Images

As far as art images on the Web are concerned, proceed at your own risk. I'll give you the words of Robert Hughes some years ago:

"The online environment is great for archival use, for argument (not fully articulate yet) and for rapid access to small clones of images. But it cannot possibly give you (any more than TV can) real access to the original work of art. This is the point that the Gates-nerds [Microsoft, which is publishing a virtual Leonardo notebook] seem not to get. Works of art aren't just images, they're physical presences, with their own scale, density, substance, relation to our bodies, etc. Without these things we experience works of art only as facsimiles, like teenagers (at least of my generation) who from relentless study of Playboy concluded that women had staples in their navels. Now that quite a few real women do in fact have staples in their navels . . . but you see the point, I trust." (Web Interview, 6/3/97)

Real places, virtual views...Most of these sites will not give you much in the way of research--or much more than a tantalizing glimpse of their important collections--but they at least give you directions and hours and other important logistical info while hawking their merchandise:

Selected Northeast Ohio Museums:

 The Cleveland Museum of Art - It's nearby, world-class, and free and open to the public six days a week. Only the special exhibitions will set you back a bit, but they're almost always worth it since the CMA puts on the biggest and best shows between New York and Chicago. Heck, sometimes they even outdo the big dogs, just the Cleveland Symphony these days and the Indians in the 1990s.

Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA) Cleveland - Another fine local site, this one committed to contemporary issues.  Check out the frequent and engaging special events that they offer--some high-profile figures can often be found talking here.

 Cleveland Galleries - A short list of and addresses for local showpieces such as Spaces and the many galleries in Little Italy, Tremont, and Downtown.

 The Akron Art Museum is undergoing a colossal expansion over the next few years, but their website is still open and can give you information on the Akron art scene in the meantime.  For more on the expansion, due to be completed Summer 2006, see this page.

 The Butler Institute of American Art - This wonderful collection in nearby Youngstown is also nicely represented online, with dozens of works arranged by artist--but of course go there and see it, too. There are two additional locations in Warren and Salem.

 The Allen Memorial Art Museum at Oberlin College (AMAM) - Another great collection in our own backyard, with a notable commitment to Modern Art.

 

Some Other U.S. Museums (within a day's drive):

 The Andy Warhol Museum - Local, neurotic, shallow Momma's Boy makes good!  Follow in Andy's footsteps by letting gravity take you down through his life one floor at a time and decide for yourself if he was a genius or an unbelievably over-hyped pedestrian. If nothing else, check out how much junk a single person can collect by looking at his monthly "Time Capsules" on the Third Floor.

 The Mattress Factory - Pittsburgh's museum of contemporary art, with a mission to provide artists with the necessary means for site-specific exhibitions.

 The Toledo Museum of Art - Another great free Ohio institution with a fair sampling of art from all eras.  The Ancient and modern sections are quite nice, with some pieces that New York museums would love to have.

The Philadelphia Museum of Art - Known in pop culture as that big Neoclassical building that marked the end of Rocky's training run, on the inside this is pretty famous, too, with a great Impressionist collection and an unrivalled collection of Marcel Duchamp's paintings and readymades (the Nude Descending a Staircase and The Large Glass).

 The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) - Arguably the most important modern art collection--it's got van Gogh's Starry Night, Picasso's Les Demoiselles d'Avignon and Dali's Persistence of Memory just for starters--in what is arguably the world's most important city--New York.  Not to be visited in a hurry, and not too cheap, either ($20 since their re-opening in late 2004), unless it's pay-what-you-wish night on Fridays, when people tend to wish pennies.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art (NYC) - Still in its famous Central Park location, this monster museum has a very nice website with ample provenance details on much of its collection.  This will take you even longer to see than the MoMa, in cyberspace or for real.

 The Albright-Knox Art Gallery - At the other end of the Empire State is Buffalo's best-kept secret, with a first-class collection of modern works, thanks to Mr. Knox.

 The Detroit Institute of Arts - Who says ya gotta go East for culture? The DIA is another great Midwest institution, with holdings covering Ancient, Contemporary, and everything in between.

 The Art Institute of Chicago - The AIC is another eminent American museum and school.  Choose whether you want to virtually visit the museum or the school when you enter this site.

 The Smothsonain American Art Museum - This branch of the Smithsonian that is dedicated to American Art was among the first to aggressively use the powers of the web to facilitate long-distance learning (that was way back in the mid-90s). And, they're not stingy with providing images from their collection, with over 3,000 of them currently available.  It's your museum, after all.

The National Gallery of Art - Another fine site in Washington, D.C., this has probably the classiest layout and most substantial museum site in the world, once again thanks to our tax dollars.  The special virtual tours that stay up long after the show is over are full of excellent images and information.

 

Selected World Museums:

The Grand Museum of Egypt - Only in the planning stages at the moment, but by the end of the decade this should be a much talked about place.  The Egyptians hope to move their stupendous collection from the dusty old (and very small) museum in central Cairo to this lavish new site near the pyramids. 

The Louvre - An appropriately grand site for the world's grandest art museum; the Mona Lisa, the Venus de Milo and many other treasures reside here.  And, unlike many French sites, they deign to using English to facilitate those of us not so fluent en Français.

The Musée d'Orsay - Paris' great collection of popular culture and high art of c. 1848-1905, which means that there is some very stunning Impressionist and Post-Impressionists pieces here, plus a lot of other things (e.g., posters, furniture, architectural models), all of it housed inside of a grandiose railway station from the turn of the century.

The National Gallery, London - One of the most important collections in the world for painting since the Renaissance, and (like our National Gallery in WDC) always free to visit due to the great state support of the arts. Manet's Music in the Tuileries and Seurat's Bathers are my favorites here.

The British Museum - Another very important museum in London, this time covering pre-Renaissance art and featuring priceless examples like the sculptures from the Parthenon and the Rosetta Stone.

Musei Vaticani - The Vatican Museums site is still remarkably clunky by contemporary net standards. In fact, much of the site hasn't been touched in several years and it has some very low-resolution images.  But of course the real collection is no collection to sniff at.  Check out the separate Sistine Chapel site here, where you'll find that the images are larger, but still not of any great quality--go to the Artchive or CGFA for better online images.

Galleria degli Uffizi - The Uffizi Gallery is another indespensible European museum, with most of the heavy hitters of the Italian Renaissance (e.g., Michelangelo, Leonardo, Raphael) represented with some of their finest pieces.  As with the Vatican site, it's clear that this institution considers it's web presence as being far less important than it's actual collection.  In fact, as far as I can tell none of their treasures are illustrated here.

Prado Museum - Spain's treasure house for European art has a nice website that in some cases takes you behind the scenes and works with thematic and formal analyses of some of their more famous works via the "Visits" option.