Paris Museums Have Published Over 150,000 Images of Works of Art
If you’ve always dreamed of traveling to Paris to admire world-class artwork, then you no longer need to book this plane ticket. Thanks to the Museums of Paris , a collection of 14 museums in Paris, more than 150,000 high-resolution digital artworks are now available on the Internet free of charge without restrictions. Their website contains works by renowned artists such as Rembrandt, Monet, Picasso and Cezanne, as well as thousands of others.
And it’s not just paintings: on Jason Kottke’s blog, kottke.org , he notes that he was particularly pleased to see the work of photographer Eugene Atget on the site, capturing life on the streets of Paris.
Users can search for images by the museum in which the work is located, the artist / creator, time period, and dominant colors. Once you select an image, you can upload a 300dpi image, along with details on the job and a guide on best practices for using and citing image sources. People seem to be so excited about this new resource that at the time of publication the site was rather slow and crashed several times before we were able to load the image. We’ll chalk it up to growth issues and come back to watching later.
Not sure where to start? The site will offer virtual exhibitions to highlight some of the lesser known artists and encourage people to download and reuse their work. By the way, here’s what you need to know about hyperallergic reuse:
At this stage, 2D artwork images are available, such as paintings or photographs, that are in the public domain under the CC0 (Creative Commons Zero) license , which allows creators and owners of copyrighted or database content to post those works in or as as close to the public domain as possible. (Works still protected by copyright will be available as low-resolution files so that users can still browse the museum’s collections online.)
According to a Paris Musées press release provided by Hyperallergic : “The provision of this data ensures that our digital files can be freely accessed and reused by anyone or everyone, without any technical, legal or financial restrictions, whether for commercial use or No”.