
Edouard ManetBerthe Morisot au bouquet de violettes
1872
Photo (C) RMN-Grand Palais (musée d’Orsay) / Hervé Lewandowski
See French Art on Twitter – Fine Art in the New Media
DianeDrubay|Buzzeum
@DianeDrubay
On October 14, 2015, Diane Drubay tweeted:
“The French Minister of Culture @fleurpellerin launches http://www.images-art.fr @GrandPalaisRmn #museum #imagesdart.”
One might say, “So what, people tweet lots of stuff.” However, this shows how through a simple tweet, you can unlock high resolution images from French Art, download them, find out where they are located, tweet the images to others, and much more, all from a simple tweet.
In this blog we review and report on ways that the tools of the new media, in this case, Twitter, can make Art accessible to everyone, everywhere. The tweet is only 119 characters. Yet, it presents us with a gateway into French Art through the “looking glass” [“portal”] of a site created by the French Ministry of Culture.
As you will see from the screen shot of the site’s main page (below)’ the works may be searched by Authors, Periods, Locations, Techniques, and Colors. These are artworks from major museums in France assembled in one place.

Screen Shot- Images d’ Art
Suppose you chose the 19th century as the period you would like to see. The screen shot below shows you how many works you may view, in this case 125597!

Screen Shot Images d’ Art
Then, suppose you would like to find out whether a particular museum has any in its collection in this case the musée d’Orsay. There are 30017 works.

Screen Shot Images d’ Art
Now, suppose you want to share, “heart,” email, or download an image. Below is a screen shot of – La gare Saint-Lazare by Claude Monet.

Claude Monet –
La gare Saint-Lazare
Images d’ Art is a superior example of the use of New Media for Fine Art. It meets all of the criteria stated in our Purpose page:
“1. The first advantage of Fine Art in the new media is that it should be accessible, from the Google Art Project, and the new and dynamic Museum websites for the Louvre, the Metropolitan, the Musée d’Orsay, the Museum of Fine Arts, the Van Gogh Museum, and others so that, “There is [virtually] nothing between me and my Leonardo.”
2. Fine Art in the new media should be interactive, the zoom views of Google Art being a present prime example.
3. Fine Art in the new media should be viewer directed. “I want to see what I want to see.”
4. Fine Art in the new media should be able to be manipulated, which enables the viewer to use their creativity. to examine, adapt, and experiment with the art. In this sense, you can even make one of your pictures look like a Warhol .
5. Fine Art in the new media should be comparative , enabling the viewer to array pictures from different museums side by side to study technique, execution, and genre.
6. Lastly, Fine Art in the new media should be able to be viewed as a continuum. of man’s effort at visual expression.”