Promising Beginning? Evaluating Museum Mobile Phone Apps

Since 2009 museums have started introducing mobile apps in their range of interpretative media and visitor services. As mobile technology continues to develop and permeate all aspects of our life, and the capabilities of smart phones increase while they become more accessible and popular, new possibilities arise for cultural institutions to exploit these tools for communicating in new ways and promoting their exhibitions and programmes. The use of mobile apps opens up new channels of communication between the cultural institution and the user, which extent to his or her personal space and go beyond the boundaries of the museum’s walls. The paper presents a survey carried out of mobile apps designed by art or cultural historical museums and analyses the wider issues which are raised by the findings. It discusses, among others, the kind of use these apps were designed to fulfil (e.g. the majority are guided tours to the permanent collections or to temporary exhibitions), the layering of content,and the type of user interaction and involvement they support

Connecting TEI Content Into an Ontology of the Editorial Domain

We argued elsewhere that, in order to support interoperable annotations, editions should provide machine-readable identifiers for text and text fragments, as well as information about the text fragments’ type and structure. That is to say, they should be embedded in a Linked Open Data context that facilitates interchange and interpretation of annotation. In this article, assuming a TEI context, we consider the practical question of how the relevant RDF triples are to be derived. How is the edition to know which URIs are to be assigned to which elements in the XML hierarchy, and what are the relevant classes and properties? We discuss different options. Our preference is to generate the relevant triples upon ingestion of the XML file in a version control system and then to store the triples in the TEI xenodata element. We briefly consider situations in which cases the fine-grained annotation that we want to facilitate might be appropriate, or not

Van Gogh\u27s Ghost Paintings: Chapters 1-3

One of the most significant and revealing paintings by the world famous artist Vincent van Gogh was never seen by anyone but the artist himself. The painting was so important to the artist that he painted it twice. He was so conflicted about the painting that he destroyed it twice. Cliff Edwards argues these two unique paintings Vincent created and destroyed are at least as important to understanding the artist and his work as are the two thousand or more paintings and drawings that do exist. In Van Gogh\u27s Ghost Paintings, Edwards invites his readers on a journey that begins in a Zen master\u27s room in Japan and ends at a favorite site of the artist, a ruined monastery and its garden in the south of France. Recovering the intent of van Gogh and the nature of his ghost paintings becomes a zen koan waiting to be solved. The solution offers access to the deepest levels of the artist\u27s life as painter and spiritual pilgrim. The journey leads to the artist\u27s choice of the biblical theme of the Garden of Gethsemane. The answer to the mystery of the lost paintings illuminates the relationship of joy and suffering, discovery and creation, religion and the arts in van Gogh\u27s life and work. In this fascinating book Edwards solves a long-ignored mystery that provides a critical key to the relation of van Gogh\u27s religion and art

Buddhist imagery in the work of Paul Gauguin: the impact of primitivism, theology and cultural studies

Title from PDF of title page, viewed on July 25, 2014Thesis advisor: Francis ConnellyVitaIncludes bibliographical references (pages 49-52)Thesis (M. A.)--Dept. of Art and Art History. University of Missouri--Kansas City, 2014Scholars attribute aesthetics in Gauguin's work to the 1889 Paris Exposition universelle and Gauguin's quest for the primitive and 'exotic. This study takes a deeper look at Gauguin and examines the personal context in which his works were created. This will show Gauguin's immense suffering and unhappiness as a result of separation from family, financial and health struggles. The personal context of the artists' life, I argue, influenced the appropriation of Buddhist imagery in his work. I examine the visual elements within Gauguin's work that link his subject matter to Buddhism and look closely at several major works, including Nirvana, Self--Portrait, Caribbean Woman, and Te nave nave fenua that clearly appropriate Buddhist imagery. Gauguin's incorporation of mudras, color palettes, and other subject matter express his Buddhist sympathies. His appropriation of formal motifs served his spiritual beliefs just as much as his aesthetic purposes. My research draws on recent scholarship on Gauguin, and utilizes the artist's personal letters and manuscripts. Through these letters I examine Gauguin’s failed marriage, his struggles with health and financial issues and his drive to be an artist. It is in this context of marital conflict and personal struggle that Gauguin's embrace of Buddhist imagery should be understood. Although Buddhist motifs were among many exotic elements appropriated by Gauguin, including PreColumbian, Egyptian, Marquesan, and Tahitian, they alone carried a particular personal significance for the artistCollege of Arts and SciencesAbstract -- List of illustrations -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction -- The personal context of suffering and unhappiness -- Buddhist imagery in the work of Paul Gauguin -- Illustrations -- Bibliographymonographi

Meet Amadeo: a proposal

A aposta nas indústrias criativas e culturais é cada vez mais importante para um desenvolvimento económico sustentável, combinando aspetos económicos, culturais, socias e tecnológicos. É também importante perceber como instituições seculares como os museus se tem adaptado aos novos tempos e aproveitado as novas tecnologias e novas formas de exposição em seu benefício, como o Edutainment. Através da revisão de literatura e entrevistas a entidades que trabalham na área, foi proposto fazer uma análise ao Edutainment e como é que este é usado em contexto museológico. Decorrente desta análise os seus resultados foram aplicados à proposta de transferir o modelo da exposição Edutainment e imersiva Meet Vincent, idealizada pelo Museu Van Gogh de Amesterdão, para a realidade portuguesa. Com realidade portuguesa, quer-se dizer pegar no essencial da exposição imersiva criada na Holanda e aplicá-la à vida e obra de Amadeo de Souza Cardoso, o pintor escolhido para o projeto. Diferente de outras exposições imersivas, tanto a exposição Meet Vincent como a proposta feita doravante prezam por partilhar o homem por detrás do pintor e a forma como a sua vivência terá influenciado a sua arte. Exposições imersivas não são novidades, mas acredita-se que o diferencial de transportar a audiência até aos anos 10 do século XX, ao dia a dia de Amadeo possa tornar a proposta de conhecer Amadeo de Souza Cardoso bem-sucedida.The focus on creative and cultural industries is increasingly important for a sustainable economic development, combining economic, cultural, social and technological aspects. It is also important to understand how secular institutions like museums have adapted to the new times and taken advantage of new technologies and new exhibition formats in their benefit, like Edutainment. Through literature review and interviews with entities that work in the area, we analysed Edutainment and how it is used in the museological context. The results of this analysis were applied to the proposal we present: transferring the Edutainment model and immersive exhibition Meet Vincent, created by the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, to the Portuguese reality. By Portuguese reality, we mean taking the essentials of the immersive exhibition created in the Netherlands and applying them to the life and work of Amadeo de Souza Cardoso, the painter chosen for the project. Unlike other immersive exhibitions, both the Meet Vincent exhibition and the proposal made hereafter aim to share the man behind the painter and the way in which his life experience influenced his art. Immersive exhibitions are not new, but it is believed that the differential of transporting the audience to the 10's of the 20th century, to Amadeo's daily life can make the proposal of meeting Amadeo de Souza Cardoso successful

Quantifying Artistic Success: Ranking French Painters - and Paintings - from Impressionism to Cubism

For 35 leading painters who lived in France during the first century of modern art, this paper uses textbook illustrations as the basis for measuring the importance of both painters and individual paintings. The rankings pose an interesting puzzle: why do some of the greatest artists not produce famous paintings, and why do some relatively minor artists produce some of the most famous individual paintings? The answer may lie in an important difference in approach between experimental and conceptual painters. Experimental artists work incrementally, their innovations appear gradually, and they generally do their best work late in their careers; conceptual artists innovate more suddenly, produce individual breakthrough works, and usually do their best work early in their careers. This paper demonstrates that artistic success can usefully be quantified, and that doing so increases our understanding of the working methods of modern painters.

Commonwealth Times 1991-05-07

https://scholarscompass.vcu.edu/com/1648/thumbnail.jp

Capturing Chloe: Reimagining a Melbourne icon

The nude painting Chloe, created in 1875 by French artist Jules Lefebvre, which has hung at Young and Jackson Hotel since 1909, is a much-loved Melbourne cultural icon. Chloe has been the subject of controversy and mythologising, particularly in relation to the Parisian model who sat for the painting. This production-based thesis, through a work of historical fiction and an exegesis, imaginatively renders and recontextualises Lefebvre’s Chloe to illustrate how these myths have, in part, contributed to reductive portrayals and interpretations of both the painting and its model. The manuscript “Capturing Chloe” is a fictional narrative tracing Chloe’s impact on an Australian family during World War One, and the volatile world of Jules Lefebvre’s Parisian model, as she and other proletarian women determine to challenge the social and political forces that oppress them in the aftermath of the Second French Empire and the Franco-Prussian War. The exegesis uses textual analysis and historical research to interrogate the origins of Chloe, and the source of myths that have variously constructed or constituted identities for the painting’s model. While exploring shifting ideas about the model’s identity since the painting’s debut in 1875, this analysis demonstrates the significance of textual artefacts in the ongoing process of reinterpreting and remaking Chloe. The exegesis explores an anecdote Lefebvre shared about his model, and a tale the Anglo-Irish writer George Moore wrote about “Lefebvre’s Chloe” in his memoirs. This work describes Moore’s student days in Paris, and his mythologising of a young woman who, I propose, may have been the model for Chloe. By recontextualising, reimagining and rewriting myths about Chloe’s model, and exploring the painting’s origins and its reception by Australian viewers throughout the decades, this thesis contributes new insights into and an original understanding of one of Australia’s most celebrated cultural icons

Vincent Van Gogh's christian faith and how it influenced his life and art

The genesis of this thesis was the experience of the transcendent quality of Vincent van Gogh’s oeuvre. The hypothesis is that Van Gogh pursued his vocation to be a minister of Christ through art having failed in his desire to pursue a vocation in the institutional church. The perspective is through the lens of Christian Spirituality and the concept of transformation leading to transcendence. Van Gogh’s life is viewed as a compulsive mission, a pilgrimage with both a physical and spiritual dimension. His physical journey is well documented. His spiritual journey seems almost as clear when his obsession with depicting the Sower is analysed in the light of that parable and Christ’s Gospel as expressed as much in his artworks as in his correspondence. Account is taken of the abundant critical literature including Christocentric analyses. These latter tend to focus on the trilogy of paintings which unmistakably represent religious biblical images: The Pietà (after Delacroix), The Good Samaritan (after Delacroix), and The Raising of Lazarus (after Rembrandt). However, this ignores the rich Christian symbolism that can be found in so much of his other work through his understanding of chromatics and the choice of his subject matter. Van Gogh’s early life as an art dealer exposed him to a wide variety of artistic genres and styles. He also became an advocate for and an adept in Japonisme. Van Gogh was multilingual and widely read in his native Dutch and in English and French. He was immersed in the Bible and Christ’s teaching. All of this combined in his developing mastery of a personalised art form which found expression in depictions beginning with The Potato Eaters, continuing through numerous works of sowers, harvest and reaping, culminating in the death and resurrection symbolism in his final works, Wheatfields with Crows and Roots. Christian spirituality evidenced in that mission