I’m always delighted to bring news of sources for high-resolution art images, like The Google Art Project, my recent post on Hi-res images on Rijksmuseum website, and the full screen Zoomable images of auction items, past and present, from Sotheby’s.
The latest in this list of high resolution image resources is the Image Library of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA).
You can search the collections by various criteria. However, because the online collections of the categories of art I’m most interested in, American Art, European Painting and Sculpture and Prints & Drawings, are not extensive, (28, 300 and 40 entries, respectively, as of this writing) I find it more fruitful to browse the collections by category.
The default page comes up with a sampling of various items form the collection. The categories are accessed from links in the left sidebar.
Unfortunately the pages of preview images are listed by title and don’t list artist names, so it’s a little bit hit and miss (though that can lead to nice discoveries). Bringing up the page and information for a given thumbnail is quick enough.
The detail pages show the image in a Zoomable interface so you can zoom in on a section of the work and get an idea of the detail; then, for the images you like, click on the convenient “Download Image” link under the Zooming image.
Most of the files I downloaded varied from about 4mb to 20mb. Downloading can take time, click on a few and get a cup of tea.
Browsing may lead you to some unexpected delights, like this gem from Danish painter Martinus Rørbye (image above, bottom two).
(Images above, each with detail, Camille Pissarro, Jan Davidsz de Heem, Camille Corot, Ubaldo Gandolfi, Martinus Rørbye)
[Via BibliOdyssey on Twitter as @BibliOdyssey]
