The Warburg Institute Iconographic Database

The Warburg Institute Iconographic Database contains digitized images from the Institute’s Photographic Collection and Library. The material for which the Warburg Institute holds the copyrights is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial 3.0 Unported License.

The database is a work-in-progress and the holdings of the collection are being digitized per section. The first section to be completed is our selection of photos from astronomical and astrological manuscripts from the Middle Ages and Renaissance (look under ‘Magic & Science: Astronomy and Astrology‘ or search for ‘astronomy’).

At present time project members are entering the contents of the Gods & Myths section (some 40,000 photos of subjects from classical mythology), a project generously sponsored by the Dean’s Development Fund of the School of Advanced Studies (University of London) with an anticipated completion date of September 2013.

The Warburg Institute Iconographic Database

IMLS Digital Collections & Content (IMLS DCC)

The IMLS Digital Collections and Content, a collaboration between the IMLS & the University of Illinois Grainger Engineering Library, is an open access, open source project launched in 2002 with the primary goal of providing a single point of access to digital content developed through IMLS National Leadership Grants and selected LSTA-supported collections. The IMLS DCC aggregation brings together cultural heritage collections and exhibits from libraries, museums, and archives throughout the country, “providing both collection-level and item-level access to facilitate searching and browsing and to retain the institutional identities and collection contexts that are vital to how users explore and interact with cultural heritage materials.”   It contains 1,231,917 items, 1,738 collections, and 1,491 institutions.

Subjects:

• Social Studies (1525 Collections)
• Arts (524 Collections)
• Language Arts (93 Collections)
• Religion (80 Collections)
• Vocational Education (69 Collections)
• Physical Education (35 Collections)
• Health (29 Collections)
• Foreign Languages (28 Collections)
• Educational Technology (27 Collections)

Flickr Photo Stream:  http://www.flickr.com/photos/imlsdcc

IMLS Digital Collections & Content (IMLS DCC)

Images from the History of Medicine (IHM)

Below:  depicts the continuing cycles of life and the role all people must play to ensure an AIDS free future [artwork by] Zane Saunders

               

Images from the History of Medicine (IHM) provides access to over 70,000 images in the collections of the History of Medicine Division (HMD) of the U.S National Library of Medicine (NLM).  The collection includes portraits, photographs, caricatures, genre scenes, posters, and graphic art illustrating the social and historical aspects of medicine dated from the 15th to 21st century.

The purpose of the IHM database is to assist users in finding and viewing visual material for private study, scholarship, and research. This site contains some materials that may be protected by United States or foreign copyright laws. It is the users’ responsibility to determine compliance with the law when reproducing, transmitting, or distributing images found in IHM.

Search the Collection:  http://ihm.nlm.nih.gov/luna/servlet/view/all

 

              Below: [Reproduction] Mary Cassatt, Mother & Child, 1905

Images from the History of Medicine (IHM)

The Warburg Institute Digital Collections

Website:  http://warburg.sas.ac.uk/library/digital-collections/ 

The Warburg Institute’s Digital Collection aims “to make out-of-print source material on Medieval and Renaissance studies freely available online through the Warburg Library catalogue and classification system. Books are either scanned by us or downloaded as PDF files from public domain repositories such as Google Books, Archive.org and made available through the Library catalogue – collections are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License.

(Warburg Institute Digital Collections -http://warburg.sas.ac.uk/library/digital-collections/)

 

	Collection	Resources, Information & Downloads
1.	Academies	Web Resources
2.	Astrology & Astronomy	Web Resources & Introduction
3.	Bibliotheca Bruniana Electronica	Introduction – Download page
4.	Chivalry
5.	Emblem books	Web Resources
6.	Encyclopaedias	Web Resources
7.	Fables	Web Resources
8.	Festivals	Web Resources
9.	Food History	Web Resources
10.	Game Books	Web Resources
11.	Gods & Myths	Web Resources
12.	Hunting
13.	Iconography of Christian Art	Web Resources
14.	Jewish philosophy – Texts
15.	Jewish Philosophy – Studies
16.	Judaism – Texts
17.	Magic	Web Resources
18.	Mnemonics	Web Resources
19.	Prophecies	Web Resources
20.	Renaissance Platonism	Web Resources
21.	Sources of European Architecture
22.	Sources of European Art
23.	Sources of Italian Art	Web Resources
24.	Survival of Classical Art	Web Resources
25.	Survival of Classical Authors: Ovid – Virgil

tomippen:

bythegods:

Eostre and Easter

The Easter weekend isn’t over yet, folks. Time to get your learnin’ on. Ever wonder where the name “Easter” came from? The Germanic goddess Eostre gets the credit on that one. She was a goddess of fertility and plenty, and the Anglo-Saxons had a month named after her. For all of us on the Gregorian calendar, that’d match up with April. Anglo-Saxon and Northern European festivals for the Easter-month (the “Eostre-monath”) involved eggs and hares, and these came to be attached to Eostre herself.  What with it being a spring festival and all, located on or around the Equinox, themes of birth and fertility were only natural. Hard to beat rabbits when it comes to fertility, I suppose.

Now, how did Eostre get attached to the Christian celebration of the resurrection? Well, the Church was a big fan of re-appropriating pagan holidays. They took Lupercalia and made it a Saint’s celebration day, took the festival of Sol Invictus and made it Christmas; they were pros when it came to this stuff. 

The Catholic Church determined that they would bring the Jewish festival of Passover and the Christian observance of the resurrection together. This was done under the vigil of the Roman Emperor Constantine (the first Christian Emperor), at the first Council of Nicaea. The title of “Easter month” was taken from the pagans, as the Church observed its use in Northern Europe, and sought to both marginalize the pagan celebration and indoctrinate/accommodate new pagan subjects. 

And there you have it. Sorry, Eostre, but they took your month. Somehow the rabbits and eggs stuck around, though.

It’s Easter again, guys. Remember to keep your facts straight: Eostre and eggs/bunnies goes in one pile, beat-up sad/dead man/rabbi/god on a cross goes in the other pile.

Check right here for a nice article on that misinformation goin’ around on facebook yesterday!

The University of Iowa Museum of Art (UIMA) Digital Collection

“The permanent collections of the UIMA contain over 12,000 objects, from masterworks of European and American Art of the last century to a world renowned collection of traditional African Art”

The UIMA collections are part of the Iowa Digital Library, an online, open access repository that “features more than a million digital objects created from the holdings of the University of Iowa Libraries and its campus partners. Included are illuminated manuscripts, historic maps, fine art, historic newspapers, scholarly works, and more.”

Iowa Digital Library – http://digital.lib.uiowa.edu/

UIMA Collections – http://digital.lib.uiowa.edu/uima/

The University of Iowa Museum of Art (UIMA) Digital Collection

Francis Picabia, Olga, 1930, graphite pencil and crayon on paper, Bequest of Mme Lucienne Rosenberg 1995
CNAC/MNAM/Dist.RMN-Grand Palais/Art Resource
© 2012 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / ADAGP, Paris

On view at the Morgan Library: ‘Drawing Surrealism’ on view through April 21st – http://bit.ly/13GgPEV

books0977:

An Interesting Book (ca. 1898-1900). John White Alexander (American, 1856-1915). Oil on canvas. MME Fine Art, LLC.

An Interesting Book elucidates Alexander’s interest in aesthetic effect, featuring a sophisticated treatment of volume, achieved through contrasts of light and shadow that merge together with beautifully delicate edges. The soft, airy quality is echoed throughout the asymmetrical composition with the light peach hues and feathery brushstrokes

tierradentro:

“A Parisian Beggar Girl”, 1880, John Singer Sargent.

The Artist in his Studio,1626-1628, Oil on canvas, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston MA.

“There is something of Rembrandt in the Gospel, or something of the Gospel in Rembrandt, as you like it — it comes to the same, if one only understands the thing in the right way.”
~Vincent van Gogh, letter to Theo van Gogh (July 1880)

“Rembrandt is so deeply mysterious that he says things for which there are no words in any language. Rembrandt is truly called a magician… that’s not an easy calling.”
~Vincent van Gogh, letter to Theo van Gogh (October 10-11, 1885)