High Resolution Scanning
As scanning technology advances, museums are spending more time and money to create extremely high quality scans of every centimeter of a painting, so you can zoom into every detail without losing quality. The Lesley Library pays for a database of these images, called Artstor, linked below. Some scans are so advanced they are hosted on the museum website instead of Artstor, so try searching online for high quality scan of *name of work* to see if you can find an even better scan. Check out some examples of museums using the latest technology below.
- Artstor
Create an account while on campus wifi (or e-mail moriartylibrary@lesley.edu from your Lesley e-mail address to ask for an account). Museums provide Artstor with extremely high quality scans you can zoom into. Search for a work of art, artist, period, medium, etc., and zoom into the smallest details! - British Museum 3D Scans3D models of historical objects in the British Museum's collection
- Google Arts and CultureGAC links to museum scans of art which are often higher quality and more recent than the Artstor scans. However Artstor can be useful if you want to see an older scan of a work before it was modernly conserved.
- For example
If you search GAC for Vermeer's painting "Diana and Her Companions" you will find the modern scan of the image to the right. Whereas in Artstor, you can find a scan from before its modern conservation, which reveals that after the artists death someone painted in a blue sky. This is how using scans from the past in conjunction with modern high-res scans can give a fuller understanding to the life of an artwork
