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From the Louvre's museum of objects of art
to Visipix's encyclopedic imagery
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Index
View pictures:
Integral Facsimiles:
- 100 views of the Fuji: 1,
2,
3,
all
- Glories
of China and Japan
- Illustrations of Chinese poetry:
1,
2,
3,
4,
5,
all
- The life of Buddha:
1,
2,
3,
4,
5,
6,
all
- The Mangas:
1,
2,
3,
4,
5,
6,
7,
8,
9,
10,
11,
12,
13,
14,
15,
all
Other masterpieces:
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For many people, art is "the Mona Lisa in Paris", plus maybe crazy pix by Picasso. *
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Holyness versus intellectual content :
Undoubtedly, the first objects of art were fetishes with supernatural powers, holy objects.
Their beauty and artistic craftmanship had only the function of underlining these powers.
Totem (Melanesia) with supernatural powers to fend off evil spirits. Butterflies successfully use totem eyes on their wings.
The object itself was important and not the intellectual invention.
This certainly applies also to the holy icons of medieval orthodox church.
The opposite concept rejects the sacredness of all objects and places. Only intellectual content and ideas count.
Scuplture, Japan 1875. The strong contrast between maximum pureness and simplicity versus excessive complexity. In the story told by the sculpture, the crystal ball has power over the seas. In the sculpture, the crystal ball has no fetish-power. It's only power is the story itself.
The big question :
Is the 'Saint Peter Cathedral' in Rome a holy object, or a genius piece of engineer-artists?
Are the construction plans and the craftmanship the crux of this object, or it's holy purpose?
What about Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa?
Of course it is a desirable object. If it were on sale, several people would gladly throw up hundreds of millions of dollars to be the one who has it in his bank vault.
On the other hand, there are excellent replicas, handmade and roboter-made. These replicas reveal the identical intellectual content as the orignial. If the original were no longer accessible, the invention of Leonardo, his idea, his influence on the history of mankind, all that would not lose a grain of salt.
The Louvre, the museum prototype
The Louvre is a collection of objects of art. One travels to Paris, waits for hours, possibly under thunderstorm, and then, visits the objects on display.
Regardless how many objects they have, many more they don't have. This museum is not an encyclopedia, but an astonishing random collection.
André Malraux describes 'the imaginary museum' which has taken the objects of art away from the historic and cultural context in which they were created into the museum as a imaginary space.
The context of the real museum has absolutely nothing to do with the origin of the objects of art.
The visitors have to build the bridge from the museum display to the origins in their own minds.
Of course, an Egyptian mummy is hard to integrate into my computer programmer's narrow brain.
Some of these are just junk for me, which i wouldn't want in my home. (By the way, mummys were once grinded to aphrodisiac pills and successfully sold miligram by miligram. The 'Curiosa Museum' at Niagara Falls claims that the mummy of Nofretete was consumed this way. The ZDF-Television, Germany has a documentary film.)
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The museums reject violently all offers for genuine splinters from Jesus' cross, but when it comes to a menu-card on which Picasso drafted the special Japanese prawn he wished to order - they buy.
There is a not so holy alliance between the art trade, the collectors and the museums. All are interested in the not-so-holy fabulous prices of art objects - nevermind the intellectual content.
They agree, that the intellectual content should be left to poor enthousiastic young hitch-hikers haggling for reprints from the bouquinists at the rive droite and rive gauche in Paris.
The catholic church worships holy objects and places like that awful Lourdes, etc. The protestant church does not know of any holy places, it only worships what one finds in ones own soul.
The Visipix concept of the encyclopedic imagery:
The internet presents all media to everysoul, everywhere, everytime and everything one wishes to enjoy. Instantly without formalities, and of course more or less for free.
Pop-music mainly consists of a hard core of maybe 100'000 songs. It's published completely and immediately accessible by title and performer. A prefect situation.
Visipix would like to offer the same for pictures. But, alas, this is more complicated than Pop-music because even the 1'000'000 greatest pictures on earth (probably copyrighted by Mr Bill Gates jr.) are not fulfilling the dream.
Other than songs, pictures cannot be identified by titles and not all come out of a clean sound studio. To allow access in the internet, pictures have to be enhanced (10 minutes) per item, and indexed (another 10 minutes) before they can be published in a consistent database.
Visipix is busy with 'the impossible'.
The point: Visipix offers you
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the broadest possible range of pictures from tourists in the souk of Tanger, to the Mona Lisa, Hokusai's Mangas and Walter Novak's Algerian desert photos including the cave-paintings
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immediate, precise search engine
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large sizes for good prints
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many facsimiles
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no formalities, no registration, all for free
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For the intellectual mind, we believe this to be paradise. Not somewhere on earth, but right in front of your eyes on your screen.
In the Visipix imagery there are no holy objects, everything is virtual, but printable.
The only thing which counts, is the intellectual content of an image, including it's historical and cultural links throughout the world. Nothing else counts.
We believe, that this is worth an immense effort and investment regardless the fact, that the financial adventure might hurt us.
Hokusai at Visipix:
I, Hannes Keller, founder of Visipix, love and have always loved Hokusai.
He cared about the ideas in his pictures and couldn't care less about anything holy in connection with objects of art.
Despite the editor's pressure for cheap, small-scale publications (mangas), Hokusai did his best to entertain, to educate, to break down all barriers in order to reach the hearts of the 'masses'.
Must be Hokusai's neighbour and her husband
Many experts in the museum-art trader-collector triangle feel uneasy about Hokusai.
But people with burning hearts, like Vincent van Gogh, were always totally fascinated by what Hokusai tells us.
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