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“The publication of this digital archive marks a change in the study
of the history of renaissance art.”
Scala in Florence, with its 50-year history and the biggest printed art
archive in Italy, has put all its energy into creating this digital art
archive, published around the world simultaneously in four languages:
English, French, Italian and Japanese. From the second half of the thirteenth
century through to the early seventeenth century, 506 artists took an active
part in what is widely termed the Italian Renaissance. Their main
art works here contain 8000 art pieces in all, which displayed with a maximum
of 10,000 by 7,500 pixels (more than 20 times the resolution of high vision)
represent the absolutely highest definition that can be seen.
It is as if everything appears right there before your eyes.
You can see such detail that even the touches of the brush strokes are visible.
The art historian Roberto Longhi is known to have concluded upon seeing
the angel above the right shoulder that Masolino’s masterpiece, Madonna
and Child with St. Anne, in the Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence, had in
fact been painted by Masaccio.
Using the enlarged digital image we can indeed recognize that the angels
on the left and right are the work of two different hands. The one on the
right reveals the strong touch of Masaccio, with its flowing locks of hair
and a momentary flash of light. According to Longhi, this one art piece
represents a transformation in the quality of art, signalling its great
leap into the Renaissance.
With the latest technology, a new window opens into art appreciation
and research. From cracks that have appeared over the years, it is possible
to decipher not only the way art pieces have been preserved, but also the
drawing techniques that existed at the time.
Compare Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa (Musée du Louvre) and Filippo Lippi’s
Madonna and Child with Two Angels (Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence).
One can observe each of the images, enlarge the places in the paintings
with the greatest detail, and set them side-by-side for comparison. Lippi’s
Madonna reveals a relatively deep vertical crack in the area from the brow
to the forehead. Accordingly, the contraction of the surface of the painting
is clearly visible with the passage of time because it has affected the
paint deep beneath the surface, and thus definitely seems in need of fixing.
On the other hand, Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa displays a number of cracks
around the cheeks and forehead, but these are relatively much smaller, more
variable and expand radially. Of course, the Mona Lisa’s surface coating
of paint has shrunk. Even so, compared to Lippi’s work, the Mona Lisa does
not reveal deep cracks.
The question then is where these differences come from. Simply put, it is
not just a question of preservation. The Mona Lisa’s complex cracking shows
us that during the painting process, the paint was applied in layer after
layer. This so-called Sfumato painting style thus reveals that Leonardo
da Vinci must have been inquiring into the effects of light.
“From the point of view of 20 years of digital image archive education and
research, a single point has now been reached.”
This DVD series of digital images of course contains a view of each work
of art as well as various other options.
You can find the art pieces immediately by selecting them from the list of artists,
and you can also get all the information about that particular art piece and
the artist. What we have also done is to develop a special viewfinder with an
extraordinary zoom capability. It allows smooth transitions when focusing on
the smallest detail and enlarging it from within the art piece as a whole.
The ability to allow such smooth transitions while enlarging allows, for
the first time, the discovery of things about the artists’ real intentions or
the true value of the works.
Enlargement indicator (CXZ Viewer)
When you click on the art piece’s ‘zoom’ button, it enables the CXZ Viewer
(extremely high resolution viewfinder) that has been specially developed for
the DVD series. The viewer allows you to see fine details of the paintings themselves,
as well as details of the brush strokes. The way the paint has been applied
is effortlessly revealed before your eyes. Functions also allow the sharpness
to be adjusted and the images to be rotated, giving observers the capability
to analyse the art pieces to the maximum, and displayed within the controller
are the names of the art pieces and other such information. In addition, several
windows can be opened simultaneously to compare different works of art.
Page containing a list of artists
By rolling a mouse over an artist’s name, a list of their masterpieces is
displayed, and by clicking on any masterpiece you can jump to a list of pages
containing all their works.
List of pages containing all the artist’s works
The page displays art pieces by the selected artist. By rolling a mouse over
a thumbnail, it will indicate the title of the art pieces and the groups to
which they belong. By clicking on them, you can jump to a page displaying details
of the art pieces.
Details of the art pieces
A preview image of the art piece comes up, the group to which it belongs,
its title, the name of the detailed parts of the work (where applicable), its
area and city, and any other artists involved in the work (where applicable).
Also, by viewing the art group with its thumbnails at the top of the page, you
can use the controller to freely observe the items within it.
Slideshows and biographies
It is possible to see all the art works by the artists in the form of a slideshow.
There are also biographies of the main artists.
Printing
All the art pieces can be printed out in A4, and you can use them as a record
for study (any pictures printed out contain a digital watermark).
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