Looking art Art - How to get the best when you are looking at art online or at a gallery
Many people spend only a short time, often only 20 seconds, looking at each image when visitiing an Art Gallery. Download this guide to help you see and understand, what's in front of you and the artist's meaning of the work. It will give you some questions, and explain more about the work. Whether you are looking at art in a Gallery or Online, this guide will be extremely useful, in helping you to get more from your view of art.
The Guide was put together by the Belfast Art Appreciation Group in cooperation with the Ulster Museum, and we are extremely grateful for this, the special permission from the copyright holders of these images.
If you are a u3a group leader please share it with your u3a members, especially those new to art. As applies to most images, strict copyright forbids the use of this outside of the u3a.
Finding art images and information from art galleries online
We are now fortunate that so many Galleries have an Online presence, showing images in colour and some with reasonably high resolution, some so that the very detail of the canvas can clearly be seen. Of course there is nothing like seeing art in the flesh, but sometimes we can't travel great distances to view a work of art.
Recommended online galleries
Galleries are a great resource for finding images and information, and here are my Top Ten in no particular order. From your experience you may have some others that you have found helpful, it would be great if we can share this with other groups, so please let me know. Some galleries allow download of images through Creative Commons for educational purposes, but you must strictly follow the Terms and Conditions in doing so. Always ensure that you are aware that you are not in breach of copyright regulations, starting fines can be from £250 upwards, if you get it wrong. Please read the u3a copyright and licenses document for guidance
| WikiArt | Describing itself as a Visual Art Encyclopedia, it is good place to start looking for images, and artists for your talks. You can search for artists, by style, genre, nationality, popular artworks and art movements, with more art “isms” than you knew existed. There is also an A-Z listing, which helps finding some of the less known artists. |
| National Gallery London | Their new website allows you to easily view 36 of their “most popular masterpieces”, with a description and short audio description. In addition, there are over 2,600 more images to view with a short description. |
| Tate Galleries, Britain, Modern, Liverpool, St Ives | Their website boasts 78,000 Artworks, 4,000 artists, 22,000 Archive items, but most are copyright protected, but you may find some images on wikiart etc. |
| Art UK | This website includes over 3,500 UK local sites, institutions and smaller galleries. There are 600,000 items of art including statues and other objects around towns and villages. This website could point you to something in your local area. Image availability can be a little sporadic at times, with not all images available to view. |
| Louvre, Paris | As you would expect, this website has over half a million items, and can be sometimes hard to search as titles of works, and information are in French, even if you select EN for English Language. Despite this, it a great collection and often worth the time searching. |
| Musee d’Orsay | The “go to” Museum Online formainly French Art including works inherited from the Musee du Luxembourg, founded in 1818, close to the Salon, where much of it’s collection came from in the early 19C. Impressionist, Neo and Post Impressionist, and some modern art up to the present day. |
| NGA.GOV | The National Gallery of America, Washington DC, has over 160,000 works spanning the history of Western art from the Middle Ages to today. There is also an exploration of works by period and movements, especially with regards to Dutch etchings and prints, and American Artists. |
| MET. NY | The Met Museum New York, includes 5,000 years of History with over 490,000 items of art and objects. There are over 2500 European Paintings on their website, but without any grouping, great if you’re browsing but the search engine should get you what you want using artist’s surname. A search for Degas came up with over over 50 images of his work. Their Cloisters Gallery shows some interesting early art, from 1000 -1400 AD. |
| Art Institute Chicago | This Museum has a selection of Renaissance Art, and number of European and American Impressionist and Post Impressionist Museums. There is also a selection of modernist works. |
| Scottish National Galleries | This comprises three galleries in Edinburgh, The National, Modern and Portrait, and a total of around 100,000 images. The website has a collection of works including Vermeer, Lorenzo Monaco, Velazquez, Gainsborough, Gaugin, Damien Hirst, Watteau, Sargent, Picasso, Turner, Hugo van der Goes. Scottish Artists include, Joan Eardley, James Guthrie, William Strang, Edouardo Paolozzi, the Glasgow girls, and the Scottish Colourists; Fergusson, Hunter, Peploe and Cadell (there are also a few short information YouTube videos on some works and artists, to be found on the site). |
For links to these and more Galleries, download the listing below.