You will have to excuse me if I sound a little dizzy and lightheaded, I have just discovered RMN.
R.M.N.: Réunion des musées nationaux, which is French for ‘kiss goodbye to your good intentions”. A cultural mega-site with it’s own photo archive of art and culture from national and municipal museums across France, as well as a few others like the Prussian Kulturbesitz and the British Museum.
De Stael takes time off from footie for a different British favourite
A strangely familiar scene by Hokusai
I would recommend some search terms, but I know my readership: some of you need no encouragement while others would be offended were I to suggest you did not know the name of your own obsession. And then there are those it would be irresponsible to encourage. Like me.
Mike Chisholm says:
Oh, Struan, Struan… How could you? I started by entering “Henri Riviere” and the evening was gone.
I must admit I had similarly conflicted feelings when I first started turning people on to abebooks (or the Advanced Book Exchange, as it originally was) — it’s not my fault if someone can’t control their book-buying habits…
Thanks (I think),
Mike
June 12, 2009, 1:04 pmstruan says:
What I love is the juxtapositions and complexity returned by quite innocent search terms entered in the free text box. You don’t, for example, just get Riviere’s views of the Eiffel Tower, but also his cyanotypes of his wife, photos of him by others, an odd bit of metalwork, and a host of miscellaneous items which happened to have his first and last names somewhere in the metadata.
‘Usine’ (factory) turned up a fascinating mix of media and styles. It also made it clear just how derivative much photography was and is, and how good the good photographers really are. Did you know Nadar took photos of mining railways? Perhaps it’s common knowledge, but not to me.
I can control my book lust online, but I rarely emerge unscathed from a secondhand bookshop. I guess that makes me a hands-on reader.
June 12, 2009, 9:37 pm