Art Authority Blog
Life imitating Art (Authority) imitating Life
One of our big goals with Art Authority for iPad is to provide you with a great museum-like art viewing experience. One of our major innovations in this area is Art Real Size, which lets you quickly and intuitively understand the size of a work of art, just as you do in a museum. We designed and implemented Art Real Size, like many of our other Art Authority features, by imitating life:
Works well, right?
Just as Art Authority imitates life, Paul Collins, principal developer for the Art Authority app line, had the opportunity to have life imitate Art Authority. While visiting the Philadelphia Museum of Art, he had this picture taken:
Yes, that’s him standing in front of the real-life version of A Reading from Homer by Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema. Looks familiar?
Art Authority makes finding real-world art even easier
In our most recent post, we detailed how the latest versions of Art Authority have given you even more to explore in terms of ways to look at and learn about great works of art. The post concludes by pointing out that one of the best ways of exploring art still remains viewing it in the real world, at a real art museum.
Today we’re releasing Art Authority for iPad 4.9.3. In addition to providing full support for Apple’s recent iOS 8, Art Authority 4.9.3 makes it even easier to find the art you’ve been exploring, in the real world. In particular, we’re expanding the current “Art Near Me” feature to something we could call “Art Near There.” As you may well know, with Art Near Me you can get an overview of the art which is physically located within a certain distance of your current location. We also recently expanded this feature to work on a room-by-room basis, so now you can get “Art Near Me” for each of the app’s eight period rooms. When you’re in New York, for instance, you can get an overview of all the Impressionist art within, say, 5 miles of your hotel.
But what if you’re planning to go to, say, Vienna, and want to check out what you might be able to see beforehand. In 4.9.3 you can get an Art Near Me overview for any location in the world! Simply enter “Vienna” in the Location search box in the main directory, or, if you’re looking for a period-specific overview, in the Location search box in the directory for the period room that you’re interested in. Then tap on “Art Near ‘Vienna'”. You can set Art Near Me parameters, like distance (radius) and how you want to view the overview. Then tap “Show” and explore away!
More to Explore
Following up on our recent summer intern program update, we thought we’d talk about how the Art Authority museum has been evolving to give you more to explore. Not just more to explore than when it first “opened” over four years ago (on the same day as the iPad shipped), but also more to explore, in many ways, then any single real-world museum.
We of course love real-world museums, whose viewing experience cannot be replaced by any app, including ours. But the Art Authority museum viewing experience likewise cannot be replaced by any real-world museum. Since we started using Childe Hassam’s work in our intern update, let’s keep going with that.
In the update post, we mentioned that Hassam’s Art Authority collection includes 487 works. It is of course very unlikely that any single real-world museum, even through a special exhibit, would be able to gather that many of Hassam’s works under one real-world roof. The post also indicated that many of his works in Art Authority include not just standard museum details like date and medium but also items that only a virtual museum could provide, such as links to in-depth articles about the works.
The post also showed how our groundbreaking Art Real Size feature helps you explore and understand the size of the works, addressing one of the big defects of many virtual museums. And with Art Like This you can view items from across all Art Authority collections that are similar to any work (check out how similar to Hassam’s the Monet work is below).
Explore Hassam’s “Allies Day” through articles, Art Real Size, and Art Like This
But there’s still more to explore too. You can view a work full-screen, and then zoom in on any part of the work, often much closer than you can get in a museum. For selected works, you can follow a link to a video about that work. And through the grid view’s chronological thumbnail display, you can gains insights into how an artist’s style has evolved over the course of their career.
Explore full-screen, zoom in, view a video, compare to artist’s other works
If you do spend the time to become familiar with Hassam, or any other artist in this way, you may well want to continue your exploration by seeking out real-world museums that are displaying his works. Art Authority can help you to find and preview exhibits at many of those museums. And our companion Art Alert app can then help you to get there too.
We think you’re going to really adore how Art Authority helps you explore more!
Big upgrade to Art Authority museum
The heart of Art Authority for iPad is its 70,000-work, nine-room virtual museum. “Patrons” of the museum have been known to literally spend days “wandering” through the app’s professionally designed period-specific rooms. While they’ve been doing so, we’ve also been hard at work on improvements to those rooms (unlike a real museum, we don’t ever have to close in the process). And we’re now excited to be announcing and rolling our big museum upgrade..
The 2014 Art Authority for iPad museum upgrade is both functional and aesthetic. The first thing you might notice is that in each period room there is a new directory, replacing the previous artist list. This directory is similar to the one that has always been located in the lobby. Like that directory, it lets you browse and search by artist, title, subject, or location.
The lobby directory has always been for the museum as a whole. Each of the new room directories lets you browse and search just within that room. So if you’re in the Renaissance room for example, you can view all Renaissance works that come from the Louvre. Or you can search in the Baroque room for all works entitled “Last Supper.”
Not only do the rooms work better, but they look better too. We’ve upgraded the wallpaper and added new adornments to many of the rooms. Under iOS 7, we’ve also added subtle but cool 3-D motion effects.
The combination of all these enhancements makes for an even more immersive art exploration experience. Check them all out in Art Authority for iPad 4.9.2, available today through the App Store.
Interns in real life
Art Authority’s president, Alan Oppenheimer, and his wife Priscilla just got back from a trip to the San Francisco Bay Area. Combining business with pleasure, they presented the company’s wares at the Pitch 2013 startup show at AT&T Park, met with the foremost authority on Jan Brueghel the Elder at Berkeley, met with representatives of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco about the National Docent Symposium they’re hosting next month (more on that later), and saw the Diebenkorn and “Impressionists on the Water” exhibits at the de Young Museum and the Legion of Honor respectively.
They also had a real life dinner with two of the participants in this year’s Summer Intern Program. We pride ourselves in the worldwide reach of our apps and our programs. The Art Authority database includes works from nearly a thousand museums and other art sites, our Art Authority apps bring that art to users around the world, our Art Alert app helps bring users around the world to that art. And our intern program this year included interns from as far east as the United Kingdom and as far west as New Zealand. We feel great about the difference we’re making worldwide. But every so often it’s really nice to just be able to sit down with people in real life and have dinner!
Paintings stolen from the Gardner Museum, Real Size
Earlier this year, the FBI put together a Web site to ask for help recovering paintings stolen 23 years earlier from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston. A big piece of the Web site is a slide show of those works.
But, as is almost always the case, it’s very hard to get a feel for the size of works of art when shown online. For instance the fact that the stolen Rembrandt self-portrait is little bigger than your thumb.
With Art Authority for iPad’s new “Art Real Size” feature, now you can easily get that important feel.
-
- Rembrandt, Christ in the Storm on the Sea of Galilee in Art Authority
-
- Rembrant, A Lady and a Gentleman in Black in Art Authority
-
- Vermeer, The Concert in Art Authority
-
- Flinck, Landscape with an Obelisk in Art Authority
-
- Manet, Chez Tortoni in Art Authority
-
- Manet, Chez Tortoni with Art Real Size
-
- Degas, Le Sortie de Pesage in Art Authority
-
- Degas, Le Sortie de Pesage with Art Real Size
-
- Rembrandt self-portrait in Art Authority
-
- Rembrandt self-portrait with Art Real Size
We’ve also put together a video similar to the FBI’s, showing how the works appear in Art Authority for iPad.
The main reason we designed and implemented Art Real Size is to help people better understand and connect with works of art by better understanding the real size of those works. In this case, perhaps Art Real Size will also contribute in some small way to the works’ recovery and re-introduction into the art world, so people can once again see them real size for real. Here’s hoping anyway.
Fun and Understanding with Art Real Size
Here’s a special guest post from Julie Turgeon, one of the students participating in year 3 of the Art Authority Summer Intern Program:
We’ve been having a lot of fun experimenting with Art Authority’s new Art Real Size feature this week. The tool completely transforms how art is viewed in a digital environment, adding what others have failed to provide thus far: a tangible dimension connecting the viewer to the works on-screen. Exploring some of Art Authority’s 65,000 artworks with Art Real Size revealed some delightful surprises about some of our most beloved works. We’ve listed a few here to give you a taste of the capabilities of the new feature:
1. Claude Monet’s larger-than-life-sized Camille (The Woman in the Green Dress) was one of the artist’s earliest pieces. Painted and exhibited in 1866, the portrait boldly announced Monet’s arrival in the Parisian art scene. At that time, it was unheard of, almost risible, to paint someone who was neither of noble nor of privileged birth at such an impressive scale.
2. Fellow Frenchman Georges Seurat’s paintings exhibit great range in size. The diminutive Eiffel Tower, for example, could fit inside his monumental masterpiece A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte 177 times, with wiggle-room to spare! It took Seurat over two years to paint La Grande Jatte, and numerous sketches and studies exist dispersed throughout the world’s art museums (but conveniently at our disposal on the Art Authority app and community site). Seurat continually altered the composition of the pleasant waterfront scene as he progressed in his work, adding, for example, more bustle to the dress worn by the woman on the right-hand side of the painting, reflecting the ever- shifting fashions of the era. Remarkably considering the scalar dissimilarities, both of Seurat’s works are composed of the same miniscule multi-colored dots that became the defining characteristic of Pointillist paintings.
3. Passage of the Delaware by Thomas Sully easily eclipses Seurat’s La Grande Jatte in size. The enormous historical painting has posed problems for the institutions wishing to display it since its completion in 1819. Originally commissioned by the state of North Carolina, the painting was refused because it would not fit in the allotted space in the state’s Senate Hall. Today, it rests placidly in a section of Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts, accommodated by the wing’s exceptionally high ceilings. The eleven-day ordeal of hanging Sully’s most famous painting is documented on YouTube, and made the local news.
4. Andy Warhol used size to make a statement, although in a different way than Monet’s avant-garde statement of artistic prowess and vision or Sully’s patriotic eulogy. Warhol’s whopping 15-foot portrait of Mao Zedong, currently on view at the Art Institute of Chicago, scathingly critiques the overblown reputation and attention given to celebrities and prominent political figures such as the notorious communist leader. Mao’s gaudy maquillage adds an additional dimension of absurdity to the colossal canvas (we can’t show you the Art Real Size version here because this work remains under copyright).
5. A post about size wouldn’t be complete without a mention of Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa. She has gained quite a reputation for stunning the Louvre’s visitors with her small size, seemingly unfit for one of the best-known paintings in the world. Eager museum-goers bump and jostle shoulders, step on each other’s toes, and crane their necks over the perpetual gallery throng to get a glimpse at the iconic portrait and to experience the sensation of having Mona Lisa’s eyes follow them as they move through the room. The guidebook aphorism rings true: the posters sold in Parisian gift shops are larger than the actual painting! Fittingly, perhaps, scientists chose to recreate da Vinci’s Mona Lisa for the smallest painting ever. Astoundingly, they succeeded in creating a version of the painting that is half the width of a strand of human hair. Read more about the record-breaking feat on the Huffington Post.
Appreciating a painting’s size is an indispensible component of interpreting a work of art. Art Real Size helps to bridge the gap between experiencing a work of art in person and seeing it on a digital platform by providing a visual tool through which the viewer can relate more viscerally to digital reproductions. We here at Art Authority are hooked on Art Real Size already, and are delighted to finally introduce this vital feature to our user community.
Must-See Works of Art at the Louvre, Real Size
Last year, the Huffington post ran an article and slide show celebrating the Louvre’s 219th anniversary. We thought for its 220th (August 10, 2013) we’d take advantage of Art Authority for iPad’s new “Art Real Size” feature to show you what that article, and almost all representation of art to date, are missing.
-
- Venus de Milo in Art Authority
-
- Venus de Milo with Art Real Size
-
- Mona Lisa in Art Authority
-
- Mona Lisa with Art Real Size
-
- Liberty Leading the People in Art Authority
-
- Cupid and Psyche in Art Authority
-
- Oedipus and the Sphinx in Art Authority
-
- The Raft of the Medusa in Art Authority
-
- Milo of Croton in Art Authority
-
- Louis XIV in Art Authority
-
- Death of the Virgin in Art Authority
We’ve also posted a similar video.
Millais work acquisition shows advantage of art going digital
Earlier this week the Ashmolean Museum announced the acquisition of one of the major works of British Romantic artist John Millais. The 1854 portrait of John Ruskin had previously been in private hands.
Within minutes of becoming aware of the acquisition, we here at Art Authority were able to change the location of the work within our database, and add a link to an article describing the acquisition. So, the same day as the announcement, Art Authority users browsing Millais works, or looking at works from the Romantic period (perhaps through “shuffle”) or even coming across the work through an “Art Like This” search, would get the correct and enhanced information. And Art Alert users, checking out what art they could view in the Oxford area, would see that the work is available at the Ashmolean.
Think how this type of information would have propagated in the pre-digital art world (or, actually, how it will propagate in the remaining part of that world). Catalogs would have to be changed. New revisions of art history textbooks would have to published. Professors would have to change their slides. And the information would still remain inaccurate (will still remain inaccurate) in many places for years if not decades.
But in the new world where art is digital, the change is nearly instantaneous. Art Authority’s president and founder, Alan Oppenheimer, has been giving talks on the many advantages when “Art Goes Digital,” most recently at Macworld/iWorld and Cal State East Bay. It looks like there will need to be a new bullet item added to those talks: the near-immediate update of information when things change!
(Art Authority is of course only one example of art going digital. But we’re proud to say that we even beat Wikipedia with the updated information!)
How Art Authority can help make you $5 million
The FBI announced yesterday that it had made significant progress towards solving the greatest art theft of all time: the 1990 heist of 13 major works from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston. 23 years to the day later, the FBI is definitely getting closer, with the help of a $5 million award “for information that leads directly to the recovery of all of our items in good condition.”
This is where you and Art Authority can come in. By running the app on an iPad with a retina display, you can view images of these works in as much detail as just about anyone else in the world; perhaps even as much detail as the FBI themselves. Who knows, maybe there’s a missed clue there somewhere. Regardless, you can certainly enjoy some great and historic works of art while dreaming of riches at the same time.
Stolen works included in Art Authority in high resolution are:
- Degas, La Sortie de Pesage
- Govaert Flinck, Landscape with an Obelisk, 1638
- Manet, Chez Tortoni, 1878–1880
- Rembrandt, Self-Portrait, c. 1634
- Rembrandt, The Storm on the Sea of Galilee, 1633
- Rembrandt, A Lady and Gentleman in Black, 1633
- Vermeer, The Concert, c. 1664
