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Nearly 1,000 Paintings/Drawings By Vincent Van Gogh Now Digitized, Released Online (openculture.com) 40

Posted by BeauHD from the blast-from-the-past dept.
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Open Culture: Every artist explores dimensions of space and place, orienting themselves and their works in the world, and orienting their audiences. Then there are artists like Vincent van Gogh, who make space and place a primary subject. [...] The opportunity to see all of Van Gogh's bedroom paintings in one place may have passed us by for now -- an exhibit in Chicago brought them together in 2016. But we can see the original bedroom at the yellow house in Arles in a virtual space, along with almost 1,000 more Van Gogh paintings and drawings, at the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam's site. The digitized collection showcases a vast amount of Van Gogh's work -- including not only landscapes, but also his many portraits, self-portraits, drawings, city scenes, and still-lifes.

The Van Gogh Museum houses the largest collection of the artist's work in the world. On their website you can read essays about his life and work, plan a visit, or shop at the online store. But most importantly, you can experience the stunning breadth of his art through your screen -- no replacement for the physical spaces of galleries, but a worthy means nonetheless of communing with Van Gogh's vision.
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Nearly 1,000 Paintings/Drawings By Vincent Van Gogh Now Digitized, Released Online More

Nearly 1,000 Paintings/Drawings By Vincent Van Gogh Now Digitized, Released Online

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  • Digitising isn't enough (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 10, 2018 @07:39PM (#56925936)

    Living in the Netherlands I've been at the Van Gogh museum a couple times. Just like any museum visit, enjoyable little outings with family, looking at the art and ddiscussing, well, often the art and stuff around it, sometimes entirely different topics.

    Some painters produce positively 3d work, like some of Rietveld's works have definite height differences in them, done in wood. Others do the same thing in blobs of paint. Van Gogh, not so much, but the work isn't quite entirely flat either. Meaning that just putting a digitiser in front and measuring hue for every pixel isn't enough. And that's just the straight cold physical measurement part of it. A good artist produces work with a certain je ne sais quoi that can be very noticeable in its absence when dealing with a reproduction.

    So, good work digitising this stuff, actually, but it is no substitute for the real thing, because it cannot be.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by tsqr ( 808554 )

      From TFS: But most importantly, you can experience the stunning breadth of his art through your screen -- no replacement for the physical spaces of galleries, but a worthy means nonetheless of communing with Van Gogh's vision.

      No one's claiming that the digitized images are "substitutes for the real thing." But thanks for restating the obvious.

      • Well, what do you expect? There is no substance whatsoever to the story beyond the headline, with the obvious exceptions of where you can view the collection and some of the Van Gogh quotes and insights.

        Honestly, after "hey, the entire Van Gogh collection is online", what else is really left to say? Frankly, I would have expected it to be there years ago... meh.

        • Frankly, I would have expected it to be there years ago... meh.

          I also would have expected it before now, but draconian copyright laws and other factors prohibited it. Shouldn't we celebrate the dawning of an era in which those without the means can appreciate the work of a Grand Master in his peak?

          Seeing, and being influenced by this simple thing, may be the root cause of the next Van Gogh's emergence. It is a good thing, and more publicity only makes it a better thing.

      • No one's claiming that the digitized images are "substitutes for the real thing." But thanks for restating the obvious.

        Aren't they claiming that? Are you sure? Have you ever actually met an "average" person? Have you been to Walmart, or worked in a place where people labor with heavy tools and sweat all day? When men used shovels and hammers to build the place where you live where were you?

        Many people would say that seeing a photo is as good as seeing the actual painting. I know those people, personally. I like them, they're nice. The author was warning them, not people like you. Trust me, it's for the best that they b

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by tsqr ( 808554 )

          Nice rant. Too bad you missed the point entirely. The "obvious" that was restated in the OP was not that a photograph is not as good as the real thing; nor did it have anything to do with the opinion of the "average person" (where did that come from, anyway?). The point was that the OP restated what TFS had already made quite clear. I think the "average person" reading TFS would understand that. If you disagree, you have a low regard for the "average person" your post tries to exalt.

    • I think digitising gives an incredibly close replication to the real thing and that is more than enough for the average person. It is only a true art enthusiast that would see an issue with the digital replication.

    • Some painters produce positively 3d work, like some of Rietveld's works have definite height differences in them, done in wood. Others do the same thing in blobs of paint....So, good work digitising this stuff, actually, but it is no substitute for the real thing, because it cannot be.

      I've also been to the Van Gogh museum a few times, as well as seen his works quite a few other times in other places...

      I don't think it's impossible to recreate the experience digitally.

      What is needed is a really high resoluti

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by tlhIngan ( 30335 )

      Living in the Netherlands I've been at the Van Gogh museum a couple times. Just like any museum visit, enjoyable little outings with family, looking at the art and ddiscussing, well, often the art and stuff around it, sometimes entirely different topics.

      Some painters produce positively 3d work, like some of Rietveld's works have definite height differences in them, done in wood. Others do the same thing in blobs of paint. Van Gogh, not so much, but the work isn't quite entirely flat either. Meaning that jus

  • Finally a good (Score:4, Interesting)

    by AHuxley ( 892839 ) on Tuesday July 10, 2018 @08:49PM (#56926118) Journal
    use of the internet. Art and culture.
    • The internet is as good as books are. Sure, sometimes they're Mein Kampf and that get's a lot of attention...but the rest of the library is pretty neat too.

    • If you think the non art-and-culture uses of the internet are so bad, then why are you here on Slashdot making the internet worse? Clearly any such activity is a waste of human effort, according to you.

  • I wonder if this would be a sensible dataset to train an AI in creating van gogh style pictures?
  • I didn't see a license on the webpage. Are those images in the public domain or does the museum claim copyright on the scans?

    • When you go to the zooming page for each painting and click the download button, you get a link to the terms and conditions [vangoghmuseum.nl] (hope the link works).

      1. Images of the Van Gogh Museum collection up to and including A4 size in TIF format may be downloaded and distributed for non-commercial use, with the exception of images of works by artists in our collection that are still subject to copyright, in other words by artists who have been dead for less than 70 years. These include Pierre Bonnard, Charles-Louis Houda

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by jaa101 ( 627731 )

      In the US these would be in the public domain and they could not restrict your use of their scans. This is because just scanning or photographing a two-dimensional image is not considered transformative; there's technical skill required but no artistic input. Unfortunately many countries are more restrictive—certainly the UK is—and it seems that the Netherlands also considers the scans themselves to be under copyright even though the paintings aren't. If you could photograph the paintings you

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