The Web Gallery of Art (WGA) is a virtual art gallery website. It displays historic European visual art, mainly from the Baroque, Gothic and Renaissance periods, available for educational and personal use.
Overview The website contains reproductions of over 48,600 works and includes accompanying text on the artworks and artists, accessible through a searchable database. The site is a leading example of an independently established collection of high-quality historically important pictures.
The viewer can select the size of the image; associated music is also included to accompany viewing, and posters of displayed artworks are available. The facility was created by Emil Kren and Daniel Marx.
Copyrights Most of the images in the gallery are of works that are out of copyright, as they were all produced before 1900 and all named artists in the collection were born well before 1900. However, copyright for the reproductions displayed on the website may apply within some legal systems. The WGA itself gives the following copyright statement: The Web Gallery of Art is copyrighted as a database. Images and documents downloaded from this database can only be used for educational and personal purposes. Distribution of the images in any form is prohibited without the authorization of their legal owner. Very little information is given on the pages presenting the images, as to who the legal owner of each might be. In the United States, photo reproductions of public domain two-dimensional art are also in the public domain, as affirmed by the decision in the case of Bridgeman Art Library v. Corel Corp., but this is not the case for photo reproductions of three-dimensional art such as sculptures. Copyrights of the sculpture images therefore remain unclear. Copyrights of the text on the website are also unclear; most of the reproductions in the gallery are displayed as catalog items unaccompanied by any explanatory text, but short explanatory notes for artist biographies or important artworks do exist and are unreferenced.
Database
Their database with over 48,600 artworks created by over 4,000 artists is free to download and they have published statistics over their virtual collection that are on their statistics webpage.According to their statistics page in January 2013, all artworks are dated between 1001 and 1900. Artworks installed in churches and from private collections are represented as well as museums. What follows is a list of institutions with more than 50 works represented on their website, based on their downloadable database.
+ Sortable tableSource InstitutionSource Location# Titles assorted private collectionsworldwide2184 Accademia Carrara Bergamo54 Akademie der bildenden Künste Vienna202 Alte Pinakothek Munich329 Art Institute Chicago107 Ashmolean Museum Oxford84 Baptistry Florence72 Basilica dei Santi Giovanni e Paolo Venice68 Basilica di San Marco Venice72 Basilica di San Pietro Vatican61 Bibliothèque Nationale Paris172 British Museum London278 Cappella Scrovegni (Arena Chapel) Padua125 Cappella Sistina Vatican329 Cappella Tornabuoni, Santa Maria Novella Florence54 Cathedral of St Bavo Ghent77 Chapel of San Brizio, Duomo Orvieto57 Duomo Prato54 Frans Hals Museum Haarlem72 Galleria Borghese Rome174 Galleria degli Uffizi Florence821 Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Antica Rome130 Galleria Palatina (Palazzo Pitti) Florence275 Gallerie dell'Accademia Venice394 Gemäldegalerie Dresden249 Germanisches Nationalmuseum Nuremberg58 Graphische Sammlung Albertina Vienna116 Groeningemuseum Bruges137 Hungarian National Gallery Budapest71 Koninklijke Bibliotheek The Hague59 Kunsthalle Hamburg75 Kunsthistorisches Museum Vienna456 Liechtenstein Museum Vienna229 Lindenau-Museum Altenburg68 Lower Church, San Francesco Assisi61 Mauritshuis The Hague91 Metropolitan Museum of Art New York794 Musée Condé Chantilly 66 Musée d'Orsay Paris430 Musée du Louvre Paris1715 Musée d'Unterlinden Colmar58 Musée Rodin Paris60 Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium Brussels187 Museo Correr Venice53 Museo del Prado Madrid742 Museo del Settecento Veneziano, Ca' Rezzonico Venice66 Museo dell'Opera del Duomo Florence105 Museo dell'Opera del Duomo Siena94 Museo di San Marco Florence75 Museo Diocesano Cortona69 Palazzo Ducale Venice132 Museo Nazionale del Bargello Florence163 Museo Nazionale di Capodimonte Naples68 Museo Poldi Pezzoli Milan70 Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza Madrid256 Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen Rotterdam77 Museum Mayer van den Bergh Antwerp62 Museum of Fine Arts Boston177 Museum voor Schone Kunsten Ghent78 Národní Galerie Prague91 National Gallery of Art Washington517 Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten Antwerp141 National Gallery of Scotland Edinburgh84 National Gallery London545 Nationalgalerie Berlin99 Neue Pinakothek Munich100 Palazzo Vecchio Florence58 Museum of Art Philadelphia54 Pinacoteca di Brera Milan225 Pinacoteca Nazionale Siena73 Pinacoteca Vatican105 Pushkin Museum Moscow68 Residenzgalerie Salzburg77 Rijksmuseum Kröller-Müller Otterlo69 Rijksmuseum Vincent van Gogh Amsterdam128 Rijksmuseum Amsterdam674 Rockox House Antwerp58 Royal Collection Windsor167 Royal Library Windsor61 San Francesco Arezzo 135 Santa Maria Gloriosa dei Frari Venice70 Scuola Grande di San Rocco Venice126 Staatliche Museen Berlin795 Staatliche Museen Kassel 98 Städelsches Kunstinstitut Frankfurt 113 Stanza della Segnatura, Palazzi Pontifici Vatican 61 Szépmûvészeti Múzeum Budapest 533 Tate Gallery London 57 The Hermitage St. Petersburg 1106 Upper Church, San Francesco Assisi 84 Victoria and Albert Museum London 82 Wallace Collection London 168 Wallraf–Richartz Museum Cologne 153
See also List of artists in the Web Gallery of Art (A–K) List of artists in the Web Gallery of Art (L–Z) List of sculptors in the Web Gallery of Art List of graphic artists in the Web Gallery of Art The Artchive WebMuseum
References
External links