On this day: Tax Day

Marinus van Reymerswaele | Tax Collector and His Wife | c. 1540 | Image and original data provided by Erich Lessing Culture and Fine Arts Archives/ART RESOURCE, N.Y.; artres.com

Since 1955, Tax Day has typically fallen on April 15 for those living in the United States. You might derive some comfort from knowing that your feelings today were not unknown in the 16^th century, as evidenced in these three Netherlandish paintings of tax collectors by Marinus van Reymerswaele from the Art, Archaeology and Architecture (Erich Lessing Culture and Fine Arts Archives) collection in the ARTstor Digital Library.

Incidentally, we’re puzzled by the ornate hats, which presumably were part of the profession’s costume. If you know anything about them, please leave a comment below. If you’re not too busy filing your taxes at the last minute, of course.

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Spring mysteries: Botticelli’s Primavera

Sandro Botticelli | Primavera; Allegory of Spring | c. 1478 | Galleria degli Uffizi | Image and original data provided by SCALA, Florence/ART RESOURCE, N.Y.; artres.com; scalarchives.com | (c) 2006, SCALA, Florence/ART RESOURCE, N.Y.

Spring is here! The return of sunshine inspired us to look at Botticelli’s Primavera, a masterpiece of the early Renaissance and arguably the most popular artistic representation of the season, even if – as we shall see – its interpretation remains inconclusive.

Botticelli painted Primavera sometime between 1477 and 1482, probably for the marriage of Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco, cousin of the powerful Italian statesman (and important patron of the arts) Lorenzo Medici. The date is just one of the many facts surrounding the painting that remain unclear. For starters, its original title is unknown; it was first called La Primavera by the artist/art historian Giorgio Vasari, who only saw it some 70 years after it was painted. While it’s generally agreed that on one level Primavera depicts themes of love and marriage, sensuality and fertility, the work’s precise meaning continues to be debated (a search in JSTOR led us to more than 700 results, with nearly as many differing opinions). Here’s what we think we know:

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Now available: The Courtauld Gallery, The Courtauld Institute of Art

Edouard Manet | A Bar at the Folies-Bergère, 1882 | Image and original data provided by The Courtauld Gallery | © The Samuel Courtauld Trust, The Courtauld Gallery, London

The Courtauld Institute of Art and ARTstor have released more than 500 images of works in the permanent collection of The Courtauld Gallery in the Digital Library. This is the first of a projected 8,100 images to be uploaded.

The Courtauld Gallery is one of the finest small museums in the world, with a collection that spans the art historical canon from the early Renaissance to the 20^th century. The Gallery is renowned for its outstanding collection of Impressionist and Post-Impressionist paintings that illustrate the development of modern French painting, including such iconic masterpieces as Edouard Manet’s A Bar at the Folies-Bergère (1881-1882), Pierre-Auguste Renoir’s La Loge (1874), Vincent van Gogh’s Self Portrait with Bandaged Ear (1889), and Paul Gauguin’s Nevermore (1897). The Gallery also houses rich collections of sculpture and decorative arts, Gothic and Medieval paintings, Renaissance masterworks, and an important group of paintings and drawings by Peter Paul Rubens. There is an impressive range of works on paper – drawings, watercolours, and prints representing the major schools of Western art from the Middle Ages to the 20^th century, including masterpieces by artists such as Albrecht Dürer, Michelangelo, Rembrandt van Rijn, and J.M.W. Turner.

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Now available: Additional images of European architecture and sculpture by Sarah N. James

York Minster Cathedral; interior; chapter house ceiling | Completed 1286 CE | York, England | Image and original data provided by Dr. Sara N. James

ARTstor and Sarah N. James have collaborated to release more than 1,500 additional images of Italian and English art and architecture to the Digital Library. This brings the collection total to 2,137 images.

James’ collection focuses primarily on England, including cathedrals and parish churches from the Norman Romanesque period; ecclesiastical buildings in the early English, decorated, and perpendicular styles; medieval secular architecture including castles, marketplaces, and town halls; perpendicular gothic collegiate buildings; and Tudor, Elizabethan, baroque, and neoclassical country houses and churches. Photographed in situ during James’ travels throughout Europe, the images provide contextual views of sculpture and architecture from various angles.

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Now available: Images from the Indianapolis Museum of Art (IMA)

Unknown (Japanese) | Seki station, No. 48, Tokaido Road series | Indianapolis Museum of Art; imamuseum.org |Image © Indianapolis Museum of Art

ARTstor and the Indianapolis Museum of Art (IMA) have collaborated to share more than 2,000 images from its encyclopedic permanent collection in the Digital Library. This is the second installment of a projected total of 10,000 images.

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Now available: Images for Academic Publishing from The Walters Art Museum

Author: Zayn al-Din Isma’il ibn Hasan al-Jurjani | Compendium of Medicine | 22 Rabi’ II 889 AH/AD 1484 | The Walters Art Museum

The Walters Art Museum has made 1,576 of a projected 4,000 images of paintings, drawings, sculpture, and decorative arts available in the Images for Academic Publishing (IAP) program.

The IAP program is intended to offload the costs of museums delivering high-resolution image files to scholars for academic publications, and to foster scholarly publication in the history of art by providing these high-quality TIFF image files free-of-charge to both ARTstor subscribers and non-subscribers alike.

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1,000 images from Dante’s Divine Comedy

Vincenzo Petroncini Gozzini | La Divina commedia, 1846 | Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections, Cornell University Library: Fiske Dante Collection

Dante Alighieri’s 14th-century epic poem Divina Commedia has had an incalculable impact on Western culture, not least through its inspiration of visual artists. After all, Dante’s descriptions of grotesque figures, fantastic landscapes, and inventive punishments virtually beg to be depicted visually.

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Vanitas: a very literal nature morte

It’s October, which gives us a great excuse to feature more spooky posts. In the past we delved into the origins of Halloween and el Día de los Muertos, looked into the danse macabre, and considered Friday the 13^th and other superstitions. Today we look at another Halloween favorite: skulls! Specifically, their appearance in the still lifes known as Vanitas.

Herman Henstenburgh, 1667 – 1726 | Vanitas Still Life | Image © The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Vanitas feature objects that remind us of our mortality and the transience of earthly pleasures. Popular in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, particularly in Northern Europe and the Netherlands, the genre continues to inspire artists to the present day – the ARTstor Digital Library includes four terrific examples of Andy Warhol’s Skulls from the Baltimore Museum of Art, and you’ve most likely heard of Damien Hirst’s “For the love of God,” a diamond-encrusted platinum skull reputed to be the world’s most expensive art piece.

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Now available: Additional images from the permanent collections of French museums from the Réunion des Musées Nationaux

Édouard Manet | The fifer, 1866 | Musée d’Orsay | Image and original data provided by Réunion des Musées Nationaux / Art Resource, N.Y. , http://www.artres.com

Through a collaboration with the Réunion des Musées Nationaux (RMN) and Art Resource, a further 4,000 images of works in the permanent collections of French national and regional museums are now available in the ARTstor Digital Library. This release includes nearly 1,400 images of works at the Louvre, more than 400 images at the Musée d’Orsay, and more than 250 images of works at Versailles. Artists represented include Delacroix, Fragonard, Gauguin, Géricault, Alberto Giacometti, Goya, Hokusai, Ingres, Charles Le Brun, Léger, Manet, Andrea Mantegna, Michelangelo, Modigliani, Monet, Gustave Moreau, Berthe Morisot, Parmigianino, Camille Pisarro, Poussin, and hundreds more. This release brings the current number of available images to 7,695 of a projected total of 12,000.

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New agreement: images from the permanent collection of the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston

ARTstor and the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston are collaborating to make approximately 20,000 images from the permanent collection available in the Digital Library.

The collection at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (MFAH) spans antiquity to today, with strengths in Italian Renaissance painting, French Impressionism, photography, American and European decorative arts, African and pre-Columbian gold, American art, and post-1945 European and American painting and sculpture. The museum has further strengthened the diversity of its collection with modern and contemporary Latin American art, Asian art, and Islamic art.

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