Recent Additions to ARTstor

* Recent additions to the ARTstor Digital Library *

We are delighted to announce the addition of the following new image
archives to the ARTstor Digital Library. Both archives deal with
essential aspects of the human experience and they should be of
interest to a wide range of scholars and teachers. These archives have
been integrated into the Image Gallery.


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* Images from Vesalius’ Renaissance treatise on human anatomy *

One of the most valued digital collections at Northwestern University
is a web site devoted to Andreas Vesalius’ pioneering treatise on
human anatomy, entitled On the Fabric of the Human Body (De humani
corporis fabrica; first published in 1543). Thanks to Professor Daniel
Garrison, Professor of Classics at Northwestern, we are delighted to
be able to make available to ARTstor users 275 high resolution images
of the anatomical illustrations from Vesalius’ great treatise. These
woodcut illustrations became the fundamental basis of medical art and
illustration for generations to come and helped enable Vesalius’
treatise to transform the subject of human anatomy throughout the
western world. These images, with their associated scholarly
information, will greatly enhance ARTstor’s value to scholars and
teachers working in a range of fields, from the history of art and
medicine to the study of attitudes toward and visual representations
of “the body” in early modern culture.

For the Northwestern University Vesalius web site please see
http://vesalius.northwestern.edu/.

To locate these images and other images related to Vesalius in
ARTstor, search the keyword VESALIUS.


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* The Farber Gravestone Collection *

One of the most highly prized photographic archives at the American
Antiquarian Society is the photographic archive known to Americanists
as Farber Gravestone Collection. Containing more than 13,500 images
documenting in great detail the sculpture on more than 9,000 early
American grave markers, mostly made prior to 1800, the archive is
especially strong for central and southern New England, with selective
coverage of Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont. The collection further
includes selected images of gravestones from the Middle Atlantic and
southeastern United States, the Maritime Provinces of Canada, and
Great Britian.

These early gravestone sculptures are both a significant form of
artistic creation – the earliest coherent body of American sculpture –
and provide a wealth of biographical information, such as name, death
date of the deceased, stone location, and information concerning the
stone material, iconography, the inscription, and (when known) the
carver. The photographs are of such high quality that individual
“hands” (carvers) may be identified even when a given sculptor is
anonymous. As Harriet Merrifield Forbes noted in her study on
gravestones, "The colonists used their finest skill and raised their
most enduring and characteristic works of art in memento mori." In
recent years, however, these storehouses have been endangered by
vandalism, natural erosion (hastened by air pollution), and theft.

The late Daniel Farber of Worcester, Massachusetts, and his wife,
Jessie Lie Farber, were responsible for the largest portion of the
collection. We are most grateful to the American Antiquarians Society
for sharing this wonderful resource through ARTstor.

To locate these images in ARTstor, search the keyword FARBER. These
images, along with related images in the Image Gallery, may be found
under subject headings such as TOMBSTONES or FUNERARY SCULPTURE.