Collection Of Artworks Research Articles

Understanding and Creating Art with AI: Review and Outlook

Technologies related to artificial intelligence (AI) have a strong impact on the changes of research and creative practices in visual arts. The growing number of research initiatives and creative applications that emerge in the intersection of AI and art motivates us to examine and discuss the creative and explorative potentials of AI technologies in the context of art. This article provides an integrated review of two facets of AI and art: (1) AI is used for art analysis and employed on digitized artwork collections, or (2) AI is used for creative purposes and generating novel artworks. In the context of AI-related research for art understanding, we present a comprehensive overview of artwork datasets and recent works that address a variety of tasks such as classification, object detection, similarity retrieval, multimodal representations, and computational aesthetics, among others. In relation to the role of AI in creating art, we address various practical and theoretical aspects of AI Art and consolidate related works that deal with those topics in detail. Finally, we provide a concise outlook on the future progression and potential impact of AI technologies on our understanding and creation of art.

Semiotic approaches to big data visualization

With a few exceptions – focusing on journalism (Compagno 2017), on works of art (Chartier, Pulizzotto, Chartrand & Meunier 2019, Dondero 2020), on deep fake videos (Leone 2021, Dondero 2021), and on data epistemology (Bachimont 2018) – semiotics has been late to approach big data. In contrast to information and communication studies, which have been quick to recognize the big data revolution in medical, biological, political, urbanistic, and journalistic practices, and while digital humanities and digital art history continue to offer crucial insight with their analysis of large collections of artworks and heritage objects, semiotics has yet to live up to the big data challenge. In this Punctum issue we have attempted to (1) contribute to the global discussion of possible semiotic approaches to big data theory and methodology; (2) explore specifically an epistemological approach to visualizations of big data, i.e., to their manipulation, design, display, and interpretation; (3) study, from a critical vantage point, the ideologies and epistemic perspectives that underlie the acts of collecting and visualizing big data, prior to their analysis. Our overall objective has been to trace the path that leads from visualization, regarded as a unifying representation of disparate data, to its full elevation to an interpretative device.

Hugo Šojaus asmeninės bibliotekos knygos Lietuvos mokslų akademijos Vrublevskių bibliotekoje

Hugo Scheu (1845–1937), a cultural activist and the owner of an estate in Heydekrug (now Šilutė), gathered copious art collections, was interested in Lithuanian studies and had a valuable personal library. However, his valuable collections of artworks and publications in Lithuanian studies were scattered after the storms of World War II – some were destroyed, others found their way into memory institutions. There is still a dearth of comprehensive research for a reconstruction of Scheu’s personal library. There are no special historiographic works concerning its history. Furthermore, there is not enough information to fully envisage this once valuable library or to figure out how and when its books came to the Wroblewski Library of the Lithuanian Academy of Sciences. Some of the books formerly owned by Hugo Scheu were distributed among institutions, others dispersed or destroyed. It is presently known that eighteen publications previously owned by Scheu are held in the Šilutė Museum, one in the Šiauliai County Povilas Višinskis Library, others in the Wroblewski Library. The present article aims to analyze Sheu’s books now kept in the Wroblewski Library based on press publications related to the landowner’s library. The article for the first time describes the heritage of Hugo Sheu’s personal library kept in the Wroblewski Library. At least fifteen publications previously owned by Sheu were identified in the course of the research. All of them have ownership marks (stamps). De visu examination of Sheu’s publications kept in the Wroblewski Library revealed that the landowner had five different types of ownership-confirming stamps. The personal library of Hugo Sheu is established to have been diverse in subjects – it included publications in ethnography, history, natural sciences and other disciplines. Keywords: Hugo Sheu; personal library; bibliophilic heritage; history of personal libraries; book culture; Lithuanian studies; Lithuania Minor; Šilutė; The Wroblewski Library of the Lithuanian Academy of Sciences.

About the Contributors

Joshua J. Branciforte is an independent scholar. He has previously coedited the “Queer Bonds” special issue of GLQ (17:2–3), and his work has also appeared in Modern Language Quarterly. He is currently working on the edited volume On the Subject of Ethnonationalism, forthcoming with Fordham University Press.Ahmad Greene-Hayes is an assistant professor of African American studies and religious studies at Northwestern University. He is currently working on a book manuscript tentatively titled “Gods of the Flesh: Black Atlantic Religion-Making in Jim Crow New Orleans,” which is under advance contract with the University of Chicago Press in the Class 200: New Studies in Religion series. His work has also appeared in The Black Scholar, Souls: A Critical Journal of Black Politics, Culture and Society, and The Journal of African American History.Eben Kirksey is associate professor of anthropology at Deakin University in Melbourne, Australia. Kirksey is best known for his work in multispecies ethnography—a field that mixes ethnographic, historical, ethological, and genetic methods to study spaces where humans and other species meet. Duke University Press published his first two books—Freedom in Entangled Worlds (2012) and Emergent Ecologies (2015)—as well as The Multispecies Salon (2014), a curated collection of artwork and essays. His latest book, The Mutant Project (2020), embeds queer and crip theory within a readable tale about some of the world's first genetically modified people.Holly Randell-Moon is a senior lecturer in the School of Indigenous Australian Studies, Charles Sturt University, Australia. She has published on infrastructure, biopower, and settler colonialism in the journals Celebrity Studies and Westminster Papers in Culture and Communication and the edited book Colonialism, Tourism and Place: Global Transformations in Tourist Destinations (2020). Along with Ryan Tippet, she is coeditor of Security, Race, Biopower: Essays on Technology and Corporeality (2016). She is also coeditor of the journal Somatechnics.Danielle M. Roper is the Neubauer Family Assistant Professor in the Department of Romance Languages and Literatures at the University of Chicago. She is currently completing her book manuscript, tentatively titled “Hemispheric Blackface: Impersonation and Racial Formation in the Americas.” Roper is the curator of “Visualizing/Performing Blackness in the Afterlives of Slavery: A Caribbean Archive.” Her work on blackface performance and feminist activism in Latin America and the Caribbean has also appeared in Latin American Research Review and Small Axe.

Art Clusters: The Importance of Similarities in Aesthetic Research and Education

Abstract In his presidential address, at the fiftieth anniversary of the American Society of Aesthetics in 1992, Peter Kivy suggested that “progress in the philosophy of art in the immediate future is to be made not by theorizing in the grand manner, but by careful and imaginative philosophical scrutiny of the individual arts and their individual problems.” The study of the individual arts, and the differences between them, has, in the ensuing decades, provided a useful corrective to aesthetic theorizing in the grand manner. In this essay, I urge philosophers of art, art educators, and art theorists to consider a different option—the rigorous and creative investigation of art clusters: that is, various collections of artworks and art kinds, unified by significant similarities and cutting across the recognized artforms and genres.

In Search of Missing Collection: The Case of Artist Albert Rappaport

Summary The artist Albert Rappaport was born in Anykščiai in 1898. In 1911, the family emigrated to New York. Rappaport became an American citizen in 1925 and began to travel widely. He studied fine art in New York, Paris, Dresden and Munich. He visited South America, Africa and traveled extensively through Europe (1925–1927, 1933, 1937–1939), returning to the United States now and again. The artist participated in several dozen exhibitions. He showed his work in Paris, Rome, Florence, Barcelona, Palma de Mallorca, Copenhagen, Mexico City, Havana, New York, Calgary and Montreal, in addition to his solo exhibitions in 1937 in Warsaw and Vilnius, and in Kaunas, Riga and Tallinn in 1938. After Rappaport’s death, in March 17, 1969 in Montreal, his collection of artworks disappeared and has thus far not been found. To date, two of his painted portraits are known to exist – one belongs to the private collection of Jonathan C. Rappaport, another is on display at the Jewish Public Library in Montreal.

UPCYCLING JUNK ART AND CRAFT MODULE TO NURTURE CREATIVITY OF CHILDREN

Up-cycling is a sustainable alternative incorporating the prevalent 3Rs of Recycle, Reuse, and Reduce of used items in campaigns to save the environment. The ‘DIY Art and Craft Activity Module’ is used as a scaffolding tool to enhance environmental awareness and its impact among primary school children through Visual Arts Education. This research utilised the Design Development Research Method (DDR) comprising of three phases namely; Phase 1: Needs Analysis, Phase 2: Design and Development, and Phase 3: Implementation and Evaluation. The data was collected by interviewing Visual Art teachers on the usability of the module and document analysis on the collection of artworks produced by students. Findings of this study demonstrated positive feedback from the teachers and students on the usability of the Junk Art module as supplementary learning material in order to enhance recycling awareness among Primary School students through Visual Art Education.

Nikolay Karazin’s Graphic Series for the Amu Darya and Samara Expeditions of 1874 and 1879

The article examines the drawings and watercolors by the artist Nikolay Nikolayevich Karazin (1842—1908), based on the materials of the Amu Darya and Samara expeditions of 1874 and 1879. The paper aims at reviewing the graphic series “Amu Darya Scientific Expedition”, published in the magazine “Niva” in 1874—1875, and a series of watercolor portraits made during the Samara expedition, in comparison with the pencil portraits by Vasily Vasilyevich Vereshchagin (1842—1904) in the album of photographs “Russian Turkestan”, published in 1874. This collection of artworks has not previously been the subject of a special art history study. Their examination introduces into the field of specialists’ view a significant stage of Nikolay Karazin’s creative path. The relevance of the article, in view of the investigations of recent years, lies in the representation of the image of an artist-traveler, a draftsman during expeditions in the second half of the 19th century.The study of the first series is based on the nature and national types of the Amu Darya delta. The analysis of individual examples of journal graphics is accompanied by a description of some of the author’s simultaneous graphic originals, as well as works of other artists interested in Central Asian ethnography. The article uses a comparative methodological principle, with the analysis of fragments of N.N. Karazin’s literary works — travel essays with a pronounced ethnographic component.The artist’s series of watercolors based on the Samara expedition also presents several images of the ethnotypes of Russian Turkestan, a region of Central Asia in its western part. As a result, there are identified the similarities and differences in the artistic methods and manners, as well as the conditions of creative work, of the two artists — Nikolay Karazin and Vasily Vereshchagin. The analysis is carried out using a comparative method and a socio-historical background.The Amu Darya and Samara graphic cycles represent N.N. Karazin as a mature creator who intuitively used the means of the approaching new time and modern style. At the same time, he did not leave the boundaries of the literary and artistic genre “voyage pittoresque”, overall successfully combining realistic tendencies with the vision of a romantic.

STEAM Education Using Sericulture <i>Ukiyo-e</i>: Object-Based Learning through Original Artworks Collected at a Science University Museum in Japan

Societies across the world face the need to increase the number of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) personnel who could resolve issues concerning sustainability. The body of scholarly literature on STEM education has grown significantly since the beginning of the 21st century. STEAM education incorporates arts with STEM subjects. This pedagogical strategy is increasingly adopted in formal/informal education settings to foster scientific thinking and creativity through multisensory artistic activities. Science museums and centers house discrete items such as multi-touch tabletops that allow visitors to handle objects and engage in experiential activities. This study postulates that science university museums can contribute to STEAM education. It illustrates the effectiveness of object-based learning (OBL) in STEAM education imparted through original artwork housed in science university museums. This study’s application of OBL at university museums establishes OBL within cross-disciplinarySTEAM-based educational systems in Japan through the use of original artwork such as sericulture ukiyo-e. Students majoring in agriculture or technology participated in the workshop designed for this study, directly engaged with discrete multisensory sericulture ukiyo-e, and were encouraged to think from diverse perspectives. Finally, the studentsdebated the sericulture ukiyo-e and organized an exhibition. This study concludes that the academic value of STEAM education is enhanced through the technique of fostering problem-solving in students using interactions with and active discussions about artwork collections and objects.

An integrated analytical study of crayons from the original art materials collection of the MUNCH museum in Oslo

Among the artists’ materials of the nineteenth century, pastel crayons merit scientific interest since their early commercial formulations are mostly unknown and, until now, have been considerably less studied with respect to other contemporary painting materials. In this framework, research herein reports the results of a comprehensive multi-analytical study of 44 pastel crayons of two recognized brands (LeFranc and Dr. F. Schoenfeld) from the Munch museum collection of original materials belonging to Edvard Munch. The integrated use of complementary spectroscopic and hyphenated mass-spectrometry techniques allowed the compositional profiles of the crayons to be traced providing the identification of the inorganic and organic pigments, the fillers/extenders and the binders. All crayons resulted to be oil- based and the binder was identified to be a mixture of a drying oil (safflower or linseed oil), palm oil or Japan wax and beeswax. Among others, pigments such as ultramarine, chrome yellows, Prussian blue, manganese violet, viridian and madder lake have been identified. A significant alignment in formulations of the brands was observed with the only exception of the greens which showed distinctive pigment and filler compositions. The analytical information provided for these commercial artists’ materials will be of great interest for academia, museum and other institutions hosting art collections dating from the same period and it will be used by the Munch museum to draw proper conservation strategies of its own artwork collections.

Религиозная тематика произведений искусства из коллекции великого князя Константина Константиновича как отражение личности ее владельца

The article describes the collection of artworks gathered by Grand Duke Konstantin Konstantinovich (1858-1915). The author examines the little-known artworks on religious themes stored in the funds of Omsk Regional Museum of Visual Arts named after M. A. Vrubel, comments on them and identifies some common features indicating Grand Duke’s preferences in art. Scientific originality of the paper lies in the fact that the researcher introduces new fact-based and artistic material into scientific circulation. The conclusion is made that Grand Duke’s personal qualities, his religiosity, adherence to poetry influenced his choice of artworks.

Curation as methodology

The term curation was once only utilized by museum professionals. Currently, the term seems to have been borrowed by aesthetically-minded persons looking to collect ideas or objects. Through a detailed account of one curatorial process, this article aims to convey the richness of context, the depth of connection, and the promotion of new ideas classically associated with curation. Drawing on these methods, the author begins to develop an outline of curation as a transferrable methodology, useful for exploration of aesthetic works as they related to sociocultural histories. As an exemplar collection of artworks, illustrations of Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland provide content to explore the depth and breadth of curation as a methodology.

Museums Between Private and Public the Case of the Beyeler Museum in Basle

In Europe, ever more private museums are now entering the field. This paper investigates the behavior of one of these private museums, using an institutional approach of cultural economics. The Beyeler museum in Basle, Switzerland, is a privately founded art museum with an extraordinary collection of art works. Though less than five years old, it is acknowledged to be the most successful museum in Switzerland in terms of number of visitors. However, the Beyeler museum is not completely private but receives public support. We analyze how this influences the museum's behavior: (1) The directorate of the Beyeler museum stays away from the art market with its collection as public institutions do. (2) The museum embarks on a self-propelling process concerning special exhibitions, therewith losing some of its uniqueness. (3) Concerning visitors' amenities, differences between private and public museums emerge but to a lesser extent than expected according to theory.

Aesthetic appreciation and Spanish art: insights from eye-tracking

Abstract Eye-tracking—the process of capturing and measuring human eye movement—is becoming an increasingly prevalent tool in the cultural heritage sector to understand visual processing and audience behaviours. Yet, most applications to date have focused on individual artworks and distinctions between representative/non-representative topics, with little prior work on the effects of differing written interpretations on the visual exploration of collections of artworks, particularly with devotional themes. This article reports on an eye-tracking study that explored responses to the unique collection of Francisco de Zurbarán paintings in County Durham. Using eye-tracking technology in a laboratory setting, we evaluated the viewing behaviour of three participant groups to determine whether the accompanying written context influences how digital reproductions are experienced. In addition to demonstrating statistically significant variations in aesthetic appreciation, the experiments showed that the gaze can be redirected towards areas of conceptual significance. Most importantly, we were able to challenge the assumption that viewers always look at faces (Bindemann et al., 2005). Our findings make an important new contribution to the scholarly understanding of how audiences view, appreciate, and understand artworks and to museum and heritage practices relevant to the display of art.

Invertir en arte: la colección de pintura reunida por el comerciante estadounidense Richard Worsan Meade en Cádiz entre 1804 y 1820

Las guerras napoleónicas fueron una oportunidad para algunos comerciantes estadounidenses para comerciar con España. El comerciante estadounidense Richard W. Meade se estableció en Cádiz entre 1804 y 1820. En estos años consiguió acumular una importante fortuna. Su estancia en Cádiz durante la invasión francesa le permitió reunir una valiosa colección de obras de arte, sobre todo pintura barroca española e italiana. A través de los catálogos de subastas de la colección publicados en 1831 y 1853 y de los manifiestos de carga de los barcos llegados a Filadelfia conservados en la Custom House se ha podido conocer casi en su totalidad la colección de pinturas que Richard W. Meade trasladó a Estados Unidos.

THE BRITISH LIBRARIES IN THE GOOGLE ARTS & CULTURE

This article examines the ways to present libraries and promote their collections of artworks and documentary heritage, using the example of UK libraries in the «Google Arts & Culture» app. The main sources for the presented problems of domestic and foreign scientists are analyzed. The methodological basis of the study is the socio-communicative, systemic, socio-cultural and informational approaches, which together allowed us to analyze the Google Arts & Culture project as a communication, information and socio-cultural phenomenon. The methodology of basic approaches is complemented by a set of research methods, including analysis and synthesis, comparison, content analysis. The functional characteristics of promoting library collections in the «Google Arts & Culture» are revealed. Features of registration and filling of profiles of libraries are revealed.Prospects for further study of projects related to the dissemination of information on documentary heritage, the promotion of collections, the establishment of communication between cultural institutions and the study of other new forms of library presentation were identified.

THE CONCEPT AND THE PRACTICE OF ARTS IN HEALTH IN THE UK

This report explains the concept of arts in health in the UK is and how it is implemented and financially managed by which organizations in British hospitals. In the UK, artistic activities are understood to contribute to the comfort and recovery of patients and the people around them. These activities are offered through partnerships between the government and arts in health organizations. Arts in health activities are diverse. We can classify them into eight fields, including arts in psychotherapy, arts on prescription, participatory arts programs for specific patient groups, arts in healthcare technology, arts-based training for staff, general arts activities in everyday life, arts in the healthcare environment, and arts in health promotion. These activities are offered strategically with specific objectives and targets. The targets are not only patients but also the people around the patient, such as a patient's family, visitors, medical staff, and citizens. While British hospitals have profited from various artistic activities in healthcare since the 1970s, most Japanese hospitals do not use them. This is due to the Japanese belief that medical treatment by experts is the most important function of a hospital, not recuperation. UK arts in health organizations are classified into four types of organization in partnership with hospitals: the internal section of National Healthcare Service (NHS) hospital type, the hospital charity type, the exclusive to specific NHS hospital type, and the independent type. An arts in health organization has three functions, including arts in health activities, research and development (investment, provide grants, development of resources, and investigation on efficacy), and organizational management (fund raising, public relations, and report). The importance of these three functions differs depending on the social and historical background of the organization. The three leading hospitals in the UK—Chelsea and Westminster Hospital, Royal London Hospital, and Great Ormond Street Children's Hospital—are filled with diverse visual art work collections of museum quality, selected by an art manager. These collections are installed to enhance the well-being of the people who use the hospital. Information about the practices in these three hospitals demonstrates the benefits and the costs of arts in health. These three hospitals have specific art management organizations, which provide various art programs in their hospitals, conduct research in collaboration with universities and other researchers, and manage finance and promotion to sustain their activities. They work for their own specific hospitals, but they possess autonomous human and financial resources. In the UK, the intervention of art in healthcare provides useful health outcomes, such as enhanced feelings of happiness and well-being, and the reduction of national medical costs. This view is shared by the government, policymakers, NHS staff, and arts in health organizations. Today, artistic activities are developing in Japanese hospitals. The UK model provides an excellent example of good practice, especially how to implement the autonomous management of Japanese arts in health activities.

Application of Non-Destructive Techniques. The Madonna Del Latte Case Study

<p class="Abstract">In the frame of a research project involving a private collection of artworks a panel painting representing the Nursing Madonna (<em>Madonna del latte</em>) was studied by means of scientific examination.</p><p class="Abstract">The Department of Chemistry and Industrial Chemistry (DCCI) of the University of Genoa carried out non-invasive exams, combining imaging techniques with analytical analyses.</p><p class="Abstract">Infrared reflectography (IRR), infrared false colour (IRFC), UV fluorescence (UVF), X-ray fluorescence (XRF) and reflectance spectroscopy in the visible range (vis-RS) were used to analyse the painting palette thus obtaining more information on a possible creation date of the painting.</p><p class="Abstract">Some of the most interesting results are the identification of a freehand underdrawing and the usage of lead white, cinnabar, Fe-based pigments for yellows and browns and Cu-based pigments for blue and green colours.</p>The scientific results, as well as historical researches allow the hypothesis that the <em>Madonna del latte </em>was authored in the early 16<sup>th</sup> century by a Florentine artist, probably a scholar of Baccio della Porta.

How to play storytelling games with masterpieces: from art galleries to hybrid board games

In this article we explore how to play storytelling games with collections of artworks. First we propose a generic storytelling game, titled “Find the artwork behind the story!”, and we present the results of a user study that investigates the game’s affordances in different environments and setups, ranging from large exhibitions at a cultural center, to a casual home setting. We report a series of game-testing sessions, highlighting the differences between on-site and remote experiences and we reflect upon critical aspects of the game design, identifying key opportunities and requirements in each case. Then we focus on the “home game scenario” and we describe how we re-designed the game experience so as to address the increased interactivity and learning requirements revealed in this setting. We propose a hybrid board game experience that combines analogue and digital media, orchestrating the use of physical “Artwork Cards” along with digital narratives displayed on the players’ personal mobile or tablet devices. We present the game-authoring platform and the mobile client application that we have developed to support the creation and provision of the proposed game experiences. Finally, following a user-centered design approach, we report preliminary evaluation results of the game prototype using the focus group methodology.

Tal Vez no Sepa Vd. que yo también Pinto. Arnold Schönberg

This article is about the work of Arnold Schönberg1 (1874-1951) as a painter, a little-known facet, but a skill which has shown in excellent art expositions, both in life and posthumously. The last Arnold Schönberg. Peintre l’âme in the MahJ Museum (le musée d’art et d’histoire du Judaïsme) in París in 2016. In Barcelona in 1992: Arnold SchönbergPaintings and drawings. The collection of art work, an exhibition that came from Vienna, Cologne, Manchester, Berlin and Milan. Schönberg answers the first letter from Wassily Kandinsky (1866-1944), and tells him he was apainter, too, and wanted to speak to him about art. These works reveal the relationships that he established in his life: painting and music, idea and style, art and life, tonality and atonality, the established and the new. The doubts faced during some hard years due to the fall of an empire and theapparent peace. Pain in the vanguards at the beginning of the twentieth century. The importance of their meetings and the extensive correspondence with Kandinsky and other artists. The quest for total art. The relationship between Kandinsky’s book “The Spiritual in Art” (1912), which hedelivered to the printer at the same time as Schönberg published his “Treaty on harmony” (1911); despite their conceptual differences both have a common intention: to create from inside the individual’s interior. At the same time, atonal music and abstract art were born. Schönberg was spoken of as a musician, teacher, writer, inventor, scenographer, designer and painter.