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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Islamic Art and Architecture from the archives of scholar-photographers


Some months ago, we announced an agreement to collaborate on the distribution through ARTstor of up to 25,000 high quality digital images of the art and architecture of Islam from the personal archives of a team of leading scholar photographers in this field: Sheila Blair, Jonathan Bloom and Walter B. Denny. We are delighted now to announce that the first fruits of this collaboration are available in the ARTstor Digital Library. The first 1,646 images have now been integrated into the Image Gallery.

These materials reflect the scholarly and teaching interests of the contributors, but have been selected to provide ARTstor users with a broad overview of the rich traditions of Islamic art and architecture in all their regional diversity and historic scope. Sheila Blair's major areas of research are Islamic art, especially the arts of Iran and Central Asia, the art and architecture produced under the Mongols, calligraphy and books. Jonathan Bloom's primary areas of research include Islamic art and architecture, the history of paper, and art in the medieval Mediterranean world. In addition to specialized courses on various aspects of Islamic art and architecture ranging from the history of Jerusalem to the Silk Road, they team-teach a survey course on Islamic civilization.

Walter B. Denny's primary field of teaching and research is the art and architecture of the Islamic world, in particular the artistic traditions of the Ottoman Turks, Islamic carpets and textiles, and issues of economics and patronage in Islamic art. In addition to teaching a two-semester survey sequence on Islamic art and architecture, Professor Denny has taught a large undergraduate topical survey course, Introduction to the Visual Arts, every fall for more than three decades. His upper-level courses have focused on various aspects of Islamic and European art, including an historical survey of the art of the oriental carpet, and a course on orientalism in Western art.

In reaching this agreement, Walter B. Denny said, "This will be a marvelous opportunity to share a substantial portion of the over 140,000 images I have accumulated in my archive over 40 years. I anticipate that the availability of these resources through ARTstor will make it significantly easier for courses on Islamic art to be offered in institutions throughout the world." We are delighted to introduce the first of many forthcoming installments of this important body of images.

To locate these images by photographer in the ARTstor Image Gallery most readily, search by photographer's name ("Blair," "Bloom," or "Denny"): search under such broader categories as "Islamic art" and "Islamic architecture"; or search by more precise keywords pertaining to the art and architecture of Islam.


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Medieval Manuscript Painting from Princeton University Library


With support from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the Princeton Index of Christian Art has been conducting a project to catalog 400 of the 500 Medieval and Renaissance manuscripts contained in the collection of the Princeton University Library, and to digitize the illuminated leaves from these manuscripts. Princeton's Medieval and Renaissance manuscript collection spans the fifth to the 16th centuries and includes many priceless treasures. The collection is especially renowned for its 14th- and 15th-century holdings, most of which have never before been either fully cataloged or photographed.

The images contained in some 200 of these manuscripts have now been photographed, digitized and classified by the Index of Christian Art. The 3,417 illustrations are now available in the ARTstor Digital Library.

To locate these images in the ARTstor Image Gallery most readily, search for "Index of Christian Art."


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Ghiberti's "Gates of Paradise"


Through an agreement with the Opera di Santa Maria del Fiore and the Museo Opificio delle Pietre Dure (Florence, Italy). ARTstor has been supporting the rich photographic documentation of the recently restored bronze doors on the east side of the Florentine Baptistery, universally known as the "Gates of Paradise" (in Italian, "Porta del Paradiso"). The sculptural relief panels of the "Gates of Paradise," produced during the second quarter of the fifteenth century by the great Florentine sculptor Lorenzo Ghiberti (1378-1455), constitute one of the most important art works of the early Italian Renaissance. After more than twenty-five years of work, the restoration of Ghiberti's famous "Gates of Paradise" is nearing completion. ARTstor is sponsoring the comprehensive photographic documentation of the Gates of Paradise in their newly restored state. This photographic campaign has produced nearly 700 stunning, detailed photographs of Ghiberti's relief sculptures, all of which have now been digitized by ARTstor and the majority of which are now available as part of the ARTstor Digital Library.

In announcing this project, Gary M. Radke, Professor of Fine Arts at Syracuse University and Curator for Exhibitions of Italian Art at the High Museum of Art, Atlanta, said: "These splendid new photos finally allow Ghiberti's work to be seen and studied as the three-dimensional, sculptural masterpieces they are. Never before have we been able to study Ghiberti's works so clearly and in such exhaustive detail. Taken from a wide variety of angles and under lighting conditions that reveal the full subtlety of Ghiberti's modeling and finishing, these images will transform thinking about Ghiberti for decades to come."

To locate these images in the ARTstor Image Gallery most readily, search for "Ghiberti Quattrone," so as to retrieve only these new photographs (produced by the outstanding Florentine photographer, Antonio Quattrone).


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Additional Images from Museums


In July 2005, ARTstor announced the release into the ARTstor Digital Library of more than 25,000 images from the former AMICO Library. We subsequently announced that an additional eight institutions, formerly part of AMICO, had contributed a total of 55,000 further images to ARTstor. That brought the number of images in ARTstor from institutions which were formerly AMICO members to approximately 80,000.

We are delighted to announce that we have recently added images from the Art Institute of Chicago, bringing the number of images formerly in the AMICO Library to approximately 90,000.

To locate these images in the ARTstor Image Gallery most readily, search for "Art Institute of Chicago" combined with "amico."