No, it doesn’t have anything to do with WikiLeaks, but Wikimedia Commons is related to another familiar Wiki based phenomenon, Wikipedia, in that both are projects of the Wikimedia Foundation.

(A wiki, by the way, is simply a kind of website, specifically, a potentially collaborative website created with wiki software, that allows for contribution, editing and administration by people with no knowledge of HTML.)

Wikimedia Commons is the Wikimedia Foundation’s online free-use media resource, containing over 7,000,000 media files — sound, video and of course, images.

Among the images are an increasingly large number of art related images — paintings, drawings, etchings, engravings and the like. It has become one of the larger art image repositories on the web (see my posts on The Athenaeum, ArtMagick, AllPaintings, The Web Gallery of Art and The Art Renewal Center). You may have noticed links to Wikimedia Commons among the links provided with a number of my articles about artists from history.

You can use the search feature at the top of every Wikimedia Commons page to look for a specific artist, of course, but one of the nice things about the arrangement of the material is that it enables a certain kind of browsing, one conducive to discovering artists and works that may be new to you.

An initial search for “paintings“, for example, brings up a page that provides access other category listings, such as Paintings by artist, Paintings by city, country, period, medium, subject, technique, and even Paintings by museum.

One of the most productive to my mind is the “Paintings by date” category, and from that landing, “Paintings by century“.

Here it’s easy to narrow down, for example into 19th century paintings. At this level, you’ll be presented with a number of thumbnails for a variety of paintings from the century, a sort of skim through some of that century’s artists, and a further breakdown into decades. Here is where I like to browse, by choosing a decade, for instance, 1880s paintings.

Though there are further breakdowns at that level, into individual years, the thumbnails for a given decade present a nicely varied selection of works to view by a variety of artists. Though hardly comprehensive, it makes for a fun way to explore and sample a selection of works by artists both familiar and not.

The images above, for example, all were represented on the 1880s paintings page as thumbnails, from the top: James Tissot, Henryk Hector Siemiradzki, Carl Spitzweg, Aleksandr Novoskoltsev, Vincent van Gogh, Willem de Zwart, John Singer Sargent, Jules-Eugé Lenepveu, Ilya Repin, Jean-Léon Gérôme, Edouard Manet and William Merritt Chase.

Once on the page for an individual work you can sometimes (though not always) click through a linked mention of the artist’s name into a page of works specifically by that artist, for example, William Merritt Chase.

The possibilities for discovering artists are extensive.

I’ll give my usual Major Timesink Warning for resources this large and potentially engrossing.

Enjoy!

The Frick Collection is a relatively small museum in New York, housed in the former mansion of Henry Clay Frick, and displaying the artworks collected by him and his daughter, Helen Clay Frick.

The collection, though not as extensive as those of larger museums, has the density of an expensive fruitcake, with so many yummy masterpieces in such a small space that it’s mind-boggling. It includes major works by Vermeer, Rembrandt, Holbein, Whistler, Constable, Corot, David, Goya, Hals, Ingres, Renoir, Titian, Turner, Velázquez, Whistler and Van Eyck, among others.

For those who can’t get to the collection physically, the museum has databased much of the collection online, with Zoomable images of most works.

Their collections database search feature, though poorly organized and something of a drag to wade through, is usable once you understand how it works.

Choose Browse the Collections, then focus on a subject, like Paintings, focus on a region, say, Dutch, Flemish, German and Swiss, narrow down further, let’s say to Dutch, and then you’ll finally see some thumbnails of works.

In the initial display of a limited number of works, it’s easy to miss the tiny “next” button at the top of the interface (and not at the bottom of the list where you might expect it), but you may find it easier to select a particular work from the drop down menu.

If you click on an artist’s name instead of a specific work, you’re dropped on a page with a description of the artist, but no thumbnails of works. Just when you’re tempted to think that your search has returned no visible results, look for the linked (though not underlined) text saying “View objects by this artist”.

Then you will see thumbnails of viewable works. Click on the thumbnail or title of the work to view the main image, and then look for the link to the Zoomable image (and sometimes a selection of detail images).

The Zoomable image, like those of so many museums, is restrained in a box and partially obscured by the zooming thumbnail (wouldn’t want you to get away with a high res image, you naughty image thief, you), but the box is large enough to see detail in enough of an area to make the effort worthwhile.

Upkeep on the site has apparently been a low priority, as some items are missing or unviewable. (Hans Holbein’s portrait of Sir Thomas Moore is among them, alas. See my post on Hans Holbein the Younger.)

What is there, however, reflects the Frick’s superb collection. Many of the works are among the finest examples by the artists represented.

That includes three (count ‘em three) Vermeers, not far from the five in the nearby Metropolitan Museum (see my most recent post on Vermeer, with links to others).

For those who can get to the the collection in person, it’s worth noting that the usual $18 entry fee will be waived tomorrow, Thursday, December 17, 2010, in celebration of the 75th anniversary of the day the collection first opened its doors to the public.

In addition to the usual gems, there is currently an exhibition of 17th and 18th Century drawings, The Spanish Manner: Drawings from Ribera to Goya, on display until January 9, 2011.

The Athenaeum is essentially a virtual museum, in some ways similar to the Art Renewal Center (my post here) or the Web Gallery of Art (my post here), but with its own focus and strengths.

As of this writing, The Athenaeum lists their online collection of art images at 43,339 (with 14 added in the last seven days), making it one one the largest art resources on the web, perhaps second only to the Art Renewal Center.

The Athenaeum is one of my favorite online sources of images from art history; they frequently have good selections of a given artist’s work, reproduced large enough to enjoy and with well balanced color (which can be a problem on some art image repositories).

You can search the archive via Google with the search box on the home page or the “Visual Arts” landing page.

You can also browse alphabetically by artist name, or even name of the work.

In the lists for individual artists, be aware that there are frequently multiple pages of thumbnails, linked from small numbers at the top of the list. You can sort these lists by title, date and medium and toggle the order of each.

Click through the thumbnail or title link to the detail page for the work, and click on the image again for the large reproduction.

You can also browse a museum list; these lists can be sorted by title, artist or date. In the museum listing details click on “Artworks at this museum” at the top to see works in the Athenaeum archive from that museum’s collections.

This can be a fascinating way to browse, in that it produces an interesting mix of artists and styles.

The above images, for example, are all from the collection of The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (from top: Edmund Tarbell, Raphaelle Peale, Thomas Eakins [no longer in the collection, alas], Cecilia Beaux, Winslow Homer and Theodore Robinson).

(See also my posts on Edmund Tarbell, Thomas Eakins, Cecilia Beaux and the web site of The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts.)

Tough perhaps not definitive in terms of image quality or resolution, the Vincent van Gogh Gallery is nonetheless a terrific resource on the iconic Dutch artist, notable for the breadth of the material it presents.

As a labor of love for 14 years, Canadian David Brooks has attempted to collect an online catalog raisonné of Van Gogh’s works, no mean feat given the artist’s prolific nature.

There are catalogues of Van Gogh’s paintings arranged chronologically, alphabetically or by category in both text and thumbnailed listings. There are also galleries of his watercolors, graphics and letter sketches, as well as his wonderfully textural and often unjustly overlooked drawings.

Even if you have a dozen books on Van Gogh, you will likely be delighted here to encounter paintings and drawings that you have never seen.

I found it particularly enjoyable to browse by category, getting that way more of a mix and juxtaposition of time periods, from the dark earth tones of his early work to the brilliant sunbursts from Arles and Saint-Rémy.

You can also browse another Van Gogh Gallery that offers a complete catalog of paintings, though in a less flexible variety of access.

For a more definitive view of Van Gogh and his works, see the excellent resources on the site of the Van Gogh Museum, which I recently mentioned in my post about the restoration of his famous painting The Bedroom.

For additional resources on the artist, including museum listings and other image archives, see the Van Gogh listings on Artcyclopedia.

The joy here, though, is in the discovery of works by Van Gogh outside the 100 or so that you usually encounter.

The website of New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art is large and sprawling and full of amazing stuff, much like the museum itself. Also like the physical museum, wandering around and exploring is often rewarded with unexpected delights and treasures.

One of the treasures on the Met’s website is the Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History. Essentially a site of its own within the larger museum site, the Timeline is an ongoing project, sponsored by three foundations and created and maintained by the museum’s curatorial, conservation and education staff, that currently catalogues 6,000 works and places them within the contexts of time, place and thematic essays.

The Timeline’s features can be explored from any of these directions, as well by links to world religions, and directly searched via search box or index. You can search for artists or works of art, and many are featured in pages devoted specifically to the artist or work, as well as within the larger thematic essays.

Most of the articles have images that can be enlarged or zoomed, and are linked to further images and information within the museum’s larger object database.

From the Timeline’s front page you can flip through panels of works, timelines or thematic essays, or use the drop-down menus at top for access to dedicated pages for same, across geographic areas via world maps, or find works of art through a detailed search box.

Once drilled down to a topic, you can also follow the links in the “Related” section to any number of additional lines of browsing.

A major time sink as well as a tremendous resource.

ArtMagick one of those delightful art sites dedicated to a few related genres of painting; in this case some of the more interesting movements in late 19th and early 20th Century art.

According to their own description: “ArtMagick is a virtual gallery dedicated to the continual quest of seeking out obscure 19th century artists and long-forgotten paintings and poems illustrating a ‘magic world of romance and pictured poetry’. The majority of the content in the archive covers the Pre-Raphaelite and Symbolist movements.”

The categories also include selections from the Art Nouveau, Romanticism, Aestheticism and Neo-Classical movements, as well as a selection of “Golden Age” illustration and even a section of “Fairy Painting” (which was a popular genre in Victorian England).

Though far from comprehensive, the site serves as a great place to browse, looking through work by artists you know, as well as perhaps discovering a few you’re not familiar with.

The site also features information about upcoming related exhibitions, museums with relevant collections and related poetry (more closely intertwined with visual arts movements at the time than in most other periods).

You can search or browse by Art Movement, Latest Images or Random Images. In each case, breadcrumb navigation allows you to backtrack to more images by a given artist.

I should give the customary time sink warning. You can get happily lost here for several hours.

(Images above: Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema, Arnold Böcklin, Gustave Moreau, Pierre Puvis de Chavannes, John Martin; links are to the images on ArtMagick. Here are my posts about Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema, Arnold Böcklin, Gustave Moreau and John Martin.)

One of the problems confronting small museums, that are most often originally based on the art collection of an individual at their inception, is the question acquiring and maintaining a physical space in which to display the works.

Maintaining a physical space is often more difficult for small museums than large ones. Even though large museums have much higher expenses, they also have larger support and financial structures. There is a balancing point museums must reach in terms of support to make the operation of a physical museum viable. This is particularly difficult in places where real estate is at a premium, as in New York City.

Such has been the struggle for the Dahesh Museum of Art, which moved between several venues, and left its last one due to the high cost of renting the space. It is currently a museum without a physical home. But the good news is that the Museum has put some of its collection online in a virtual exhibition.

This is particularly nice because of the museum’s rather unique mission, as the only museum in the U.S. devoted to 18th and 19th Century European academic art.

This, as fans of the genre(s) will tell you, is important because this art often gets short shrift among the larger art establishment. It is seen as the stodgy, formulaic art that post-war 20th Century Modernism (the pinnacle of all artistic achievement) came along to save us from (as well as liberating us from the associated stifling conventions of draftsmanship, perspective, representation and such outmoded concepts as “beauty”, but I digress).

The Dahesh collection started with Lebanese writer and philosopher Saleem Moussa Ashi, whose pen name was Dr. Dahesh. His collection of more than 2,000 academic paintings, sculpture and works on paper form the core of the collection.

It is worth noting that the museum has also paid attention to illustration (an equally bankrupt form of making images, even more reviled among the modernist factions, and obviously “not art” – sigh).

Not having the museum in a physical space for the time being is unfortunate, but as they look for a new home for the collection, parts of it travel on loan; and the online presence gives those of us who love this misunderstood and neglected chapter of art history a source of inspiration.

Most of the images are zoomable, which, while not as satisfying as full high-resolution images, is still better than just small ones. The collection is a little awkward to browse, the only alternative to a search is alphabetical arrangement; and someone had the misbegotten idea to watermark some of the smaller images (please stop demonstrating your ignorance, whoever you are), but the zoomable images can be enjoyed.

The museum shop does currently has a physical presence, at 55 East 52nd St. in Manhattan. They have an interesting selection of books, prints, posters and exhibition catalogs.

(Images above: Edwin Long, José Tapiró Baró, Ernst Karl Eugen Koerner, Aguste Bonheur)

Anyone who has read Dear Theo, the book of Vincent van Gogh’s letters to his brother, which, in essence, is a kind of autobiography, knows that the popularized image of the artist as an uncouth, irrational, semi-literate wild man, stabbing at the canvas in frantic desperation like a crazed orangutan, couldn’t be further from the truth.

Though certainly emotionally troubled, Van Gogh was a thoughtful, well read and articulate individual, whose insights, observations and accounts of his personal journey as an artist are illuminating on many levels.

Van Gogh wrote hundreds of letters, a number of which contain sketches, or even well developed drawings, that frequently presage his paintings or refer to the circumstances under which they were painted. Together, they form an account of the artist’s life and work that is unlike anything we have from other major artists.

There are several other collections of Van Gogh’s letters, from those specific to a particular time in the artist’s life, like Vincent Van Gogh – Letters from Provence (The illustrated letters), to more comprehensive collections like Letters of Vincent van Gogh (Touchstone), The Letters of Vincent van Gogh (Penguin Classics) and Complete Letters of Vincent Van Gogh (Bulfinch).

The latest and most deluxe collection, which should soon be available, is Vincent van Gogh — The Letters (Thames & Hudson) (details here), a multi volume set collecting all of his letters with new transcriptions and translations, reproductions of the illustrated letters and reproductions of all of the works that are referred to in the letters. It promises to be a unique study of the artist and his work, told from the artist’s point of view; but at a list price of $600 U.S. ($480 on Amazon), it’s not exactly a mass market collection.

The book set accompanies a new exhibit at the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam (choose a language at the upper left), called Van Gogh’s letters: the artist speaks, that showcases many of his letters from the museum’s collection and displays them with related paintings and drawings, forming an exhibition in which the artist, in effect, provides the commentary on his own work.

The exhibition runs until the 3rd of January, 2010, but it is part of a larger project, in which the letters were reexamined and photographed in preparation for both the exhibit and the book; and the museum has mounted excellent web resources that will continue after the exhibition has closed.

There is a web site devoted to the project at www.vangoghletters.org that is essentially a comprehensive, online, databased version of the book project. It can be searched by period, correspondent or place; or filtered for letters with sketches. There are also advanced search capabilities and background features on the artist, his time, the people with whom he was corresponding and more.

The letters are displayed as original text, translated, with notes and facsimile reproductions of the letters themselves, as well as reproductions of artwork (by Van Gogh and other artists) referred to in the letters.

It’s easy to miss the small links at top of the columns to the facsimile versions and artworks, and it’s worth looking through the Quick Guide they have offered to getting the most out of the resource (it pops up by default the first time you access the letters).

As if this wasn’t enough to delight lovers of Van Gogh’s work, the museum is also maintaining a wonderful Van Gogh Blog, in which letters form the artist are posted daily, giving the effect of the artist writing a daily blog post, or corresponding with you personally on a daily basis (whichever appeals to your disposition). The posts are accompanied with drawings and sketches.

The blog just started in the beginning of October, so you can catch up and then read a daily post from Van Gogh to start your day. Wonderful.

Addendum: Peacay has posted a very nice article with images and quotes from the letters on Bibliodyssey.