Work Inspired by Images at the Metropolitan Museum of Art

Please compare last week’s collection with this week’s. The point is how surprisingly the source of my images determines how I want to make the art. For years I’ve had trouble with the Met site. Never wants to download like it says it will. This has proved a boon because you’re often able to enlarge the image so only part of the sculpture fills the screen, but in much better detail than you would get with the sculpture trapped small to force a head-to-toe view.

The comparison with last week’s texture.com-inspired artwork is stark. You’ll see as we go farther on this path how influential the curating of image collections is. The sizing protocols, the resolutions, the file types, the subject matter they focus on. The personality of the collections themselves are worth thinking about. Vary widely, have their own ticks, biases, blind eyes.

Who the artist is equally determines which buttons any given collection triggers. My buttons collect pictures from the Met. My art comes out of it. The next artist down the workbench will sail off somewhere else on their own wings. Meaning they may go to the Met site and research ancient pottery. And that influences the decoration on the next pot they throw.

All artwork composed of images of public domain sculpture from The Metropolitan Museum of Art.