FYI France: JOCONDE -- The museums of France are online!

[Jack Kessler <kessler@WELL.COM>]

FYI France: JOCONDE -- The museums of France are online!


The database Joconde now may be reached at  http://www.culture.fr , and
provides general public access to the collection records -- and a small
but growing number of their accompanying images -- of more than 60
museums in France.

Joconde already can reach records of designs, prints, paintings,
sculptures, photographs, and art objects, representing 130,000 works of
art and 10,000 artists, and an increasing number of inline GIF images.

The search procedure is friendly and interesting: sample screen
(translated) --

Iconography (subject):
Name of the artist:
City or museum:
School:
Century:
Type of work:

Other indexes include style, technique, title, inscription, subject,
provenance, and "onomastique" and "mille'sime".

The interface provides the ability to limit searches to documents which
are accompanied by an image, and provides for online browsing of lists
of key terms. Numberic retrieval limits may be set for a) full records
displayed, b) short records displayed, and c) titles displayed. There
is online help, and the ability to ask questions.

What you find is description in some detail: example -- currently, a
search simply on "Nom d'artiste: gauguin" will obtain a list of 42
title entries, and the same search restricted to "Limitation aux
documents avec image" yields the following two records, with very nice
accompanying GIF inline images which blow up very well on an America
Online viewer:

1) Gauguin, Paul [link to full list of 42 JOCONDE entries maintained
for his works] , "Nature Morte aux Oranges" [link to full record -- and
accompanying image -- of the holdings entry for the original work],
(1882 avant); Rennes; Muse'e des Beaux - Arts; peinture a` l'huile;
toile; 33H, 46L; Mille'sime: 1882 avant; Repre'sentation: nature morte
(vaisselle, orange fruit, couteau, bouteille); Gene`se: avec oeuvre
apparentee connue;

2) Gauguin, Paul [same link to full list of JOCONDE entries for
Gauguin]; "Vase de Fleurs" [same link to full holdings record, and
inline image]; (1880 vers); Rennes; Muse'e des Beaux - Arts; peinture
a` l'huile; toile; 19H, 27L; Mille'sime:  1880 vers; Repre'sentation:
nature morte (vase, bouquet, livre, fenetre, balustrade), maison, ciel;
Gene`se: avec oeuvre apparentee connue.

The full Muse'e des Beaux - Arts de Rennes holdings entry for work #1
above is:

[first -- importantly, as this is the WorldWideWeb and online media
after all -- a really very beautiful inline image, and then... ]

Gauguin Paul
"Nature Morte Aux Oranges"

Pre'c. auteur:          PERIODE IMPRESSIONISTE
Ecole:                  France
Pe'riode:               4e quart 19e sie`cle
Mille'sime:             1882 avant
Domaine:                Peinture
De'nomination:          tableau
Repre'sentation:        nature morte (vaisselle, orange fruit, couteau,
                        bouteille)
Technique:              peinture a` l'huile; toile
Dimensions (CM):        33 H; 46 L
Gene`se:                avec oeuvre aparentee connue
Pre'c. gene`se:         coupe de fruits tres proche, par gauguin,
                        presentee a l'exposition l'impressionnisme, a`
                        Nancy, en 1938
Inscription:            signe'
Pre'c. inscription:     P. Gauguin (S.B.G.)
Localisation:           Rennes; Muse'e des Beaux-Arts
Statut juridique:       Proprie'te' de l'Etat; Muse'e du Louvre Peintures
Inventaire:             D 55.5.1; RF 2766
Lieu en de'po^t:        en de'po^t; Rennes; Muse'e des Beaux-Arts
Date de de'po^t:        1955
Ancien de'po^t:         Muse'e du Luxembourg
Appartenances:          Chaplet (1929)
Exposition:             1882 Paris; 7e Exposition Impresioniste, Paris, 1882
Bibliographie:          Cogniat, L'Oeuvre de P. Gauguin, 1966
Photo:                  Cliche' muse'e
Date syste`me:          1990/05/28
Re'fe'rence:            00000074658
Copyright:              (C) Copyright Direction des Muse'es de France, 1986

There is an astonishing richness here: not only of images and
information and access points and indexing, but also of openness to the
general public and overall effort. I am aware of a few extraordinary
efforts under way in other countries to organize and mount such a
service, but of none so advanced yet as this of the French.

Where are the multimedia presentations, featuring text and sound and
links, all the accompaniment which a good cdrom on the subject might
have? One suspects that all this is not far behind. In the meantime a
user has all the advantages of online over cdrom -- currency, greater
availability (Joconde, the online service, may be reached from anywhere
-- in airplanes now -- at any time, regardless of whether you've
brought your cdrom drive along), constant updating of data and system
features -- Joconde is a work - in - progress, and will grow as
France's extraordinary effort in online media grows.

Some of us may remember Andre' Malraux: "... And if, after so many
years of oblivion, we hear the song that follows after a plainsong of a
crusade or a chant of the Ramayana, it is not because the historians
have restored the text to us, or because we have rediscovered the faith
of the twelfth century or of the age of the Vedas; it is because we
admire them in the company of the statues of Sumer and of the Indian
grottoes, of the Acropolis and of the tombs of Florence -- in the
company of all the statues of the earth. It is the song of
metamorphosis, and no one before us has heard it -- the song in which
esthetics, dreams, and even religions are no longer more than librettos
to an inexhaustible music."

The Music of the Spheres. Perhaps this is one mission -- perhaps _the_
mission -- of the Internet: to democratize and to harmonize. That
schoolchildren in Mandalay might one day have access to scholarship and
images by Gauguin located half a world away, by tapping on a laptop, is
a dream which even Malraux might never have imagined.

XXX


FYIFrance e - newsletter        ISSN 1071 - 5916

      *
      |           FYIFrance is a monthly electronic newsletter,
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      |           experiment, in the creation of large - scale
      |           "information overload", by Jack Kessler. Any material
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    -----         copied and used by anyone for any good purpose, so
   //   \\        long as, a) they give me credit and show my e - mail
  ---------       address and, b) it isn't going to make them money: if
 //       \\      if it is going to make them money, they must get my
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which they get with me. Use of material written by others requires
their permission. FYIFrance archives may be reached online at
http://infolib.berkeley.edu , or via gopher to infolib.berkeley.edu 72
or  gopher.well.sf.ca.us  or  gopher.univ-rennes1.fr (BIBLIO-FR
econference archive), or via telnet to  a.cni.org  , login  brsuser
(PACS / PACS-L e - conference archive). Suggestions, reactions,
criticisms, praise, and poison - pen letters all will be gratefully
received at  kessler@well.sf.ca.us .

XXX

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