Art cyclopedia could be a bit more straight-forward? Then The Art Browser might be the thing for you. The site combines brief descriptions of movements and artists from wikipedia, classifications from Art cyclopedia, and large images from Art.com for compact visual overview of art history. [via mefi projects]

Previously posted when the site was focused on Picasso, Matisse, Degas, and Okeefe, the site grew to include Cézanne, Chagall, Dali, Gauguin and others. The new version is completely reworked, covering a much broader expanse of history, and image viewing is handled differently.

posted by filthy light thief (9 comments total)

I was looking for a specific Durer print earlier today. This site was well organized and has a large collection of Durer. Some duplicates and there are larger resolutions for free scattered around the internet, but still a valuable starting place.
posted by forrestal at 8:45 AM on March 25

forrestral - I didn't notice the duplicate images before, but maybe petsounds can tweak things and clean them up. I think it would be nice to have a listing of title, media, and dates under each image, but I thought the site was well done for a simple overview.
posted by filthy light thief at 8:59 AM on March 25

Interesting and clean but not great for info about the images.

For those interested there is currently a search/social networking project underway across nine British museums which offers comprehensive info on artworks held, plus social media tools: Creative spaces. You can search all nine collections by artist name.
posted by freya_lamb at 9:59 AM on March 25

Interesting.

But the exact same Duchamp poster they link to for $79.99 , can be bought from Gagosian for $20.00.
posted by R. Mutt at 10:06 AM on March 25 [1 favorite]

What, you're worried about your percentage?
posted by pracowity at 10:37 AM on March 25 [1 favorite]

This site is exactly what I want. Thank you so much.
posted by munchingzombie at 11:00 AM on March 25

While I want to like what Creative Spaces is doing, I cringe at the social aspect. While it could serve as an interesting way to link up disjointed collections, does the internet really need another baking and recipe forum?
posted by filthy light thief at 11:22 AM on March 25

As far as I can search, the site has never heard of Issac Levitan, who is probably Russia's greatest landscape painter. Not too impressive.
posted by softjeans at 1:14 PM on March 25

softjeans, nor has Wikipedia. Maybe you're thinking of Isaac? Regardless, this is another shortcoming of the site, and even if he was listed, you'd only see The Illumination of the Kremlin, 1896, as the image source only has this image available.
posted by filthy light thief at 5:14 PM on March 25