June Online Resources for Art and Design

This is a summary of the most recent websites we have added to our del.ici.ous collection of bookmarks, organized by subject.

Fine Arts

ArtBabble

The Auteurs

Barlow Collection of Chinese Ceramics, Bronze and Jade

Center for Contemporary Canadian Art Database

Pre-Raphaelite Online Resource

Architecture/ Design

Access Ceramics

Architecture of the Getty Center

Fold School: Cardboard Furniture

Restoration of the Maya Cities of Uxmal, Kabah, Sayil and Labná

Stewardess Uniform Collection

Liberal Arts

Alaska’s Digital Archives

Humphrey Winterton Collection of East African Photographs

New York Public Library Digital Collections

Smarthistory

Ubuweb

Museums

Benaki Museum, Athens

The Model as Muse: Metropolitan Museum

National Media Museum, U.K.

New Britain Museum of American Art, CT

Synthescape: New Media for Museums

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New in the Video Collection: Dario Argento Films

For those of you who are fans of the horror genre, we have a treat in store: the RISD Library has recently acquired a set of films by the Italian director Dario Argento, including these titles: Deep Red (1976); Inferno (1980); Tenebre (1982); Phenomena (1984); Trauma (2002); The Card Player (2003); and Do You Like Hitchcock? (2005).

Dario Argento started his career in cinema in 1967, co-writing the script for Sergio Leone’s “Once upon a time in the West” with Bernardo Bertolucci. He is best known for his very graphic horror films, characterized by their over-the-top visuals, the twists and turns of their plots, and the excessive violence. The influences for Argento’s films are varied, from Edgar Allan Poe’s Gothic horror tales to the films of Alfred Hitchcock, Fritz Lang, F. W. Murnau, and even Walt Disney. He is considered a ‘cult’ director, and worked as script consultant/ producer in horror classics such as George A. Romero’s “Dawn of the Dead” (1978). For a well-informed review of Argento’s work, read this.

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Academic Film Archive of North America AFANA

AFANA is an organization dedicated to acquiring, promoting and preserving academic film and other historically important films in the fields of art, history, social science, literature and science. With the help of the Internet Archive, they are preserving some truly hidden gems of non-feature film making in the U.S. Check out their website.

One of my favorite films is this lovely little animation of butterflies and dragonflies set to the music of the French Baroque composer Francois Couperin.

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