Are figures in a Florentine altar panel attributed to Italian artist Andrea del Verrocchio actually by Leonardo da Vinci? "The Baptistery figures, if accepted as Leonardo's, would be the only extant sculptures made in the artist's lifetime..." Related ARTNews article, additional Smithsonian Magazine article, National Gallery of Art writeup related to the additional Smithsonian Magazine article, and the High Museum's upcoming Leonardo exhibit.
posted by cog_nate on Sep 28, 2009 - 21 comments

Investigating Bellini's Feast of the Gods takes apart the layers of Feast of the Gods, painted by Giovanni Bellini, repainted by Dosso Dossi, and repainted again by Tiziano Vecellio--that is, Titian. Visitors can see the results of x-rays and other imaging techniques, view the painting's changing context in the Duke of Ferrara's gallery, and examine details in close-up. [more inside]
posted by thomas j wise on Aug 31, 2009 - 9 comments

Did Gauguin Cut Off van Gogh's Ear? According to a new book by two German art historians, van Gogh did not slice off his left ear in a fit of madness and drunkenness in Arles in December 1888. His ear was severed by a sword wielded by his friend, the painter, Paul Gauguin, in a drunken row over a woman called Rachel and the true nature of art.
posted by ornate insect on May 4, 2009 - 38 comments

Tag! You're It! The Brooklyn Museum is inviting its user community to tag its online collection.
posted by Miko on May 1, 2009 - 26 comments

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] [more inside]
posted by filthy light thief on Mar 25, 2009 - 9 comments

The Islamic art collection at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art has beautiful objects to delight every fancy, whether you seek manuscript illustration (more), calligraphy (more), glassware (more), archetectural elements (more) and much, yes, more! If you want some knowledge to go with the beauty then you are in luck because on the site there is an overview of Islamic art history from inception to the now.
posted by Kattullus on Sep 21, 2008 - 5 comments

Cranach Magnified, courtesy of the J. Paul Getty Museum, enables users to compare and analyze the "surprisingly minute features" of several paintings by the great Lucas Cranach the Elder. For much more Cranach, visit the extensive listing at Artcyclopedia, which includes, among other things, the woodcuts at the Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco; several paintings at the Kunsthistorisches Museum; and more paintings at the National Gallery of Art.
posted by thomas j wise on Sep 13, 2008 - 4 comments

England's Rock Art. "Amongst the outcrops and boulders of northern England keen eyes may spot an array of mysterious symbols carved into the rock surfaces. These curious marks vary from simple, circular hollows known as 'cups' to more complex patterns with cups, rings, and intertwining grooves. Many are in spectacular, elevated locations with extensive views but some are also found on monuments such as standing stones and stone circles, or within burial mounds. The carvings were made by Neolithic and Early Bronze Age people between 3500 and 6000 years ago." [Via Life in the Fast Lane]
posted by homunculus on Aug 6, 2008 - 17 comments

Art of the Poster 1880-1918 has high-quality scans of 162 posters. The images can either be viewed through a zooming window in the browser or exported in enormous resolutions (export image link in top left corner of image page). Here are some of my favorite posters: Scribner's Fiction Number, Between the Acts All Tobacco Cigarettes, Palais de la Danse, Starnberger-see, Read the Sun, Cercle Artistique de Schaerbeek, Bosch-licht, XXV Ausstellung Secession and Cabaret du Chat Noir.
posted by Kattullus on Aug 1, 2008 - 21 comments

From the Land of the Gods: Art of the Kathmandu Valley. [Via Plep - NY]
posted by homunculus on Jul 17, 2008 - 3 comments

Illustrated Quixote is a Brown University Library digital project--one of many inspired by the 400th anniversary of Don Quixote in 2005--that allows you to search/browse and view illustrations of Don Q produced between 1725 and 1884. There are a number of other excellent sites devoted to illustrations and paintings of the novels, as well as to the publishing history of the novel itself, notably The Cervantes Project, OSU's Digitized Historical Editions of Don Quixote, Georgetown U's Tilting at Windmills, and the Don Quixote de la Mancha digital exhibit.
posted by thomas j wise on Apr 8, 2008 - 8 comments

Art Images for College Teaching is a searchable, browsable collection of 2,027, well, art images for college teaching, and appears to be mainly the personal collection of Art Historian Allan Kohl (previously on MeFi), and thus represents his interests and specialities, not to mention the variable quality of his photographic skills. Rather strong in Ancient and Medieval, especially architecture, but tapers off as you become more distant from Europe or closer to the 20th century. Nice sets include the Lion Hunt from Ashurbanipal, Iraq; the exterior sculpture of Chartres; and grave stele.
posted by Rumple on Feb 1, 2008 - 4 comments

India's Ancient Art. "Fifth-century painters created stunning murals in dim man-made caves. A gifted photographer brings them to light." [more inside]
posted by homunculus on Dec 25, 2007 - 13 comments

MUVA El PAIS has been conceived as a dynamic, interactive museum bringing together the most renowned works of contemporary Uruguayan art, an important contributor to Latin American art. MUVA is devoted to quality, content, education, information and recreation through the knowledge of visual arts. In Spanish and English, Flash and/or HTML.
posted by netbros on Aug 25, 2007 - 2 comments

The face of Jesus in historic paintings was replaced by that of David Blaine by New Genre Arts professor Ben Bloch. The resulting images were shown to Art History students at Whitman College during the course of a class on Entertainment Violence. The students were not alerted to the fact that the images were doctored, nor did they notice on their own. Stupid students!
posted by ba on Jun 18, 2007 - 70 comments

Born in Bohemia, Wenceslas (Vaclav) Hollar (wikipedia; illustrated chronology of his life; essay on Hollar) was one of the leading etchers and illustrators of the middle 17th Century, working primarily in England and Belgium. The University of Toronto has placed almost his entire works online, including more than 4,000 images and some complete illustrated books. Some favorites: the man himself; simple, powerful Illustrations of Genesis; The Pack of Knaves; Elephants and Flowers; Shells; Fitting out a Hull; and Muffs (sfw). Most images are zoomable, and you can create marked lists and compare images side by side.
posted by Rumple on Jun 17, 2007 - 8 comments

The last phase of the Met's Timeline of Art History is now live and well worth visiting.
posted by magullo on Oct 7, 2004 - 1 comment

Impressionniste.
posted by hama7 on Jul 27, 2004 - 6 comments

Decameron Web: A Growing Hypermedia Archive of Boccaccio's Masterpiece.
posted by hama7 on May 19, 2004 - 6 comments

The Met's Timeline of Art History. From Tibet to ancient Greece by way of Mesoamerica and musical instruments. An index by theme.
posted by plep on May 2, 2003 - 5 comments

Van Gogh's Letters unabridged & annotated. Searchable by topic or keyword.
posted by jragon on Jan 22, 2003 - 12 comments

Did many of the "great masters" of Western art, well, cheat? Not exactly, says David Hockney, but they were close. In his new book, entitled Secret Knowledge: Rediscovering the Lost Techniques of the Old Masters, Hockney fleshes out a theory that he's been toying with for years: that artists from Raphael to Caravaggio used devices similar to a camera obscura (specifically, a camera lucida), to "assist" them in making near photograph-quality reproductions of their subjects. The theory (and the resulting debate) is fascinating: if these artists did, in fact, benefit from "technical assistance," how should this affect our view of them, and of art history in general?
posted by arco on Nov 10, 2001 - 16 comments

The Museum of Depressionist Art: a very funny collection of art parodies, all done with a 'depressionist' theme. ok, i suppose it's not that funny, but fellow art history buffs(?) might enjoy.
posted by paulrockNJ on Apr 23, 2001 - 7 comments