The global gallery...
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By Dave Harris in Blog Published: Tuesday, 20 July 10 - 08:36 PM (GMT) Last Updated: Thursday, 22 July 10 - 03:47 PM (GMT) |
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Isn’t the interweb a wonderful thing?
Ok, let’s just get past the nasty stuff that’s sadly on there, and ask the question again. Isn’t the www.eb a wonderful thing?
Fact is, I love books, and in particular, I love buying, owning and pouring over books on various artists, be they classic, modern, whatever. If an artist grabs my eye, I love nothing more than digging around in book shops or surfing the intercontinental Waterstones, or as I like to call it, Amazon, and finding a good representation of his or her life and work in a book. My bookshelves hate me, but I love it. It’s one of my simple pleasures in life.
Way back when, when I was studying art history at school and later in art college, resource was slightly more, how shall we say, limited. If you didn’t have a copy of E.H.Gombrich’s ‘The Story of Art’, you were buggered. That and a healthy library card, unless of course you had wealthy parents. No one I knew had wealthy parents. Come to think of it, nobody I know now has wealthy parents….
Anyhoo, resource was limited and so research proved difficult. But, we managed, >cue Hovis sound track< we got through with what we had. We borrowed books from the library, (that's if we were lucky enough to find one on the subject you were interested in), Because that’s what you did, and that’s what one does. You manage with what you have available, just like kids and students make do with what they have available to them now, today.
Only difference now is……wow, what a difference, what a resource.
The web provides instant access to an art world few of us could have imagined, way back in the late 70’s. Need to discover the life story of Ingres or a reference pic of Piotrek by Wilhelm Sasnal? Have no fear, Google images is here. It’s magic. The accessibility is a joy, and, as a lover of the arts, for me, it’s ability to let you access and discover the work of artists you may never have come across previously (unless you had an art collection the envy of the British library), is just a wonder.
If there are any techies, webbo’s or whatever reading this and thinking….’whatever’, then please forgive the mild ramblings of a kid in a proverbial candy store.
Hell, they’ve never had it so good. Luckily, neither have we.
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