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Christine L. Sundt
Curator and Professor, Visual Resources, Architecture and Allied Arts Library
University of Oregon, Eugene
An image seeker is a motivated user for whom needing a picture of
something is the ultimate motivation. Time, or its absence, often dictates
the urgency of the need. Cost is another factor: whether the image
is worth the price, whether time is more precious than money. Some
users know exactly what they want, while others are simply shopping
for a good fit between an idea and its representation. How they communicate
their needs, what obstacles they encounter in their quest, and how
to help them avoid common pitfalls are some of the key points I address
in this essay.
People look for images today as they always have, but they also look
for them in new and different ways. This "then" and "now" dichotomy
can be restated as traditional or manual access versus online or digital
access. Traditionally, an image seeker—with or without a specific
image in mind—began by browsing through books and magazines, using
resources within reach with or without a specific image in mind. If
the search through the materials at hand proved unsuccessful, the investigation
would widen: with the help of a skilled reference professional, the
user could find catalogues, published indexes, or vertical files where
pictures were stored for the convenience of the information professional,
and sometimes the user. Access systems for these files were largely
idiosyncratic—conceived and constructed by whoever was in charge
of the materials—because classification systems for pictures were,
and for the most part are still, lacking uniformity and conformity
to any standard. With the help of a resourceful information professional
gifted with a photographic memory, homegrown finding aids, and a share
of good luck, the searcher's needs could usually be fulfilled.
Today's digital environment offers new possibilities—and new
challenges—for the image seeker under the guise of technology
that seems to empower the end-user. By using the World Wide Web search
engines or connecting to the many online sites specializing in art,
architecture, and cultural heritage resources, users can browse through
images without going to a library or an image archive, or asking anyone
for assistance. Remote access has its benefits, especially when a search
can be undertaken at any time of the day or night, but ultimately the
success of the search depends on the skills, knowledge, and luck of
the seeker, and on how well the resources being searched have been
constructed and indexed. Success can be achieved through this kind
of "unmediated" research, but the chances of finding the best fit quickly
and efficiently are often small. The results of some searches produce
too many choices, or they may be incomplete and confusing.
With images playing a much greater role in our everyday lives than
ever before, the user, even the experienced scholar, has to deal with
many obstacles in the quest for an elusive image. The need for better
avenues to image resources is still an unfulfilled dream for many.
Over the past few decades, new tools have been created to assist with
specialized terminology and complex subject descriptions, as described
elsewhere in this book. These tools can take us a long way toward the
goal of removing the language-based roadblocks, but only if they are
implemented consistently by those who build information resources and
utilized to their full potential by the user. The challenges for librarians,
archivists, cataloguers, and developers of new tools that can assist
users in accessing images are obvious:
- To create interfaces that accommodate and guide
end-users through either or both simple and complex
queries for both known and unknown images
- To build "knowledge bridges"—that is, to
fill in the knowledge gaps between the user, the
image, and the textual data used to describe the
image
- To recognize the complexities that are often
inherent in the "document-in-hand"—in most
cases the image itself —in developing access
points to that "document"
Anatomy of the Image User
We know something about users through studies, but regrettably we
still lack enough information to know everything about their needs.
We should more closely scrutinize our user logs to discover what our
users are looking for and the words and phrases they are using in formulating
their searches. From a study by Linda H. Armitage and Peter G. B. Enser,
we know that users' needs have been neglected as an area of serious
inquiry. We also know that there are noticeable similarities in how
people formulate queries even across a range of image disciplines,
and we are told that we can better serve the user by embedding analytical "schemas" within
the information interface.1
Another study, published as Object, Image, Inquiry: The Art Historian
at Work, solicited opinions from eighteen scholars "to represent
a broad sampling of art historians active in research."2 In
the chapter entitled "The Process of Art-Historical Inquiry," regarding
the relation between original works of art and reproductions, we
learn that art historians are savvy image users who understand the
vast differences that often exist between the object and its reproduction:
The manipulative nature of reproductions and the
relative merits and deficiencies of various media
demand wariness. Nevertheless the practical difficulties
of traveling to and comparing original works have
produced ingenious methods of using reproductions
of all kinds. As works of art and as records of
conservation history, older photographs have special
value. Collections of reproductions, whether institutional
or personal, constitute vital resources for the
art historian. The comprehensiveness of the collection,
the inclusion of less well-known works, the scholarly
acumen used in cataloging, and the difficulty of
obtaining photographs were common preoccupations.
Another was the absence of context that the photographic
reproduction imposes on the work of art.3
The art historian's method of finding data is more a gathering process
than anything else. Scholars collect data by "plowing through heaps
of stuff" just "to find one particular piece of information." To them
the process has its rewards: "you find out a lot of other things that
you would never know you should know about."4 The process
of discovery, the looking and selecting, could sometimes prove to be
more valuable than immediately retrieving a direct "hit."5
In general, scholars are well aware of the limitations of reproductions.
In Object, Image, Inquiry, one said, "The work of art has a
kind of object-hood and physical presence which is very different from
any [reproductive] image; even if the slide or the transparency were
perfect, it's third-best."6
Using Words to Look for Images
Users tend to approach an image search by specifying layers of information.
However, they are generally unaware that they are actually setting
up hierarchical relationships, and they often fail to understand why
some methods work better than others in constructing a query.
- "I'm looking for a picture of a group"
- "I'd like it to be a family group"
- "This family should be doing something that would
be typical for a family, like sitting around a
table with food in front of them, looking grateful
for what they have to eat "
The hierarchy in this query demonstrates a thought process that proceeds
from a general concept—the group—to the specific concept—a
family sharing a meal together. One example of such a family group
might be Vincent van Gogh's The Potato Eaters (1885), in which
a peasant family from the Dutch town of Nuenen, wearing traditional
costumes of the time and place, are seated around a table.7 The
room in which they have gathered is dimly lit, illuminated only by
the solitary oil lamp above them. Their humble meal consists of potatoes.
Keywords can help users formulate queries like those listed above
for submission to an online search engine, but their effectiveness
varies widely. The particular searcher's cultural background, education,
and even verbal skills condition the choice of keywords used in an
online search, not to mention his or her native language. Most objects
and concepts can be described using multiple terms or phrases in many
languages or dialects. If an end-user happens to use a keyword different
from the one in the information system being searched, he or she may
miss items that are actually there. As the authors of the other essays
in this publication have shown, controlled vocabularies and thesauri
can be enormously powerful tools for bridging these kinds of verbal
gaps.
Even with accompanying texts or captions, images can still be difficult
to locate. Captions that do not follow a good "tombstone" template
(that is, artist, artist nationality and life dates, title, medium,
creation date, repository) may describe the meaning or interpretation
of the image but not state the facts about the artist or creator of
the object represented in the image. Many images appear online without
any reference to what they are or what they represent. Again, the other
authors of this book have stressed how important indexing and cataloguing
are in enabling end-users to find images by using keywords or textual
strings.
Simplicity and common sense should be the guiding principles in finding
solutions to assisting end-users:
- Know the needs of your users
- Employ simple yet effective user interfaces
- Err on the side of more rather than fewer access
points
- Know what the tools employed to assist the user
are designed to do, as well as their limitations
- Remember that what works in one situation may
not be equally effective in another
The Quest
Consider for a moment where we see images. Much of our world looks
different today, since television and computer monitors changed from
monochrome to high color; since text phrases became icons; since books
with few, mostly black-and-white images turned into richly illustrated
color publications; and since our home printers began offering us the
option of output in either black-and-white or color. These changes
seem to have come about rather quickly, and yet some things have not
changed at all. Consider now the challenge of finding a specific image
or any image, an image of quality, an image that can be acquired for
use without major limitations.
The search for the right image is still one of the more challenging
exercises that users face, and perhaps more so since image use is at
an all-time high. Thanks to technology, images are everywhere and seemingly
available to everyone; image sites have sprung up all over the World
Wide Web. The image may be ubiquitous, but the way we look for images
today remains very much the challenge it was in the past. What might
be even more alarming is the fact that finding the right image can
also be more complicated now because, while we have much to choose
from, our access resources and discovery skills are still quite primitive.
The Approach
In many instances, an image seeker has a preconceived idea of the
desired image—a specific object or artwork, a place, a mood, a
concept, a color, or a vision that is only a glimmer in the mind's
eye. Finding a representation that fulfills the notion of the desire
often takes time and skill. The searcher's success often depends on
luck and perseverance.
"I'm looking for an image of ." is the usual starting point for this
type of query. If the searcher can use well-crafted descriptive phrases
and explain the nature of the needed image, then the results may be
easier to obtain. Choosing the right words to describe the image and
offering a context for the image or its use may provide useful starting
points. The family seated around a table in van Gogh's painting might
have been difficult to pinpoint unless some of the accessories were
named. By adding keywords such as "potatoes," "lamp," "family," "eating," "meal," and "peasants," we
can provide access via the main elements of The Potato Eaters.
We saw in Patricia Harpring's essay that an image of Herakles can
be associated with a variety of themes: "Greek hero," "king," "strength," "fortitude," "perseverance," "labors," "Argos," "Thebes." In
other words, this image can have many uses. Had the image of Herakles
been indexed with this array of search terms, the user would have no
trouble finding it as long as one of the indexing terms was used in
the search. It would not be necessary to remember the name Herakles—or
its variant, Hercules—to bring results; the search would produce
the image from any of the other terms associated with it.
Now suppose that a user wants an image of "labor." While the word
seems specific enough, what matters to the user is how labor
is represented. Looking for an image of "labor" is, therefore, not
just a matter of locating a record that happens to include the term.
The user may not want an image of Herakles' famed labors, but rather
something having to do with the Labor Movement in post–World War
I America—two very different subjects. This difference in the
meaning and use of the term "labor" reflects the distinctions between
the identification of the image and the interpretation of the subject,
steps beyond the literal meaning of the term in its context, as noted
in the other three essays in this volume.
If the user has a specific image of "labor" in mind, then the task
can be more challenging when trying to find an equivalent to an elusive
memory imprint from times past. So often we find that our memories
are flawed; that what we remembered as one color was in reality another
when we finally recovered the elusive object. How many times have you
discovered that the blue book you were looking for actually had a red
cover? Similarly, we may be remembering a detail of a whole, an image
that apparently had sufficient power to stand on its own but does not
warrant a unique identifier as a proper title. Conversely, without
a fixed image in mind, the user is more open to choices. The right
image emerges on the basis of "I'll know it when I see it." This could
be the case with the user searching for an image to represent the Labor
Movement. When none of the images retrieved shows the exact historical
moment, the user finds that choosing another that conveys the spirit
of the movement satisfies the need. Of course, if the end-user types
in the keyword "labor" and the resource being searched uses the British
spelling "labour" (or vice versa), relevant items could again be missed,
unless a thesaurus that includes alternate spellings (as the Art & Architecture
Thesaurus [AAT] does) is used or alternate spellings are included
as indexing terms attached to the particular item.
Another option is to look for an image based on a title or written
description that seems to include all the right elements for a perfect
representation. How surprising when the words do not fit the picture—when
the words actually have little connection to their meaning but are
used to represent an abstract concept or to convey personal meaning.
Robert Motherwell's series Elegy to the Spanish Republic exemplifies
the distance between words and image in that the abstract columns and
bulbous forms rendered in stark contrast to each other—in many
paintings from the series, black against a white field—are not
taken from the facts of the Spanish Civil War but rather are a particular
artist's reaction to the idea of human loss, resistance, and an ongoing
struggle.8 We can only know that the title does not illustrate
a specific event in history by knowing the artist and his oeuvre, by
knowing that Motherwell would not be a likely source for a factual
illustration of a historical event.
So
where does this leave the user and us in trying
to locate an image? Obviously there are common
pitfalls that snare a seeker of a particular image.
How can these best be avoided?
Access Points
An image is more than a subject or a title. As the Motherwell example
illustrates, it may be important to know something about the artist
or the designer of the object depicted in the image. It may also be
helpful to know when it was created, what the medium of the work is,
who owns it, where it is located or displayed, the circumstances surrounding
its making, how large it is, and whether it was ever altered. As Colum
Hourihane points out in his essay in this volume, the two criteria
employed by most online searchers appear to be subject matter and creator.
These starting points are codified among several standard description
tools used by museums and libraries, as summarized in the metadata
standards crosswalk mentioned by Patricia Harpring.9 One
of these metadata standards, Categories for the Description of Works
of Art (CDWA), has been used in examples elsewhere in this volume
to show how subjects depicted in works of art are deciphered and described.
But Subject Matter is only one element of a CDWA description. Its other
core categories include Creator, Creation Date, Materials and Techniques,
Measurements, and Current Location (see the CDWA record for a Panathenaic
amphora on page 29).
Not every work can be described to the extent outlined in CDWA (nor
would this necessarily even be desirable were it practical), but any
data that follow a standard description format, where controlled vocabulary
or terminology can be applied, are ultimately more accessible than
data that do not adhere to any standards or vocabulary control. The
value of the data are still largely conditioned by the skill of the
indexer and the rules governing the data entry process, however. As
Hourihane has argued, not all cataloguing and indexing are equal; nor
are all data records complete or even correct.
Nonetheless, a descriptive record that includes only the title or
description of a work may not be sufficient for providing access to
its image. More promising would be, for example, a record that includes
a date or time span that puts the title into a historical context and
then adds information about its medium to help differentiate between
works that are two- and three-dimensional.
Size or scale can also be valuable in helping to differentiate works
bearing the same title, by the same artist, of the same date and medium,
where one is likely a smaller model from which the larger finished
work was created. Another useful element is the current location or
ownership information about the work. With this information, the user
is equipped with names and places: where to go for more information
about the object, where it can be viewed, or where and how to obtain
a reproduction of it.
A Case in Point
Searching for an image of Lot and His Daughters, a biblical
subject (Genesis 19:30–38), one finds that the seventeenth-century
Italian artist Orazio Gentileschi painted not one but at least five
finished versions of this theme. One of these, dated to 1622, is in
the collection of the J. Paul Getty Museum (pl. 7).
The Getty's picture shows a sleeping man, Lot, dressed in a blue garment,
between two women, his daughters. The sisters' gazes and gestures lead
us toward the right side of the canvas, to an event happening in the
distance. They sit in front of a dark rock, presumably the cave where
they and Lot had taken refuge, with their backs mostly to the viewer,
one more in profile than the other. To the left of the daughter in
profile are metal vessels, one a silver flask on its side, open and
apparently empty, and the other a golden cup. These "props," in combination
with the figures in this setting, are keys to the iconography of the
painting.
Both women wear garments, but the one on the viewer's right and farther
to the back is shown with bare skin, where her dress has fallen off
her shoulders. The background includes ominous clouds and a bright
glow above the distant hills. The glow obviously refers to the fire
consuming the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah from where they had fled,
but not before Lot's wife was punished for looking back as they were
leaving. Lot's daughters, believing that they were the last human beings
to remain on earth, have made their father drunk prior to sleeping
with him—to save the human race. This portrayal of incest was
popular in Gentileschi's time because of the artistic and erotic liberties
it offered artists and their patrons. In the Getty's version, the daughter
on the viewer's left wears a red garment over a white shirt; her sister
is clad in a golden yellow chemise.
A second work by Gentileschi bearing the same title is in the Gemäldegalerie
in Berlin (see pl. 8). The main difference between this work and the
Getty's picture is that the colors of the daughters' garments are reversed:
the daughter in profile wears a golden yellow dress and the one on
the right is dressed in red.
Another version, now in the National Gallery of Canada/Musée
des beaux-arts du Canada in Ottawa (see pl. 8), was purchased in 1965
from the Spencer Churchill collection in London. The colors of the
daughters' garments are similar to the Getty's version, but the metal
objects in the foreground are missing. Also, the background sky and
landscape seem less ominous, the burning city is missing, and the overall
contrast of light and dark (chiaroscuro) is understated compared to
the other examples. The cave behind the family group is larger and
rounder than in the other paintings, and the foreground rock cluster
shows smoother edges and larger masses as well. Finally, where the
foliage growing among the rocks in the other examples is alive and
bushy, in this version it is a just a branch, devoid of leaves.
A fourth version is part of the Fundacion Colección Thyssen-Bornemisza
in Madrid (see pl. 8). In some sources, the painting is said to be
located in Castagnola or Lugano, not in Madrid, but still owned by
Thyssen-Bornemisza. The daughters' garments follow the color pattern
in the Getty's version. Data recorded in a sampling of contemporary
literature about these four versions of Lot and His Daughters are
presented in the table on page 76.10
There is a fifth version under this title, also oil on canvas. The
largest in the group, measuring 226 3 282.5 cm, it is held by the Museo
de Bellas Artes, Bilbao (fig. 20).11 This last work, signed
by the artist and dated by scholars to 1628, shows a different arrangement
of the daughters and their father, as well as the setting, inside rather
than outside the cave, so it is chiefly related to the other four versions
by its title and creator.
The Flemish artist Lucas Vorsterman (1595–1675) made an engraving
of the Bilbao version, the plate presumably produced under Orazio Gentileschi's
supervision in London sometime in the 1630s. The print, a reverse of
the painted image, measures 332 3 430 mm and is in the collection of
the British Museum in London.12 Vorsterman's engraving is
just one of many copies and reproductions made by artists after the
Bilbao and other versions of Gentileschi's composition.
Why So Many Versions?
It may be comforting to know that if one needs an image of Lot
and His Daughters, there are at least five paintings by Orazio
Gentileschi and many copies after his work to choose from. Perhaps
any of the versions will suffice, but it may be beneficial to have
options. It also may be a source of confusion, given what we have
discovered about this composition and its scholarly sources.
Why would an artist paint more than one picture of the same subject?
It may be that the image was popular and several of the artist's patrons
wanted copies. Or it may be that the patron was dissatisfied with one
version and wanted something changed, which resulted in another painting,
or several more, before the patron was happy with the commission. Still
another reason might be that some of the works are by followers or
students of the artist—"practice pieces" from a later date. In
this example, all five paintings are believed to be by Orazio Gentileschi
himself.
Only a careful study of all the facts known about a work of art will
bring an informed answer. This type of study relies largely on a combination
of the verity of information that accompanies an image of the work
and a careful analysis of the work itself—looking at the condition
of the paint, how the paint was applied to the surface, how the support
was constructed, whether the work shows signs of alterations (sections
or pieces added or removed), and, perhaps of greatest value, the history
of the work's ownership, its "pedigree" or provenance. CDWA facilitates
the collection of all these facts in a consistent and orderly manner
so that someone studying the work will find rich, interrelated data
associated with the object. But even scholars are sometimes mistaken
by evidence in hand.
Titles
The artist sometimes assigns a title to a work of art or architecture,
but a curator or scholar who has carefully studied the work often assigns
it after the fact. How titles are assigned and what they mean in providing
access to a work of art are issues discussed elsewhere in this book
and at considerable length in CDWA. We know from the Gentileschi composition
that the figures, setting, and props contributed to our identification
of the iconography as belonging to the story of Lot from the Old Testament.
In looking for an image of an object or artwork, we must take into
account the fact that titles can vary, especially if there is a question
about the subject matter.
In the Gentileschi examples, all the works bear the same title, even
though one painting shows a different arrangement of elements and personages.
The same applies to Motherwell's series, where all the images are named Elegy
to the Spanish Republic but each shows a different composition.
A good example of a single work with drastically different titles is
Rembrandt's famous painting, The Night Watch (1642; Amsterdam,
Rijksmuseum).13 We now know that a better title for the
painting is The Militia Company of Captain Frans Banning Cocq.
Still another title might include the names of the various people depicted
in the scene.
The title The Night Watch, in fact, was given to this work
because of the somewhat dark varnish that once covered the painting's
surface; the scene looked to be happening under the cover of night.
Once the painting was cleaned and studied again, more facts emerged,
requiring that a new title be assigned. Since the change occurred relatively
recently (during the 1940s), most of the literature refers to the painting
as The Night Watch. Thus, it is perfectly plausible that an
image in a publication dating from the 1930s would be identified only
with the old title. Without knowing more about the work and its alternate
title, a person looking for an image may miss a valuable cache of reproductions
and information, disconnected by time from the more recent research
about the same work of art.
The guidelines given in CDWA accommodate and even encourage the inclusion
of alternate titles and names. The indexer should seek out as many
title variations as possible when describing a work of art and use
tools that bring these variables together. Structured vocabularies
and thesauri such as the ones discussed at length in the other essays
in this volume were specifically designed to address the problem of
variable terms and names for objects, media, creators, and places,
and to assist the cataloguer in creating relationships among the variants.
Structured vocabularies and thesauri, such as the Library of Congress's Name
Authorities and the AAT, are useful for some aspects of subject
description (usually those not dealing with strictly narrative or iconographic
content), but a tool such as ICONCLASS is necessary for describing
the narrative or iconographic meaning of works of art. As demonstrated
by Harpring and Hourihane in their essays, a system like ICONCLASS—or
a carefully constructed local authority file of subjects—can be
used to create hierarchical relationships among iconographic themes
or narrative episodes. It can also be used to make connections among
images with similar compositions, where figures are grouped in a like
manner or where accessories, furnishings, and props appearing in the
work are identical. For example, even though the metal vessels are
missing from the National Gallery version of Lot and His Daughters,
the composition would be linked to the others in the series because
of other compositional similarities. Properly analyzed and described
in this way, two seemingly unrelated works can be reunited, or one
work based closely on another can be recognized.
Measurements and Dimensions
At least three versions of Gentileschi's Lot and His Daughters are
closely related not only via their titles and compositions but also
by their dimensions. In addition to variations among versions, researchers
should note whenever a single work in the group has been described
with different measurements. The variation may be due to conversion
between inches and metric measurements or because one person measuring
the work took the numbers from inside the frame (so-called sight measurements),
while another measured the canvas with the frame removed. One person
may measure rounding off numbers, while another is more precise.
Measurements can be misleading in other ways as well. Some prints
(engravings, etchings, and aquatints, for example) are measured to
record the size of the plate from which the impression or relief was
taken, while others record the measurements of the full sheet of paper
carrying the print. Sculpture measurements can vary as well. Height
can be determined by measuring a statue or object with or without its
base or pedestal. In the case of ancient sculpture, heads often are
reattached to torsos at a later time. The measurements of a statue
may include later additions, and sometimes even restored parts. Measurements
should be used with caution in critical comparisons or when trying
to prove that two works of art are the same or different.
Dates and Dating
The four analogous Gentileschi images have been assigned similar dates,
between 1621 and 1624, but the artist himself dated none of them. Many
dates, or perhaps none at all, can be associated with a work of art
or architecture. Attempting to find an image based on the date of an
object might be difficult unless that date is highly significant to
the work of art. Sometimes even dates that appear on the work are suspect;
they could have been added by a later hand or included to refer to
an event preceding the creation of the work. Scholars who have spent
considerable time reconstructing an artist's oeuvre, making distinctions
between the artistic styles of one expressive period and another, often
assign dates. Perhaps some of the more remarkable dates can be found
in the dating of Greek pottery, especially works of Attic origin. For
these works, artists are assigned names, for example, the Meleager
Painter,14 and their styles are placed within a chronological
construct that defines the birth, adolescence, maturity, and ultimate
decline of this art form. Few works within this construct are firmly
dated or even signed, but the literature is rich in seemingly precise
dates. Some of the more difficult areas to define according to date
are Etruscan art and the artifacts of native tribal cultures. Nevertheless,
dates or date ranges are often given simply as a way of differentiating
one style or period from another.
Location, Location!
Many works of art have the potential to be mobile. Even a fresco that
was originally part of a narrative or decorative cycle and affixed
to a wall can find its way into a museum and be displayed as an independent
work.15 Entire buildings can be housed within a museum;
for example, a Maori tribal house is now in the Field Museum of Natural
History in Chicago, thousands of miles away from its original location
in New Zealand.
The popularity of eBay and art auctions is not a new phenomenon. Works
of art and other artifacts move now, as in the past, from one owner
to another at the drop of a hammer (or click of a computer mouse).
The literature about the Gentileschi paintings demonstrates that the
works have had many owners. Some owners housed their collections in
different cities (Lugano, Castagnola, and Madrid); and scholars, even
after careful analysis, can disagree on the exact pattern of ownership
for some works. Three of the four versions of Lot and His Daughters were
acquired by their current owners since the 1960s, so even some fairly
recent literature includes references to former owners. A case in point
is the Ottawa version, which was housed in the Spencer Churchill collection
in London prior to being purchased in 1965 by the National Gallery
of Canada. Often it is possible to link a work to an earlier reference
by comparing its physical features (measurements, surface blemishes,
and so on), as well as closely inspecting any available reproductions.
However, an image can be deceptive and untrustworthy, too, as we saw
in the art historian's warning about reproductions quoted at the beginning
of this essay (see p. 69).
A work shown only in black-and-white or monochrome reproductions can
be misleading, since subtleties of color are lost. In a catalogue raisonné of
Gentileschi's work, the canvas now owned by the Getty was misidentified
as the Thyssen-Bornemisza version because when two black-and-white
reproductions were compared, they appeared to be the same work (fig.
21).16 The differences that could be perceived were thought
to be the result of restoration—one showing the painting before
restoration, the other after. In reality, the photograph shows yet
another version, the Getty's, not included in the catalogue raisonné.17
The analysis was further hampered by the fact that the subtle differences
between the colors of the daughters' garments—reddish on the left
and golden yellow on the right in the Getty, Thyssen-Bornemisza, and
National Gallery versions, but the reverse in the Gemäldegalerie
painting—are not immediately visible in the monochrome reproductions.
Users unaware of these color variations might not realize that this
important distinction exists, or they might not realize that reproductions
can be inaccurate due to the photographic process and the limitations
of early black-and-white film in rendering color. 18
Color
reproductions can be equally misleading. The same
work of art shown in two color illustrations can
look entirely different if the overall color balance
is off. In sum, judgments based on the examination
of reproductions rather than the study of the actual
work can lead to false conclusions. Image seekers
should be warned about drawing assumptions based
on reproductions. Indeed, even the best may only
be "third rate."
Again
with regard to location, architectural elements have
moved from one place to another throughout history.
The famous Elgin Marbles, now in the British Museum
in London, were removed from their original location
on the Parthenon in Athens in the early nineteenth
century. Before the invention of photography in the
1830s, pictorial records in the form of paintings,
drawings, and prints provided evidence regarding
the location and condition of works of art and architecture.
For these non-photographic types of reproductions,
artistic license and the skill of the artist who
created a particular image played an important role
in whether the rendition was ultimately accurate.
Another
phenomenon is the changing of data about the location
itself. National borders change due to political
events, and countries take new names to reflect a
new regime or newfound independence. Tools such as
the Getty Thesaurus of Geographic Names enable
us to link former names with a modern one (for example,
Lisbon was called Ulixbone under Moorish rule,
and Felicitas Julia under the Romans; the
name Persia was officially changed to Iran in
1935, but it also refers to a region of what is now
Southern Iran, known as Parsa, inhabited by
Indo-European people around 1000 b.c.e.) and to reference
geographic entities that no longer exist in the modern
political world (for example, Etruria, Flanders,
Holy Roman Empire, Phoenicia). Cities are also subject
to remodeling, renaming, and annexation. Streets
often have more than one name in use and perhaps several
more buried in earlier directories. Buildings referenced
by a street address must be studied in their historical
and political contexts. Buildings, too, change over
time. Consider the Louvre in Paris, with its various
incarnations from fortress to palace to museum, and
the many architects who contributed to its forms.
The Sum of Many Parts
Given the obstacles described above, locating a specific image can
involve a considerable amount of work, even for an image seeker with
considerable knowledge. Even when the object in question has a title,
that title may not be an accurate reflection of content, as in the
Motherwell example. A title may point to many works that are similar
yet different enough to make selection of one difficult, as in the
versions of Gentileschi's Lot and His Daughters. The date assigned
to a work may be misleading, and the artwork or object may have been
moved several times. The dimensions can vary from one source to another,
seeming to suggest that the work must be a different one when in fact
it is the same. An image without any accompanying descriptive data
is virtually useless, however. Finally, the quality of the image—how
accurately it is represented by its illustration—is an important
factor in deciding whether to use a particular image.
The
researcher or image seeker must know how to judge
and balance the facts associated with a picture.
Vocabulary tools and classification systems such
as the ones discussed in the preceding essays provide
valuable assistance in sorting through questions
having to do with names, terms, and iconography.
How well these tools are used in creating descriptive
records becomes the deciding factor in the end.
The more the cataloguer or indexer can do to facilitate
access —through standards, common tools, and
shared strategies—the easier it is for the
searcher to find what is needed, be it one image
or many. A picture may be worth a thousand words,
but one hopes that the words themselves have value
for the image seeker as well.
Notes
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