Last summer we told you that the J. Paul Getty Museum launched its Open Content Program by taking 4600 high-resolution images from the Getty collections, putting them into the public domain, and making them freely available in digital format. We also made it clear — there would be more to come.
Yesterday, the Getty made good on that promise, adding another 77,000 images to the Open Content archive. Of those images, 72,000 come from the Foto Arte Minore collection, a rich gallery of photographs of Italian art and architecture, taken by the photographer and scholar Max Hutzel (1911–1988).
All images in the Getty Open Content program — now 87,000 in total — can be downloaded and used without charge or permission, regardless of whether you’re a scholar, artist, art lover or entrepreneur. The Getty only asks that you give them attribution.
You can start exploring the complete collection by visiting the Getty Search Gateway. Images can also be accessed via the Museum’s Collection webpages. Be sure to look for the “download” link near the images.
For more information on the Open Content program, please visit this page. For more open content from museums, see the links below.
We’ve established something of a tradition here of featuring drawings by famous authors. It seems, unsurprisingly, that skill with the pen often goes hand-in-glove with a keen visual sense, though admittedly some writers are more talented draftsmen than others. William Faulkner, for example, created some very fine pen-and-ink illustrations for his college newspaper during his brief time at Ole Miss. Franz Kafka’s expressionistic sketches are quite striking, despite his anguished protestations to the contrary. And Jorge Luis Borges’ doodles are as quirky and playful as the author himself. Today we bring you the sketches of that great French existentialist philosopher, novelist, and playwright Jean-Paul Sartre—a collection of six rough, childlike caricatures that are, shall we say, rather less than accomplished. It’s certainly for the best—as the cliché goes—that Sartre never quit his day job for an art career.
But there is a certain wicked charm in Sartre’s visual satires of human moral failings, which he calls a “series de ‘douze vices sans allusion’”—roughly, “a series of twelve vices without reference.” Either Sartre only completed half the series, or—more likely—half have been lost, since the author assures the recipient of his handiwork, a Mademoiselle Suzanne Guille, that he presents to her a “série complete.” Who was Suzanne Guille? Your guess is as good as mine. Yale’s Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, which houses these sketches, gives us no indication. Perhaps she was a relative, perhaps the spouse, of Pierre Guille, Simon de Beauvoir’s last lover? Given the many complicated liaisons pursued by both Sartre and his partner, the possibilities are indeed intriguing. As for the drawings? Their subjects hold more interest than their execution, providing us with keys to Sartre’s moral universe.
The first caricature, at the top, is titled “Le Contentment de soi”—“Self-Satisfaction”—and the character’s pompous expression says as much. Below it, the curious little fellow with the curlicue nose is called “L’Esprit Critique”—“The Spirit of Criticism.” And above we have “Le respect de la consigne et de la jurée”—“Keeping a Sworn Oath.” You can see the remaining three drawings, and read Sartre’s letter (in French, of course) to Mademoiselle Guille in pdf form here.
What do we have here? Painter Paul Gauguin playing a harmonium at the Paris studio of Alphonse Mucha, a Czech Art Nouveau painter, in or around 1895. How this came about — how Gauguin decided to strip off his pants and shoes and start playing that pump organ — we’ll probably never know. But we’re certainly glad that this light moment was saved for posterity.
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As a young amateur painter and future art school dropout, I frequently found myself haunted by the faces of two artists, that famously odd couple from my favorite art history novelization—and Kirk Douglas role and Iggy Pop song—Lust for Life. Vincent van Gogh and Paul Gauguin, above and below respectively, the tormented Dutch fanatic and burly French bully—how, I still wonder, could such a pair have ever co-existed, however briefly? How could such beautifully skewed visions of life have existed at all?
Van Gogh and Gauguin’s several self-portraits still inspire wonder. My younger self had the luxury of seeing these particular two up close and in person at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC: Van Gogh’s gaunt and piercing visage, Gauguin’s sneering self-parody.
Now, thanks to the wonders of digital technology, my older self, and yours, can view and download high-resolution photos of both paintings, and over 50,000 more from the museum’s vast holdings, through NGA Images, “a repository of digital images of the collections of the National Gallery of Art.”
There you’ll find works by another obsessive Dutch self-portraitist, Rembrandt van Rijn, such as the lush 1659 painting below. You’ll find paintings from the heroes of the various Renaissances and French Impressionism, from movements modern and colonial, pastoral and urban. The collection is dizzying, and a lover of art could easily lose hours sorting through it, saving “open access digital images up to 3000 pixels each […] available free of charge for download and use.” The purpose of NGA Images is “to facilitate learning, enrichment, enjoyment, and exploration,” and there’s no doubt that it satisfies all of those goals and then some. You can peruse the Gallery’s most requested images here.
Browse the various collections, including one devoted to self-portraits. Conduct advanced searches, if you’ve more knowledge of the Gallery’s many treasures. Use the “lightbox arranger” to sort, store, annotate, and save your own personalized collections for future viewing. You are the curator! And the lucky beneficiary of the National Gallery’s beneficence. While I can tell you from experience that it’s nothing like standing face to face with these paintings in their in-real-life dimensions, textures, lines, and colors—despite the throngs of disinterested tourists—it’s at least a close second. And for students and educators of the visual arts, NGA Images offers an opportunity like no other to view and share great works of art often hidden away from even the museum’s visitors. Enjoy!
If you would like to sign up for Open Culture’s free email newsletter, please find it here. It’s a great way to see our new posts, all bundled in one email, each day.
If you would like to support the mission of Open Culture, consider making a donation to our site. It’s hard to rely 100% on ads, and your contributions will help us continue providing the best free cultural and educational materials to learners everywhere. You can contribute through PayPal, Patreon, and Venmo (@openculture). Thanks!
John Cage was born in 1915 and died in 1992. During that intervening time, he changed the face of avant-garde music and art.
An early disciple of Arnold Schoenberg, Cage made his biggest creative breakthrough by studying the I Ching, Zen Buddhism and the art of Marcel Duchamp. The composer decided to let elements of chance into his work. He started to write pieces for a “prepared piano” where things like thumbtacks, nails and forks were placed into the instrument’s strings to alter its sound in unexpected ways.
Cage’s most famous work, 4’33”, took conceptual music about as far as it could go. A musician walks out onto the stage, sits in front of a piano and does absolutely nothing for four minutes and thirty seconds. The sounds of the audience rustling, the traffic outside and any other ambient noise that might happen during that time period become a part of the piece. Watch a performance here.
Cage’s diaries appeared previously in print as M: Writings, 1967–72. On the page, the text randomly changed both font and letter size. You can see what this looks like here. Cage and company reproduced this effect in the audio version by changing the position of the microphone and the recording volume. If you listen to Diary on headphones (which I recommend), you’ll hear Cage’s silken voice first behind your left ear, then in front of you and then, disconcertingly, inside your head.
Much of the time, Cage’s words will feel obscure and poetic. And then, as you’re lulled by the rhythm of his voice, he’ll hit you with something as profound as a Zen koan. (“The goal is not to have a goal.”) Just sit back and let the words flow over you.
Jonathan Crow is a Los Angeles-based writer and filmmaker whose work has appeared in Yahoo!, The Hollywood Reporter, and other publications. You can follow him at @jonccrow.
Workers, hell. It’s not hard to imagine Andrei Sokolov, whose paintings were exhibited aboard the Mir station, producing high quality renderings for Mad Men’s Don Draper to show high-rolling Martian clients.
And pop science mag Tekhnika Molodezhi (“Technology for the Youth”) promoted the space race with pages of intriguing four-color images. The dollhouse-like cross section (above) of a communal residence below the moon’s crust is practically screaming Wes Anderson’s name.
Anyone who’s suffered through the hell of growing out a short style or spent a pre-awards show afternoon getting sewn into extensions will appreciate the brisk pace of London-based illustrator Gary Card’s “Prince Hair Chart” slideshow.
It’s only 15 seconds long, but seriously, can you name another Prince with coiffures amorphous enough to merit such prolonged gaze? Certainly, not Charles, or even the compellingly flame-haired Harry.
As this chronological speed-through of 35 years of hairdos attests, musical chameleon Prince (aka Love Symbol #2,Prince Rogers Nelson)has never shied from standing out in a crowd. Thirty-six looks shimmer and writhe atop his lavender pate, as he stares cooly ahead, more mantis than Medusa.
Not all of them worked. If we were playing Who Wore It Better, I’d have to go with Liza Minelli (1985) and Jennifer Aniston (1990), but the slideshow is richer (and a couple of fractions of a second longer) due to such silliness.
Doubtless Prince will have rearranged his locks before the doves can cry again. His latest look, as evidenced by a recent guest cameo opposite Zooey Deschanel on the TV comedy, ‘New Girl’, is a return to roots, a la 1978.
From January 24 through April 27, 2014, The Morgan Library and Museum is staging an exhibition on Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s The Little Prince, a story that speaks to the hearts and minds of children and adults alike. Though Saint-Exupéry was French, he wrote and published his great tale while living in New York City in 1943. Twenty five years later, in 1968, the Morgan acquired the original manuscript, which is now on display.
If you can’t travel to New York, you can virtually pore over ten original illustrations from Le Petit Prince online. We’d recommend clicking here, and then clicking on the Full Screen icon in the bottom right-hand side of the first illustration you see. Then start flipping through the pages and enjoy. As the Morgan notes, the pages are “replete with crossed-out words, cigarette burns, and coffee stains.” You’ll find one such burn on the illustration immediately above.
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The Getty also dropped into the archive another 4,930 images of European and American tapestries dating from the late 15th through the late 18th centuries.
