Yale University Art Gallery

I was pleasantly surprised by the Yale University Art Gallery website . . . This gorgeous website presents an excellent selection of works in their numerous collections. Beyond that they have an online magazine called What is Art and Why Does it Matter? In each issue, they pose a question to a number of people from different disciplines. Some of the questions include, “Can art change the world?”, “Can art be criticized on ethical grounds?”, and “Why is ugly beautiful?” Next to each short essay are the names of the other responders, which you can click on to see their answers.

After checking out the online magazine, I jumped to the collection entitled, “Prints, Drawings and Photographs.”

After Antonio Polliauolo, Battle of the Nudes (ca. 1490)

Once you get to the thumbnails from each collection, you can double click and see the images in a pop up window. Be sure to check out the “about image” button, which gives a summary of the image. The above engraving, Battle of the Nudes (ca. 1490) made after Antonio Pollaiuolo, reads:

Pollaiuolo’s image of ten naked men battling is an icon of Italian Renaissance printmaking, and the Gallery’s impression is one of the best in America. It has been suggested that the composition illustrates an episode from Roman history or commemorates the death of a notable contemporary Florentine, but no explanation has found general acceptance. Whatever the iconographic content, the energetically gesturing figures are typical of the artist, as can be seen by a comparison of the engraving with the Gallery’s painting by Pollaiuolo, Hercules and Deianira; the archer at upper left in the print could almost be Hercules in the painting, turned to be seen from the front.

Here are some more images from that very same collection:

Albrecht Durer, Adam and Eve (1504)

Polidoro da Caravaggio, Study of a Seated Old Man (ca. 1520)

Honore Daumier, Rue Transnonain, le 15 Avril 1834 (1834)

Mary Cassatt, The Lamp (1890–91)

Charles Parsons, The City of New York (1876)

Jackson Pollock, Number 14: Gray (1948)

Visit the Yale University Art Gallery website