Vintage Book & Record Covers Brought to Life in a Mesmerizing Animated Video

in Art, Books, Design | April 22nd, 2020

The state of vir­tu­al and aug­ment­ed real­i­ty tech­nol­o­gy has reached the thresh­old of a time in which VR meet­ings will be the norm. Apart from oth­er appli­ca­tions, this may soon allow con­sumers to stroll through vir­tu­al aisles rather than click­ing box­es on a screen, pick­ing up prod­ucts and view­ing them from every angle. Still, design­ers rec­og­nize that an essence of the human expe­ri­ence is lost with­out the sense of touch. There may even be a future in which we wear clothes with hap­tic feed­back sys­tems embed­ded in them, to feel the pages of a vir­tu­al book beneath our fin­gers…

Yet our slow tran­si­tion from the phys­i­cal to the vir­tu­al world leaves out intan­gi­bles. Some­thing is lost from both. Big box stores still devote sig­nif­i­cant floor space to books and records, for exam­ple. But I sub­mit that a glossi­ness pre­vails in print design, per­haps a con­se­quence of com­pet­ing with screens. There’s a wabi-sabi qual­i­ty to brows­ing a used book­store or record shop in per­son, thumb­ing through an old col­lec­tion of vin­tage paper­backs and LPs, that can­not be sim­u­lat­ed or enhanced in any way. On the inter­net, how­ev­er, where video is king, it can be made the sub­ject of some hyp­not­ic video art.

As the sen­si­ble major­i­ty of us are hope­ful­ly stay­ing put for the long haul (if we can), we may find our­selves curi­ous­ly edi­fied by the video art of Hen­ning M. Led­er­er. We’ve pre­vi­ous­ly fea­tured Lederer’s ani­ma­tions of mid-cen­tu­ry min­i­mal­ist book cov­ers and vin­tage psy­chol­o­gy and phi­los­o­phy books. He turns the abstract geo­met­ric pat­terns beloved by book and record com­pa­ny design­ers of the lat­ter half of the 20th cen­tu­ry into mov­ing images that hint at how prop­er cov­er design can set the imag­i­na­tion whirring (even if it’s a cov­er design for Basic Account­ing).

If Lederer’s mes­mer­iz­ing videos sim­u­late any­thing, it’s the expe­ri­ence of wan­der­ing into a used book­store next to a lib­er­al arts college—full of pro­fes­sors’ fas­ci­nat­ing­ly out­dat­ed hand-me-downs—after hav­ing ingest­ed a small quan­ti­ty of LSD. Maybe you’ll have a slight­ly dif­fer­ent asso­ci­a­tion. But the point is that Lederer’s art sug­gests a sce­nario rather than attempt­ing to recre­ate one. His stud­ies of mod­ernist cov­er designs also recall Mar­cel Duchamp’s Rotore­liefs, con­cep­tu­al art pieces intend­ed for pop­u­lar use as opti­cal illu­sions.

Duchamp’s spin­ning disks became fea­tures of ear­ly Sur­re­al­ist cin­e­ma, icon­ic sym­bols of dreams on film. There is a mys­te­ri­ous opac­i­ty to his phys­i­cal objects onscreen, just as Lederer’s book and record cov­ers seem to have a weight of their own, a use of dig­i­tal tech­nol­o­gy to high­light the strange unique­ness of phys­i­cal objects, rather than their end­less repro­ducibil­i­ty.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

36 Abstract Cov­ers of Vin­tage Psy­chol­o­gy, Phi­los­o­phy & Sci­ence Books Come to Life in a Mes­mer­iz­ing Ani­ma­tion

157 Ani­mat­ed Min­i­mal­ist Mid-Cen­tu­ry Book Cov­ers

Watch Mar­cel Duchamp’s Hyp­not­ic Rotore­liefs: Spin­ning Discs Cre­at­ing Opti­cal Illu­sions on a Turntable (1935)

Josh Jones is a writer and musi­cian based in Durham, NC. Fol­low him at @jdmagness

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Take a Virtual Tour of the Andy Warhol Exhibition at the Tate Modern

in Art | April 21st, 2020

Not only did Andy Warhol miss out on the inter­net, but the inter­net missed out on Andy Warhol. Sure­ly, these days he would be pro­lif­i­cal­ly post­ing to his Insta­gram and YouTube from home, indulging mul­ti­ple celebri­ty and pop cul­ture obses­sions. Warhol’s Polaroid aes­thet­ic and pio­neer­ing of the self-as-brand helped cre­ate 21st cen­tu­ry online cul­ture. Maybe he was the orig­i­nal “influ­encer,” though Warhol was more of an insti­ga­tor. But he’s become too famil­iar for us to appre­ci­ate his unique­ness, sug­gest Gre­gor Muir and Fion­tán Moran, cura­tors of an exten­sive Tate Mod­ern Warhol exhib­it fea­tur­ing 100 works, which is now only acces­si­ble via the 7‑minute video tour above.

“Every­one owns Warhol” (though few own a Warhol), argue Muir and Moran. “He is one of those rare artists who tran­scends the art world, hav­ing become wide­ly known as one of America’s most famous artists, if not one of America’s most famous Amer­i­cans.

Over time, Warhol became—and still is—a big brand, which is just how he want­ed it.” Warhol showed how indi­vid­ual artists could cir­cum­vent the star-mak­ing sys­tem, cre­ate their own brand­ing, and com­man­deer the cul­ture with man­u­fac­tured fame. He “helped shape a century’s worth of pop cul­ture,” writes Luke Abra­hams at Harper’s Bazaar, “and helped launch the cult of celebri­ty.”

Whether that lega­cy deserves more praise or blame I leave to you to decide. In either case, our posthu­mous judg­ments can­not dimin­ish Warhol’s sin­gu­lar achieve­ments in graph­ic art or his rad­i­cal approach­es to film, pho­tog­ra­phy, and—through his pro­mo­tion of the Vel­vet Under­ground—music. Behind the aloof, eccen­tric per­sona is a per­son­al sto­ry the Tate exhib­it explores as well, through Warhol’s immi­grant and queer iden­ti­ty and his con­cerns with death and reli­gion. Archi­tec­tur­al Digest reports on the addi­tion­al resources the online exhib­it offers:

For vis­i­tors look­ing to dive deep­er into the exhi­bi­tion and the artist dur­ing the lock­down, there’s also the room-by-room exhi­bi­tion guide; arti­cles about Warhol, from an inves­ti­ga­tion into his rela­tion­ship with his moth­er to a per­son­al tale writ­ten by his friend Bob Colachel­lo; a pod­cast about per­sonas; and even how-to videos demon­strat­ing Warhol’s print­mak­ing process. 

Tate dig­i­tal direc­tor Hilary Knight knows there’s no sub­sti­tute for the orig­i­nal, which is maybe an iron­ic idea when it comes to Warhol. “We are not try­ing to repli­cate a muse­um vis­it,” Knight says, but “we can still offer a rich, deep, and inspir­ing expe­ri­ence of Tate online.” Though abbre­vi­at­ed and vir­tu­al, this deep­er dive into Warhol’s life and work does that indeed. Find more detailed on the exhi­bi­tion, and each room, here.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Andy Warhol Explains Why He Decid­ed to Give Up Paint­ing & Man­age the Vel­vet Under­ground Instead (1966)

Andy Warhol Demys­ti­fied: Four Videos Explain His Ground­break­ing Art and Its Cul­tur­al Impact

130,000 Pho­tographs by Andy Warhol Are Now Avail­able Online, Cour­tesy of Stan­ford Uni­ver­si­ty

Lou Reed’s Mix­tape for Andy Warhol Dis­cov­ered by Cor­nell Uni­ver­si­ty Pro­fes­sor: Fea­tures 12 Pre­vi­ous­ly Unre­leased Songs

Josh Jones is a writer and musi­cian based in Durham, NC. Fol­low him at @jdmagness

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Watch 270+ Short Documentaries of Artists at Work, and Let Them Inspire Your Creative Process

in Art, Creativity | April 21st, 2020

Imag­ine if come­di­an Amy Sedaris were self-iso­lat­ing with artists Mar­cel Dza­ma and Ray­mond Pet­ti­bon.

Per­haps they’d bar­ri­cade them­selves into sep­a­rate rooms, hunched over their indi­vid­ual screens, curs­ing their room­mates for slow­ing down their livestreams, but we pre­fer to think they’d busy them­selves with projects such as Dzama’s short film, “Dance Floor Drac­u­la, Pre­lude in C‑Sharp Minor.”

Enjoy a glimpse into the friends’ col­lab­o­ra­tive cre­ative process, above, com­pli­ments of Art21’s Extend­ed Play, a short doc­u­men­tary series offer­ing back­stage access to liv­ing, work­ing artists, from estab­lished to emerg­ing.

Much of the con­tent seems ger­mane to the world we find our­selves in now, when the cre­ative play­ing field feels remark­ably open to our par­tic­i­pa­tion, thanks to crowd­sourced projects like the ongo­ing pho­to chal­lenge where­in ordi­nary cit­i­zens are using their phones and house­hold objects to recre­ate famous art­works at home.

Painter Tala Madani takes view­ers through her sketch­book and talks about its val­ue as a method of cap­tur­ing ideas and as the “most imme­di­ate record of the think­ing process.” The car­toon­ish qual­i­ty of her sketch­es may help those who’d let a lack of con­fi­dence in their artis­tic abil­i­ty stop them from attempt­ing to doc­u­ment their obser­va­tions of our changed real­i­ty visu­al­ly. A sketch­book is also a great place for the seeds of future projects to ger­mi­nate.

The prepa­ra­tions for Oakland’s Cre­ative Growth Art Center’s annu­al fash­ion show, Beyond Trend, could send you scut­tling to your clos­et or recy­cling bin, inspired by William Scott’s papi­er-mâché Franken­stein mask—a five day effort—or the patch­es Chris­tine Sze­to embroi­ders with titles of favorite Tay­lor Swift songs, then sews to her jeans in order­ly columns.

This sort of wear­able art does­n’t require advanced nee­dle skills or knowl­edge of how gar­ments are put togeth­er, mak­ing it per­fect­ly tai­lored to those open to explor­ing new sides of them­selves in iso­la­tion.

That said, we are sure the fea­tured design­ers are anx­ious­ly await­ing the reopen­ing of Cre­ative Growth, which serves artists with devel­op­men­tal, men­tal, and phys­i­cal dis­abil­i­ties.

Com­mu­ni­ty and cre­ativ­i­ty are show­ing them­selves to be equal­ly essen­tial to our well­be­ing.

Watch all 270+ episodes of Art21’s Extend­ed Play here, or right below:

Relat­ed Con­tent: 

The Sev­en Road-Test­ed Habits of Effec­tive Artists

Moe­bius Gives 18 Wis­dom-Filled Tips to Aspir­ing Artists

Love the Art, Hate the Artist: How to Approach the Art of Dis­graced Artists

Ayun Hal­l­i­day is an author, illus­tra­tor, the­ater mak­er and Chief Pri­ma­tol­o­gist of the East Vil­lage Inky zine. Fol­low her @AyunHalliday.

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Banksy Debuts His COVID-19 Art Project: Good to See That He Has TP at Home

in Art | April 20th, 2020

“Who is Banksy?” asked an Art­net roundup of pos­si­ble sus­pects in 2016. One might well respond, “who cares?”—a rhetor­i­cal ques­tion Artnet’s Hen­ri Neuen­dorf answers. At least a few years ago, before some oth­er things got seri­ous­ly out of hand, the iden­ti­ty of the noto­ri­ous gueril­la street artist turned inter­na­tion­al man of mys­tery was “an obses­sion that seems to have gripped the world.”

One answer, assessed by cura­tor and street art expert Car­lo McCormick, was arrived at through the use of geo­graph­ic pro­fil­ing, a “sophis­ti­cat­ed sta­tis­ti­cal analy­sis tech­nique used in crim­i­nol­o­gy to locate repeat offend­ers.” McCormick rates its con­clu­sion as prob­a­ble, but also finds it “scary” to bend such meth­ods to such ends, an anx­i­ety res­o­nant with con­cerns over sur­veil­lance tech used to track COVID-19 vec­tors.

Anoth­er ques­tion is whether it mat­ters who Banksy is. “The improb­a­bly ornate fic­tion is always going to be more com­pelling than the sim­ple mun­dane truth.” Do we real­ly need to ruin the illu­sion? If those who want to remain anony­mous can be tracked with algorithms—while the rest of us vol­un­teer our per­son­al data dai­ly in a cul­ture of com­pet­i­tive oversharing—is there any room left for pri­va­cy? Now that we’re trapped inside for days on end with fam­i­lies, room­mates, part­ners, pets, maybe our only per­son­al space is in the loo (where we’re still inclined to bring our phones).

 

View this post on Insta­gram

 

. . My wife hates it when I work from home.

A post shared by Banksy (@banksy) on

Banksy’s lat­est work, post­ed on Insta­gram, plays with all of these themes and shows he doesn’t have a prob­lem defac­ing his own prop­er­ty, and shar­ing an inti­mate por­trait with his mil­lions of fol­low­ers. Hell, it’s almost a self­ie, minus the preen­ing, duck-faced self.

As Daria Harp­er writes at Art­sy:

The noto­ri­ous­ly elu­sive street artist Banksy debuted his lat­est work in a rather pecu­liar place: his bath­room. With much of the world on lock­down due to the COVID-19 cri­sis, artists like Banksy have been forced to get inno­v­a­tive with their artis­tic prac­tices. The artist post­ed pho­tos of the new art­work on his Insta­gram page yes­ter­day with the cap­tion: “My wife hates it when I work from home.”

Is this real­ly Banksy work­ing from home? (“One par­tic­u­lar­ly baf­fled com­menter,” notes Hyper­al­ler­gic, “wrote: ‘You are one of the world’s most famous artists… and THAT’S YOUR shit­ty lit­tle BATHROOM????’”)

Is there real­ly a Mrs. Banksy? Lit­tle Banksies run­ning around the yard, wear­ing coro­n­avirus face­masks and hood­ies? Is he on the verge of out­ing him­self? At least we know he’s still got toi­let paper.

Maybe you find this tan­ta­liz­ing win­dow on the artist’s inner sanc­tum cred­i­ble evi­dence of his mun­dane real life. Maybe the sig­na­ture rats destroy­ing his crap­per are his cab­in-fever dream. Or maybe, as usu­al, he’s just tak­ing the piss with this cre­ative instal­la­tion. We await com­ment from Mrs. Banksy.

via Boing Boing

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Banksy Strikes Again in Venice

Banksy Paints a Grim Hol­i­day Mur­al: Season’s Greet­ings to All

Behind the Banksy Stunt: An In-Depth Break­down of the Artist’s Self-Shred­ding Paint­ing

Josh Jones is a writer and musi­cian based in Durham, NC. Fol­low him at @jdmagness

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Hayao Miyazaki’s Studio Ghibli Releases Free Backgrounds for Virtual Meetings: Princess Mononoke, Spirited Away & More

in Animation, Art, Film | April 17th, 2020

To a degree that sur­pass­es any oth­er stu­dio in ani­ma­tion his­to­ry, Stu­dio Ghi­b­li has cre­at­ed a real­i­ty of its own. All of its fans around the world appre­ci­ate the artistry of its films, direct­ed by such lumi­nar­ies of Japan­ese ani­ma­tion as Hayao Miyaza­ki and Isao Taka­ha­ta, and many appre­ci­ate it so fer­vent­ly that they’d pre­fer to occu­py any of Ghi­b­li’s worlds to this one. The stu­dio has respond­ed to their desires by not just con­tin­u­ing to pro­duce motion pic­tures — the “retired” Miyaza­ki is now at work on his lat­est, How Do You Live? — but by autho­riz­ing a wide and ever-chang­ing range of mer­chan­dise, and even build­ing a muse­um out­side Tokyo and a theme park out­side Nagoya.

Alas, like most muse­ums, Ghi­b­li’s is tem­porar­i­ly closed. Nei­ther the Ghi­b­li theme park nor How Do You Live? will open any time soon, and even if they could open today, it would hard­ly be an oppor­tune time to do so. With so few of us any­where able to go to movie the­aters, let alone theme parks (though we can now, at long last, stream Ghi­b­li movies online), we have to enter the realm of Ghi­b­li in a dig­i­tal fash­ion.

To make this a bit more pos­si­ble, the stu­dio has offi­cial­ly released a set of eight back­grounds, suit­able for use as back­drops on Zoom or oth­er video-con­fer­enc­ing appli­ca­tions. You’ll find them all at Ghi­b­li’s web site: in Japan­ese only, true to form, but even non-Japan­ese speak­ers can eas­i­ly click and save the images. (For instruc­tions on how to set one as your back­ground, see our pre­vi­ous post on the sub­ject.)

Drawn from the sweep of Stu­dio Ghi­b­li’s his­to­ry, from Nau­si­caä of the Val­ley of the Wind to Cas­tle in the Sky, Princess Mononoke, Spir­it­ed Away, Howl’s Mov­ing Cas­tle, Ponyo, Arri­et­ty, and The Tale of the Princess Kaguya, the back­drops show the wide aes­thet­ic range of its work. Some of them depict mem­o­rable set­tings from these films (any Ghi­b­li fan will know exact­ly where you “are” the moment you con­nect) but oth­ers cap­ture a char­ac­ter, an icon, or an atmos­phere.

Whichev­er Ghi­b­li back­ground you pick, it will remind your inter­locu­tors of the for­mi­da­ble imag­i­na­tion exer­cised by each and every one of the stu­dio’s films, whether its char­ac­ters soar across the sky, live beneath the sea, or plunge into an unseen under­world — do any­thing, essen­tial­ly, but stay at home mak­ing calls.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Watch Hayao Miyazaki’s Beloved Char­ac­ters Enter the Real World

Build Your Own Minia­ture Sets from Hayao Miyazaki’s Beloved Films: My Neigh­bor Totoro, Kiki’s Deliv­ery Ser­vice & More

Hayao Miyazaki’s Beloved Char­ac­ters Reimag­ined in the Style of 19th-Cen­tu­ry Wood­block Prints

Calm Down & Study with Relax­ing Piano, Jazz & Harp Cov­ers of Music from Hayao Miyaza­ki Films

Stu­dio Ghi­b­li Releas­es Tan­ta­liz­ing Con­cept Art for Its New Theme Park, Open­ing in Japan in 2022

Cus­tomize Your Zoom Vir­tu­al Back­ground with Free Works of Art

Based in Seoul, Col­in Mar­shall writes and broad­casts on cities, lan­guage, and cul­ture. His projects include the book The State­less City: a Walk through 21st-Cen­tu­ry Los Ange­les and the video series The City in Cin­e­ma. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall, on Face­book, or on Insta­gram.

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How to Paint Water Lilies Like Monet in 14 Minutes

in Art, Travel | April 17th, 2020

Some of us are using this peri­od of self-iso­la­tion to make sour­dough.

Oth­ers are learn­ing to play an instru­ment or ini­ti­at­ing a dai­ly yoga prac­tice.

For those con­sid­er­ing tak­ing up paint­ing, David Dun­lop’s Emmy-Award win­ning PBS series Land­scapes Through Time offers an excel­lent alter­na­tive (or sup­ple­ment) to the well-estab­lished joys of cult fig­ure Bob Ross, the eter­nal king of tele­vi­sion art instruc­tion.

Like Ross, Dun­lop has a mel­low onscreen tem­pera­ment that pairs beau­ti­ful­ly with the enchant­i­ng set­ting of Claude Monet’s famous water gar­den, above.

(Those who’ve vis­it­ed Monet’s house and gar­den at Giverny will envy him his tourist-free access to the site. Even those with no inten­tion of pick­ing up a brush should find it restora­tive to spend time gaz­ing at the same love­ly view that Dun­lop, like Mon­et before him, looks at through a delib­er­ate­ly Impres­sion­is­tic squint.)

He packs a lot of art appre­ci­a­tion into 14 eas­i­ly digest­ed min­utes, touch­ing on art his­to­ry, brush tech­nique, com­po­si­tion, use of light, and, in par­tic­u­lar, col­or the­o­ry.

When the muse­ums reopen, you may find this crash course has enhanced your enjoy­ment, espe­cial­ly as per­tains to can­vas­es by Mon­et and his fel­low Impres­sion­ists.

For those pur­su­ing the hands-on oil paint­ing expe­ri­ence, Dun­lop pro­vides a sup­ply list of col­ors, all read­i­ly avail­able:

Cobalt Blue

Cad­mi­um Yel­low

Alizarin Crim­son

Ultra­ma­rine

Bril­liant Rose

Emer­ald Green

Hooker’s Green

Tita­ni­um White

His brush­es and paper appear to be gar­den vari­ety, and his approach, like Ross’, is fast and loose.

Those who favor a less brazen approach may feel more at home with his water­col­or paint­ing demon­stra­tion in Cezanne’s Mont Sainte-Vic­toire in Provence, France, below.

There are more excerpts and instruc­tion on Dunlop’s YouTube chan­nel. For those wish­ing to take it to the next lev­el, Dun­lop is teach­ing a series of inter­ac­tive stu­dio demon­stra­tion class­es via Zoom. Reg­is­ter here.

Relat­ed Con­tent: 

Rare 1915 Film Shows Claude Mon­et at Work in His Famous Gar­den at Giverny

Watch Every Episode of Bob Ross’ The Joy Of Paint­ing Free Online: 403 Episodes Span­ning 31 Sea­sons

Bob Ross’ Christ­mas Spe­cial: Cel­e­brate, Relax, Nod Off

Ayun Hal­l­i­day is an author, illus­tra­tor, the­ater mak­er and Chief Pri­ma­tol­o­gist of the East Vil­lage Inky zine.  Her art in iso­la­tion has tak­en the form of a hasti­ly assem­bled trib­ute to the clas­sic 60s social line dance, The Madi­son. Fol­low her @AyunHalliday.

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Experience the Van Gogh Museum in 4K Resolution: A Video Tour in Seven Parts

in Art, Technology | April 16th, 2020

When we think of the most tech­no­log­i­cal­ly inclined artists of all time, we don’t nec­es­sar­i­ly think of Vin­cent van Gogh. Though he wrote of his deter­mi­na­tion to cre­ate “the art of the future,” when he got down to paint­ing he did so with tra­di­tion­al tools. What­ev­er Van Gogh’s own feel­ings about tech­nol­o­gy, tech­nol­o­gy cer­tain­ly seems to like him: take, for exam­ple, 2017’s Lov­ing Vin­cent, a fea­ture film about him ani­mat­ed with 65,000 paint­ings; the dig­i­tal exhi­bi­tion of his work that took place in Paris last year; his paint­ings brought to life with 3D ani­ma­tion and visu­al map­ping; and a vir­tu­al-real­i­ty ver­sion of The Night Cafe, all pre­vi­ous­ly fea­tured here on Open Cul­ture — not to men­tion the 1,400 paint­ings and draw­ings by van Gogh made avail­able online by the Van Gogh Muse­um.

How­ev­er for­ward-look­ing its full-fea­tured online pres­ence made the Van Gogh Muse­um seem before, this par­tic­u­lar moment has made it look like an even more pre­scient insti­tu­tion. With it and so many oth­er brick-and-mor­tar muse­ums tem­porar­i­ly closed due to the coro­n­avirus pan­dem­ic, online is the only way any of us can enjoy them.

In addi­tion to its exist­ing resources on the web, the Van Gogh Muse­um has over the past month been upload­ing a pri­vate tour, all shot in 4K video. Much like the five-hour iPhone ad shot in the Her­mitage about which we post­ed last month, this series pro­vides a drift­ing, float­ing view of the muse­um’s gal­leries and the works they proud­ly dis­play, all quite unlike any expe­ri­ence one could ever have had there in per­son.

In the six parts of the series that have gone up so far, with a sev­enth and final install­ment to come next, not a sin­gle oth­er per­son appears to get between you and Van Gogh’s por­traits, Van Gogh’s still lifes, Van Gogh’s scenes urban and rur­al. But you do get some accom­pa­ni­ment in the form of a full musi­cal score, an ele­ment that has become quite impor­tant for this now-emerg­ing form of cin­e­mat­ic, high-res­o­lu­tion muse­um tour video.

Though brief, this Van Gogh Muse­um tour in 4K cov­ers a wide swath of the artist’s work, and will sure­ly only whet the appetite of view­ers who’ve been mean­ing to make the trip to Ams­ter­dam them­selves. Until then, we can take in Van Gogh’s “art of the future” using the tech­nol­o­gy of the present — the likes of which would­n’t have appeared in even his wildest visions.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Explore 1400 Paint­ings & Draw­ings by Vin­cent van Gogh–and Much More–at the Van Gogh Museum’s Online Col­lec­tion

Near­ly 1,000 Paint­ings & Draw­ings by Vin­cent van Gogh Now Dig­i­tized and Put Online: View/Download the Col­lec­tion

Down­load Hun­dreds of Van Gogh Paint­ings, Sketch­es & Let­ters in High Res­o­lu­tion

13 Van Gogh’s Paint­ings Painstak­ing­ly Brought to Life with 3D Ani­ma­tion & Visu­al Map­ping

Van Gogh’s 1888 Paint­ing, “The Night Cafe,” Ani­mat­ed with Ocu­lus Vir­tu­al Real­i­ty Soft­ware

Down­load Vin­cent van Gogh’s Col­lec­tion of 500 Japan­ese Prints, Which Inspired Him to Cre­ate “the Art of the Future”

Based in Seoul, Col­in Mar­shall writes and broad­casts on cities, lan­guage, and cul­ture. His projects include the book The State­less City: a Walk through 21st-Cen­tu­ry Los Ange­les and the video series The City in Cin­e­ma. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall, on Face­book, or on Insta­gram.

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Take a Long Virtual Tour of the Louvre in Three High-Definition Videos

in Art | April 16th, 2020

So, you’ve had to put off a trip to Paris, and a long-await­ed vis­it to the Lou­vre, which “will remain closed until fur­ther notice,” has been pushed into the indef­i­nite hori­zon. It could be worse, but the loss of engag­ing up close with cul­tur­al trea­sures is some­thing we should all grieve in lock­down. Art is so impor­tant to human well-being that UK Sec­re­tary of Health Matt Han­cock argued all doc­tors in the NHS should pre­scribe gallery vis­its and oth­er art activ­i­ties for every­thing from men­tal issues to lung dis­eases.

As you know from plan­ning your trip (ide­al­ly sev­er­al trips) to the famous museum—first opened to the pub­lic in 1793 on the first anniver­sary of Louis XVI’s imprisonment—you can lux­u­ri­ate in art for days on end once there, pro­vid­ed you can evade the mas­sive crowds.

The Lou­vre is immense, with 60,500 square meters of floor space and around 35,000 paint­ings, sculp­tures, and oth­er arti­facts. But with rough­ly 10 mil­lion vis­i­tors per year, who make it the world’s most vis­it­ed muse­um, it isn’t easy to find space for con­tem­pla­tion.

Video vis­its are no sub­sti­tute, but these days they’re the best we’ve got. If you’re eager to see what you’re missing—or what you could nev­er get to in per­son even with­out a pandemic—take a look at the 4K vir­tu­al tours here from Wan­der­lust Trav­el Videos. Yes, you’ll see the hero­ic mas­ter­works of Jacques-Louis David, Eugene Delacroix, and Théodore Géri­cault. You’ll see the famous glass pyra­mid, the trea­sures of Napoleon’s Apart­ments, and, yes, the Mona Lisa.

But you’ll also see hun­dreds and hun­dreds of works that don’t get the same kind of press, each one named in a time­stamped list on the YouTube pages. The expe­ri­ence is admit­ted­ly like vis­it­ing the muse­um in per­son, rush­ing through each gallery, peer­ing over and around the backs of heads to get a glimpse of the Fra Fil­ip­po Lip­pis, Cimabues, and Man­teg­nas. But you can mute the con­stant back­ground chat­ter and pause and rewind as much as you like.

After tour­ing a good bit of the muse­um, stroll around the Car­rousel Arc de Tri­om­phe, Jardin de l’infante, and the Pont Neuf, above. Judg­ing by the com­ments, these videos are prov­ing a balm to the psy­ches of home­bound art lovers around the world, whether they’ve been to the Lou­vre before, just scrapped their trav­el plans, or know they’ll prob­a­bly nev­er get the chance to vis­it.

The vir­tu­al oppor­tu­ni­ty to tour this mag­nif­i­cent col­lec­tion, or part of it, may refresh our exhaust­ed imag­i­na­tions. It may also soothe the part of us that real­ly miss­es huge crowds of peo­ple all talk­ing at once. Some­thing about the expe­ri­ence, even on the screen, feels so strange­ly com­pelling right now you might find your­self hop­ing if and when you final­ly get to the Lou­vre, it’s sim­ply mobbed.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Mona Lisa Self­ie: A Mon­tage of Social Media Pho­tos Tak­en at the Lou­vre and Put on Insta­gram

Take a Vir­tu­al Tour of 30 World-Class Muse­ums & Safe­ly Vis­it 2 Mil­lion Works of Fine Art

Vis­it The Muse­um of Online Muse­ums (MoOM): A Mega Col­lec­tion of 220 Online Exhi­bi­tions

Josh Jones is a writer and musi­cian based in Durham, NC. Fol­low him at @jdmagness

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