At the end of the last century, Oliver Wendell Holmes
reminded us that, A mind that is stretched
to a new idea never returns to its original dimensions. At
the end of our present century, the wisdom of this insight holds
particular currency in that each new year sees radical change in
the scenographer's art.
The decade from 1985 to 1995 was an exciting one, albeit a
challenging one, for most scenographers. During that time,
however, the settled ideas as to what skills and knowledge are
necessary for many scenographers to practice their art came into
question. And in no area of scenographic craft have changes become
more apparent than in the gathering of visual and factual
information for scenographic design projects.
Since the middle of the nineteenth century, theater designers
have mainly depended on public and academic libraries, along with
museums and galleries, for much of their visual research. Most
scenographers also resort to personal collection of research
images and information to augment what they find in outside
sources. Now, along with these traditional resources, computer
technology has begun to provide important new ways to accomplish
scenographic image research; increasingly it is possible to gather
digital information for use in computer scenographic projects over
network connections and from CD-ROM archives.
Some years back a television advertisement for The Yellow Pages
portion of telephone directories counseled viewers to let you
fingers do the walking. Today scenographers, without leaving the
studio can do just that: let their fingers walk to vast image
resources that may be continents apart but are just minutes,
sometimes only seconds, away. Scenographers who are connected to
the Internet, are finding, in fact, that they have a research
resource unlike any available before.
It is very important that when a valuable site is found, that
it be bookmarked immediately. A word of warning: the Internet is a
mutable thing; that is, it is a moving target and always in a
state of flux. Without an orderly procedure to the gathering of
research sites, Chaos is come again, as Macbeth so aptly
observed concerning the flow of time and events. Regularly
checking the validity of your bookmarks or updating old links with
new addresses is a recommended on-going practice.
The
Thinker:
The San Francisco Fine Art Museums
This is quite probably the most extensive collection
of art images on the Internet today. This site has more than
60,000 images online. There
is a search engine that allows for detailed searches for
specific categories of art works or artists.
Vatican
Museum
A wide range of paintings, sculpture, architecture,
and art objects are found at the various museums and galleries
at this site. One entire gallery is devoted to the Sistine
Chapel. The image below was downloaded from this site.
WebMuseum
This an extremely valuable site for finding a vast
collection of paintings along with individual histories of
artists. Historical context of the works of art shown is also
available at this site. Each artists usually has a number of
representative works on view. Below is a typical image by
Dürer:
Glossary of
Painting Styles
This is a subheading on the WebMuseum
page useful to those needing basic information on
historical painting movements and styles. Along with brief
histories of each are pertinent links to artists who
exemplified or are identified with particular schools or groups
of artists.
ReNATssance
Art
A very personal art history website by Natale Williams
ranging from the Renaissance to Impressionism. The range of art
available on this site, along with extensive notes and links to
related museum sites makes it a valuable site to research
bookmark.
The
Web Gallery of Art
This following Internet museum is currently the best
overall resource available for artworks falling within the
dates given below. This notice occurs on the first page of the
site:
The Web Gallery of Art contains over 5,000 digital
reproductions of European paintings and sculptures created
between the years 1200 and 1700. A considerable number of the
pictures are commented and biographies of the significant
artists are given. A versatile search engine allows you to find
pictures in the collection using various search criteria. A
number of guided tours make it easier to visit the Gallery and
to understand the artistic and historical relationship between
different artworks and artists included in the collection
Leonardo
Museum
A number of Leonardo da Vinci images are available at
this site. Below is one of his famous drawings of hands. There
is even another
Leonardo da Vinci gallery in addition to this one.
The
Institute of Egyptian Art and Archeology
This site is maintained by The Institute of Egyptian
Art & Archaeology, founded in 1984, and is a component of
the Department of Art of The University of Memphis, in Memphis,
Tennessee (USA). It is dedicated to the study of the art and
culture of ancient Egypt through teaching, research,
exhibition, and community education. The Institute's collection
of antiquities resides in the Art Museum of The University of
Memphis. Over 150 objects range in date from 3500 B.C.E. to 700
C.E. There are mummies, religious and funerary items, jewelry,
and objects from everyday life. Also available at this site is
a color tour of Egypt.
Folger's
Library Exhibitions
The Folger's Library site has on-going exhibitions of
text and visual materials that relate to Shakespeare's period.
Many useful research items and leads are to be found at the
site. The image below is part of an exhibition on Renaissance
Festivals.
Smithsonian
Photographs Online
Like the Library of Congress, The Smithsonian has many
collections of photographs and other graphic files. At this
site Internet users can search and retrieve these images from
The Smithsonian Photographic Services
Data Base.The topics range from Air and Space, to
science, nature, technology, history, and people and places.
These images are stored in approximately 1,000 gif files. A few
of the exhibitions currently on line are:
Publication Illustrations by
Smithsonian Photographers. A continuing series,
featuring selections of photographs by the staff of the Office
of Printing and Photographic Services used to illustrate
various books, magazines and articles.
Magic Lanterns Magic Mirrors - A
Centennial Salute to Cinema. From an exhibition
produced by the Photographic History Collection at the
Smithsonian's National Museum of American History. A slide show
of award-winning photographs by Smithsonian
photographers Photographs from
the Dinosaur Hall of the Smithsonian's National Museum of
Natural History.
LACMAweb:
This Los Angeles museum has several on-line
exhibitions that include selections from their permanent
collection. The categories available at this site are: American
Art, Ancient and Islamic Art, Costumes and Textiles, Decorative
Arts, European Painting and Sculpture, Far Eastern Art, Indian
and Southeast Asian Art, Photography, Prints and Drawings, and
Twentieth Century Art. Approximately 12 images are included
under each of these headings and available for downloading.
The Milieux
Costume Page
This is one of the most complete costume pages now on
the Internet. It lists itself as an online costuming source for
historical, science fiction, and fantasy costumers. This site
brings together a vast list of costume page locations. It also
includes mail order resources.
The
History of Costume by Braun and Schnieder-c.1861-1880
This deals with only one subject: a nineteenth century
book of costume plates. The images are in both small and large
format for study or downloading.
Paris
Music Hall Collection at the Hargrett Library
The Paris Music Hall Collection comprises over 6,000
original renderings of costume designs and 1,000 original
renderings of curtain designs for the music halls of Paris from
1920-1938. The Collection, acquired in 1968 by the Library, was
originally the property of Max Weldy who provided the elaborate
costumes and curtains to the Folies Bergere, Moulin Rouge and
other popular cabarets and music halls. Weldy maintained a
stable of young, extraordinarily imaginative designers who
flocked to Paris from all over Europe to establish a name for
themselves. Among the designers represented in this collection
are: George Barbier, Jean Le Seyeaux, Ladislas Czettel, Jose de
Zamora, Alec Shanks, Freddy Wittop, Ranson, Hugh Willoughby,
Cedric White, Zig, Edouard Halouze, Dany Barry, Paul
Seltenhammer, and Louis Curti.
All images in these collections are either protected by
copyright law, or are the property of the University of Georgia
Libraries, Hargrett Library. Permission to publish MUST be
obtained from both the Hargrett Library, and/or the legal
copyright holder.
The
Costume Page
This is a good all-purpose site that maintains many
links with other costume pages and related research materials,
suppliers museums, and various organizations.
History
of Greek Costume
This site has a good collection of historical data on
Greek costume and related cultures including those of Minoan,
Ancient Greece, Roman, and Byzantium. It also has 18th and 19th
century materials.
The Art
Deco-Erte Museum
This site is for fashion and theater designers. It
maintain a very good collection of Art Deco costume designs and
related arts materials.
Heraldica
This site provides a large number of sources for both
graphic and text information as to how heraldic images are
devised and categorized. The sources listed from this location
are especially valuable for costume and property designers as
well as for scenographers.
The
Regency Fashion Page
This is a site with a large number of categories with
many images in each. The images are largely contemporary
fashion plates like the one shown below.
Afternoon Dress (Half Mourning Dress) 1794
-1804
Antique
Costumes for Sale
This is actually a site that has antique costumes for
sale. The images are useful
as research.
The
Mucha Poster Site
This site has a number of Alphonse Mucha posters.
These are useful to scenographers as well as to costume
designers.
A
Roman Palace in Dalmatiaia
This is an architecture reconstruction of a late Roman
palace.
Renaissance
and Baroque Architecture
This is an excellent site for good images of
Renaissance and Baroque architecture and scenic vistas. The
materials cover most of Europe and the British Isles. There is
a thumbnail view of each image in each category that opens to a
larger downloadable image. Not only are there long views of
buildings and vistas, but also a large number of close-up
images of details.
Bomarzo
This site shows many images from the famed
phantasmagoric statues in the garden of Vicino Orsini, the Duke
of Bomarzo, 1528-1588. It is a place where scenographers can
find many evocative images for use in scenographic designs.
The
Ancient City of Athens
This is a site that has a number of materials and
links dealing with the historical city of Athens. In has a
number of color photographs of ruins.
The
Thorn Cathedral Images
This is part of the Vatican Museums Sites, but is
unique enough to have a citation of its own. Several good views
of a particular cathedral in Thorn, Netherlands reside at this
site. It is a good example of the kinds of materials available
on the Internet.
New
Orleans Cemeteries: Tinted Photos
Again, this is a small site that deals with a limited
subject. Again, it shows how particular and detailed that
information can be found and brought into the scenographers
studio.
Amiens
Cathedral Slide Collection
The screen below shows only a small part of the images
available at this site. In addition to interior and exterior
views of the cathedral, there are also drawings and close-up
architectural detail images.
