Met Museum Makes 375,000 Images Free

[demmiblue]

Source: NYT

All images of public-domain artworks in the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s collection — about 375,000 — are now free for anyone to use however they may please.

The museum announced on Tuesday that it had changed its open access policy to allow free, unrestricted use of any images of artworks in the public domain, using the license designation Creative Commons Zero, known as CC0.

For example, the image with this article, El Greco’s “The Vision of Saint John” (1609-14), is free to download in high resolution from the Met’s website, no permission required.

“Increasing access to the collection has been a priority for over a decade,” Thomas P. Campbell, the museum’s director, said at a news conference. “Twenty years ago, as a scholar, we had to negotiate access even for catalog cards.”

Now, anyone can download images directly from the Met’s website. “They can be used however you want to use them,” said Loic Tallon, the Met’s chief digital officer.

Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/07/arts/design/met-museum-makes-375000-images-available-for-free.html?smid=tw-nytimesarts&smtyp=cur


Here a couple of public domain Monet paintings from the Met site:







And a couple of van Gogh paintings:

[50 Shades Of Blue]

1. Thank you for posting this!

[tparrett62]

2. Wonderful!

NT

[hunter]

3. This is wonderful news.

A true gift to humanity.

[smirkymonkey]

4. That is one of the things I miss about living in NYC.

You could go to the Met for just a few hours to see an exhibit or just a few rooms and you didn't feel the pressure to take in the whole museum at once, which I am sure many tourists feel pressured to do. Also, it was a suggested donation so if you are short on cash you could give them $5 or $10 or I think even nothing instead of the $20 suggested fee. So it was so easy to go frequently and take it in small doses. It made it so much easier to appreciate. I love that museum!

[pangaia]

6. I go to the city 3-4 times per year. I always go to MOMA to see the Water Lilies

and then choose another gallery or two.
Then to the MET to see one particular Persian ceramic bowl that is ALWAYS there... for the last 25 years, for sure, although last time they had moved it and I had to hunt for it...:&gt )) Plus, the Islamic exhibit in general.. then I pick one other exhibit.. That's it..last time it was Chinese calligraphy...

[smirkymonkey]

9. It's wonderful, isn't it?

One of my favorite museums in NYC that I would like to suggest - it's also on 5th Avenue and I think 85th or 86th - is the Neue Gallerie. It's a small museum of German and Austrian art, mostly expressionism. Gustav Klimt, Max Beckmann, Oskar Kokoschka, Max Ernst, Adolf Loos, Otto Dix, Christian Schad, Egon Schiele, etc. It's an old mansion and quite small for a museum. It also has two great Viennese cafes that are wonderful.

I would highly recommend it if you are into that kind of art.

[pangaia]

10. oh, man. I never heard of it...

Klimt, Kokoschka, Ernst... I know some of their work.... not so much the others...

Thanks for the heads up..

BTW... off topic.. if you like Szechuan.... CAFE CHINA on,, E 37th.. Oh Boy !!

[smirkymonkey]

13. Thank you for the recommendation!

I love Szechuan! NY is a food paradise!

[pangaia]

20. yes it is.

BUT.. BUT.. always a BUT, isn't there.. :&gt )

San Gabriel Valley.. Alhambra, and around.....CA outside L A.
CHENGDU TASTE on West Valley Blvd, Valley Blvd and also a location near Walnut.

I went to LA a few weeks back just to eat there, well, and visit my sis in Long beach. :&gt )' I ate at the one on West Valley Blvd..

Word on the street is that it is THE BEST Szechuan joint in the US of A. I now believe it! FRAKIN' FREAKIN' !! To my taste, it is better than Cafe China, I must say. But Cafe China was awesome...The dumplings in chili oil and "sweet soy sauce' are -- ooooooeeeee...


I'll be going back to Chengdu (the REAL one in China) in a few months for a food tour. Haven't been there in some years...

MALA tdzzzzzzzzz....


OH,, Check out Han Dynasty-- 215 W 85th... I didn't think the place would be so hot with that name.. but.. pretty decent---kinda traditional huge room in a former "ballroom" in an old defunct hotel.. worth a trip...

[CTyankee]

19. wonderful house museum. I saw Adele Bloch Bauer by Klimt there!

Really a great back story as to why it wound up there...

[smirkymonkey]

21. Really? What is it?

I know it's part of the Lauder collection, but other than that I don't know why they ended up with it.

[CTyankee]

23. It is a long story but basically how the Bauer portrait was stolen by the Nazis and placed

at the state museum by the Austrian government. The niece of Adele wanted it back and fought in a US court to get it. The fucking Austrians claimed it was part of their patrimony! She said NO and got a 3 judge court in Austria to rule it. They stepped up and agreed. The neice got it back and promptly gave it to the Gallery to put in their permanent collection where it is today.

I will never set foot in Austria because of their disgusting relationship with Nazi
Germany during WWII.

[csziggy]

28. Isn't that the story behind "The Woman in Gold?"

Yes! It's a wonderful movie, well worth watching.

Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I

Artist Gustav Klimt
Year 1907
Type Oil, silver, and gold on canvas
Dimensions 138 cm × 138 cm (54 in × 54 in)
Location Neue Galerie, New York

Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I (also called The Lady in Gold or The Woman in Gold)[1] is a 1907 painting by Gustav Klimt. The first of two portraits Klimt painted of Bloch-Bauer, it has been referred to as the final and most fully representative work of his golden phase.[2] It is on display at the Neue Galerie in New York City as part of the largest Klimt collection in the U.S.[3]

Adele Bloch-Bauer (1881–1925) was a wealthy member of Viennese society and a patron and close friend of Gustav Klimt.[4] Klimt originally titled the painting as Adele Bloch-Bauer, but Nazi soldiers seized the painting from the Bloch-Bauer home and displayed it in the early 1940s, removing the name and instead calling it The Woman in Gold so that it could be displayed without referencing a prominent Jewish family.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portrait_of_Adele_Bloch-Bauer_I

[CTyankee]

29. Yes, that is the one. The story is infuriating and the fucking Austrians are just lying about their

collusion in its being in their museum all these years. This case went all the way to the USSC to rule on whether the niece, at the time a naturalized citizen of the US, could sue a foreign government for redress of a grievance. The SP court rule YES. Fabulous back story and I encourage you to find out more...

[smirkymonkey]

30. I did see that film - Woman in Gold, I think it was.

I hate what the Austrian government did to her, but I studied in Austria and it is a lovely country. Like the US, just because the government is awful, it doesn't mean all the people in the country are. I understand where you are coming from, but I know a lot of good, kind Austrians that hated what the Nazis did to their country as well, so I can't condemn all of them for what happened.

[demmiblue]

11. I know what you mean.

I am in driving distance of the Detroit Institute of Arts. The tri-county area passed a millage so that residents in the area are able to visit for free (one of the few times dems and reps closed ranks).

One of the most impressive recent exhibits was the Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera exhibit. And, of course, the DIA houses one of Diego's most famous works (the Detroit Industry Murals):






I have always wanted to go to the Met (partially thanks to: From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler )... I can only imagine how much I would miss out on as a tourist.

[smirkymonkey]

14. Beautiful! I have always wanted to see more of Frida Khalo and Diego Rivera.

Diego Rivera started a mural at Rockefeller Center but it was destroyed before completion because it included images of Lenin and a Soviet May Day parade. What a shame! He had it photographed and re-created in Mexico City, so all was not lost, but it would have been nice to have had such brilliant art in New York.

[pangaia]

5. Love van Gogh's poplars...

[panader0]

7. My trip to the Met was the highlight of my visit to NY in 2000.

I was literally brought to tears looking at the Van Goghs (my longtime
favorite), and the Monets, the Matisses and so many more

[CTyankee]

15. Hey, I cried when I saw one of the van gogh's (crow in wheatfield) when I was on an art intensive

in the netherlands. It was the last day of a very intensive trip on a barge. I hope to have time for the Louvre and the Musee d"orsay as well as visit Notre Dame cathedral to light candles for a couple of people I know and love.

[panader0]

16. When I was at the Met you could stand right next to the paintings.

To get so close to see texture and technique. I was awed.
Another thing I liked about the Met were the little recorders you
could rent--each work of art had a number and if you punched in the
number you could hear, through your earphones, the background of the
work. Kind of like a CTyankee art lesson.
PS, I'd love to try the barge trip some day.

[CTyankee]

18. thanks for the nod, panader0!

Most large museums have those programmed by number and listen to a brief talk on the works. It makes the museum trip so much more interesting. I always take a notebook with me when I go to museums and jot down my impressions.

Interesting to be able to get so close to the actual picture. I always take a magnifier with me and if I got too close to a painting either an alarm would go off or I would get a tap on my shoulder by a museum guard who would finger wag me!

[Nay]

24. That's interesting, CT, because I also cried in front of one of his crow in wheatfield

paintings when it traveled to the art museum in Richmond. Just cried.

[CTyankee]

25. wow, that is interesting. At the time I was thinking I was just art exhausted from such an

intensive trip because the art of that era in Dutch art and then with Van Gogh was so overwhelming to my art senses...

[Nay]

27. I don't think it was because you were tired. It's the painting. I never cried in front of

any other van Gogh's, or any other painters' paintings. I wasn't tired, either. It just struck me as so overwhelmingly beautiful that I started to cry. It reached straight inside me. It was weird and wonderful at the same time.

[CTyankee]

33. thank you. we are kindred souls, then.

[Lucinda]

8. KNR Thank you!

[StarryNite]

12. Awesome!

Thanks for posting!

[JudyM]

17. Fabulous! Thanks for posting this!

[simguy225]

22. Very cool.

[eleny]

26. You bet - I'm thrilled about this...

Welcome to DU, simguy225!

[simguy225]

31. Thank you

I work in a very technical field (flight simulation), but I enjoy expanding myself with art.

[womanofthehills]

32. Thanks for the link - I have a large photo art printer and just might print me some masterpieces

I just downloaded an image - good quality.

I went to Parson's School of design in NYC many yrs ago. I live in the SW now and have not been back to NY for many yrs. Last time I went east, I did not get to NYC so it's great to revisit many of these paintings!