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I think the question Mr. Perisho posed was more about which image
archives used an ICONCLASS number as search criteria. Although a few of
the ARTstor collections might possibly have this iconographical search
capability, I think most institutional image databases do not. The
question Mr. Perisho posed is intriguing though, and the results of his
query will interest a lot of us.

 

Without getting in to my own lack of interest in ICONCLASS (due to being
tormented by it at the Cleveland Museum of Art as a baby photo
librarian) I do think that ICONCLASS really makes no sense in the
computer age except for its  rather basic hierarchical control of
iconographical terms. One of the limitations of ICONCLASS is that is
only reflects Western art, and that it may have only been applied with
semblance of comprehension to Northern Art (most famously with the RKD's
"Decimal Index of the Art of the Low Countries" also known as  D.I.A.L.)
Anyone who has had to use it extensively will tell you that ICONCLASS
was cumbersome until you learned the "language" and could recognize the
structure of the system without having to constantly refer back to the
indices for help. Quite a few years ago at an ARLIS conference, I recall
a presenter (was it Eileen Fry?)  including ICONCLASS numbers as a field
in a discussion on metadata, probably  since there was no other
controlled set of terms for iconography. 

 

Like most image databases,  the NGA utilized a variety of sources
(mostly AAT and LCSH ) for subject headings but relied on local use for
iconography terms  hoping that a Boolean search  of a combination of
terms would get users to the image they required. (e.g. Noah and
Deluge). It is imperfect but functional. One area that has yet to be
truly tackled by art information professionals and art historians is
creating an AAT-like iconographical thesaurus for world art (perhaps
using ICONCLASS as a starting point?). I suspect that there are too few
Pandoras out there willing to open THAT box, no matter how fascinating
the process might be.

 

 

Gregory P. J. Most

Chief, Department of Image Collections

Library

National Gallery of Art

Washington, DC 20565

 

e-mail:  [log in to unmask]

URL:     http://www.nga.gov/resources/dlidesc.shtm

phone:  202/ 842-6100

 

 

From: ARLIS/NA List [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of
Pauline Saliga
Sent: Thursday, February 03, 2011 1:05 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [ARLIS-L] Comprehensive list of image banks searchable by
ICONCLASS number?

 

Steve,

 

I loved your question about image archives. The number is vast.  Below
are some resources. 

 

ARTstor  http://www.artstor.org/index.shtml

SAHARA
http://www.sah.org/index.php?src=gendocs&ref=HOME&category=Sahara%20HOME

Aga Khan Visual Archive at MIT
http://libguides.mit.edu/content.php?pid=60949&sid=448079

List of other lists
http://www.artic.edu/aic/libraries/research/findimages.html   and
http://www.artic.edu/aic/libraries/research/findimages2.html 

 

Pauline Saliga

Society of Architectural Historians

 

From: ARLIS/NA List [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of
Perisho, Steve
Sent: Tuesday, February 01, 2011 1:21 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: [ARLIS-L] Comprehensive list of image banks searchable by
ICONCLASS number?

 

Friends:

 

                Those of you who specialize in image research will think
this a stupid question, but I'm going to ask it anyway.

 

                Does anybody out there maintain a reasonably
comprehensive and up-to-date list of image banks searchable by ICONCLASS
"number," whether freely accessible or proprietary?  I have written the
folks at ICONCLASS i.e. RKD itself twice now in the hope that it
maintains such an inventory, but to no reply.  Meanwhile my schedule
hasn't allowed for a painstaking and systematic process of discovery.

                Here is my own pathetic little list, which I'm hoping
desperately to enlarge.  It grows very indirectly on the fly, and is
strongest in my own areas of actual research.  ANY additions, even those
supplied not (as above) comprehensively but in an ad hoc fashion
(including those naming but a single image bank specific to a given
collection (a given museum, just for example)), would be most welcome.

 

*         Arkyves:  A Database of Early Modern Imagery,
http://www.arkyves.org/

*         Art in the Christian Tradition, Jean and Alexander
Heard/Divinity Library, Vanderbilt University,
http://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/act-search.pl 

*         De bijbel in de Nederlandse cultuur,
http://www.bijbelencultuur.nl/

*         Bildarchiv Foto Marburg, http://www.bildindex.de/#|home

*         Imaging the Bible in Wales Database,
http://imagingthebible.llgc.org.uk/

*         Index of Christian Art, whose own subject headings are
cross-referenced to ICONCLASS numbers

*         Medieval Illuminated Manuscripts, Koninklijke Bibliotheek /
National Library of the Netherlands, http://www.kb.nl/manuscripts/

*         http://collecties.meermanno.nl/handschriften/search 

*         Rijksbureau voor Kunsthistorische Documentatie (RKD) Database,
http://english.rkd.nl/Databases/RKDimages

 

Probably this has been asked before, so my apologies in advance.

 

Many thanks!

 

Steve Perisho

Theology and Philosophy Librarian

Seattle Pacific University

 

Tel.:  206 281 2417; Fax:  206 281 2396

Email:  [log in to unmask] 

Commonplace book:  http://liberlocorumcommunium.blogspot.com/ 

 

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