Early last year, the Smithsonian announced that they would be opening up their digital collection for the world to see. The first phase constitutes over 40,000 pieces of art, including over 400 photographs, from the Freer and Sackler Galleries and the Freer Study Collection, all of which focus on the museum’s Asian gallery collections. The collections are available for anyone to download and use for free for non-commercial use under a program they call Open F|S.
The Smithsonian claims that most of this massive collection, which covers the period between the Neolithic period and the present day, has not been seen by the public. According to The Verge, the Smithsonian says the collection, which took over 6 years to digitize, includes “1,806 American art objects, 1,176 ancient Egyptian objects, 2,076 ancient Near Eastern objects, 10,424 Chinese objects, 2,683 Islamic objects, and 1,213 South and Southeast Asian objects.” In addition to photographs, the cache includes everything from paintings, manuscripts, books, weapons, ceramics, drawings, jewelry, ancient armor, still life and maps.
Image: Kenro Izu, Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery
Image: Tsuchida Hiromi, Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery
Image: Tsuchida Hiromi, Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery
Image: Lois Conner, Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery
Image: An-My Le, Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery
Image: Jananne Al-Ani, Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery
[via The Verge]
Gotta love the times we live in now! The Smithsonian is CENSORING ART! Looked at the collection and one of the blanked out ones is Whistlers' 'Green Cap'. You have to be kidding...when will they start burning witches? Surely this country is not far from that point.