In the past books were coveted, and building your own personal library was the desire of most of the world. Today the sheer amount of information that is within our reach is astounding, and we don’t even have to pay for it. Most of us don’t even have enough time to read the stacks of books at home, or the online books that we wish we could get to. To add to that, did you know that five decades of Met Museum publications on art history are available to read, download and search for free?
It costs you $0 to download these books at Met Publications. The Met keeps adding to their digital collections, where you can find 400+ art catalogs alongside the 400,000 free art images the museum put online .
That’s right, you saw that correctly, more than 400,000 high-resolution digital images of the Museum’s world-renowned collection may be downloaded directly from the Museum’s website for non-commercial use. Even better, the images can be used at no charge (and without getting permission from the museum).
I personally love looking at red chalk drawings and portrait oil paintings from the 17th and 18th century. Think of the pretty art you can print off and frame for your own walls. Or simply enjoy looking at what they have online on your Sunday afternoons. Their collections are not limited to paintings, but you can look through sculptures, embroidery, and so much more.
In my post, “My Winter Projects- My Nursery And Framing Projects” I printed art work for my home from my favorite books, and because I was working off one or two books, the art was pixelated. You won’t have that problem with this large database of art work at your fingertips. Think about picking out select pieces for your scrapbooks, or create a gallery of images for your walls by saving the images, and printing them at your local copy shop. Staples has the capability of printing large scale prints on matte vinyl.
Here are some of the attractive art that I found on their site today. I love 17 & 18th century portrait paintings.
Mrs. John Crosby Brown , Portrait of a Lady
Portrait of Louise Marie, Queen of Poland and Sweden
The Cathedrals of Art, Mäda Primavesi (1903–2000)
Charles Claude de Flahaut (1730–1809), Comte d’Angiviller
Portrait of a Woman, The Two Sisters
Portrait of a Young Girl, Portrait of a Man
María Teresa (1638–1683), Infanta of Spain