So you Want to Build a Virtual Gallery

Don't answer that, but let's assume you can't be stopped. Let's further say you’ve been through the JSS Virtual Gallery and like what you see. And you are really seriously thinking about putting together something like this on your own favorite artist and want to pick my brain. OR (better yet for me) you know a bit about website building and computer coding (had the benefit of some classes or a degree in the field) but want to know where I am on the huge continuum of universal understanding. <grin>

Let me put the latter question to rest – I know next to nothing about web design. The operative words here, I suppose, are “next to” as obviously I know "something" about web design. The problem is I know just enough to be dangerous. To hold myself out as a model of new virtual galleries might not be a good idea, although I’m very supportive of the idea but more to that point later.

Having given my caveat of ignorance, I’m convinced there is a great deal of merit to opening some form of dialogue between interested parties. I realize that even with my limited ability, and with the input of others, that possibly there might be some insight which could be helpful.

Understanding the scope
How many hours did this take? A letter from Jacques L'Heureux (Wed, 03 Nov 2004):

I am working on a similar project but with much fewer items and not a so well know artist. We are just getting started. Our website is at jeantabaud.com.

Computer Database Designs

As wonderful as database designs are, the restrictive nature of standardization is very limiting in what you can do when a database spits out the images to be married with any kind of narrative text -- or at least it's been limited thus far. To try and explain the problem, as I see it, let me try and define the two main components of an art website as I understand it. They are 1) Thumbnail Pages and 2) Webplates.

Thumbnail Pages are kind of an index from which the visitor branches to individual works of art. Once you get past the front page, the problem is how are you going to present the art. Most choose to do it with small thumbnail images which give the viewer, in an instant, an idea of whether he/she wants to learn more about that piece of work.

There are probably endless variations of showing thumbnail pages but this gives you some of the basic types I sort of enjoy and why i enjoy them. My Thumbnail Pages are not database powered either and this is a huge drawback, but unlike what databases can give you, I’ve worked really hard to show somewhat of a narrative to the thumbnails which suites my objectives perfectly. I don’t know how to marry a database to this kind of thumbnail presentation, nor have I seen anyone else do it.

This might be only my terminology (I don’t know) but what I mean is the referred page on which the features Artwork is shown. It is here (Webplates) where you are taken from the Thumbnail Pages to the full image of the work of art. Some sites choose to disregard “Webplates” all together and just give you a link to the image source – like this (link). I believe this is a mistake. Sure, it’s a fast way of presenting the art and it will save you a ton of time, but I believe it’s very important to keep the documentation with the large image as much as you can.

Let’s take a look at one of my basic Webplates.

There are 4 elements to one of my Webplates.

Right now this is set up as a single template on one page from which I add paintings. What I hope to do (using databases which I'm learning) is to split these 4 elements and automate some of it. Here are the four elements

The most imortant thing in a virtual gallery is it's images of the art. You can have the most fancy looking website with flashy graphics and cool designs but if the images of the art are small or poor -- what's the use?

Now the textbook argument for doing it by the book, besides having all the info on one screen, is that you don’t want the viewer to have to wait on some large image to load. An intermediate size image gives the viewer a chance to progressively decide to move forward. That’s all well and good for some business application, but it doesn’t work for an art website – not any that I like going to. If you give the viewer a large enough thumbnail to begin with (currently I’m sizing mine around 200 pix at the largest dimension) you can pretty much tell what the painting is by its thumbnail. At that size it comes down to this:

If they want to see it – then give it to them!!! In the days when I was surfing at 56K from a dial-up modem I was fully willing to wait on a large image to load if and when I trusted the webmaster to give me what I was wanted. That progressive stuff – you spend all your time loading pages.

Thumbnails

The internet is a medium of tradeoffs. Even in the world of broadband we aren't in the world of perfection, or anything near it. The internet is the world of the-best-I-could-do.

When it comes to thumbnails there are three constraints to consider

1)    Clarity of the image
2)    Physical size of the image
3)    File size of the image

In a perfect world I want a large, crystal clear thumbnail, 200 to 250 pix at its widest or tallest and no more than 3kb in file size – that doesn’t happen very often so I have to settle for less, so does everybody else on the net.

Let’s take a look:

The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

They have chosen to make their concessions on physical size, and clarity. If it’s physically small, the file size will be smaller and the page will load fast -- most of their thumbnails are around 1 to 2 k in size). Now it’s all a matter of personal preference, but I think these are too small. You want to be able to have a pretty good idea of the painting so a viewer can make the decision of whether to invest the time to click through to the webplate or move on – these aren’t that bad, but I’m trying to make a point. I don't like reading with my nose scraping against the screen.

Let’s take a look at the other extreme. At the Art Renewal Center -- and I know what you’re going to say. They have made NO concessions. They’re thumbnails and large, bold, crystal clear, clean and beautiful – God bless the ARC, I like their attitude but I’m afraid they have in fact made concessions. There are only 10 thumbnails on this page and it loads slow. Consider my Philip Alexius de Laszlo page with their file-size of thumbnails.

For me, here is my thinking – the physical size HAS to be at least 200 pix large on all new thumbnails I'm making – that’s the third rail I will never touch or go below. If I have to sacrifice clarity – so be it. To me a larger fuzzier image is more meaningful than microscopic clarity.

That’s not so hard until you bring in file size. There are a lot of programs out there that will create thumbnails for you -- scads of thumbnails and they will do it almost instantly with perfect clarity, but I’ve consistantly found the file size of these created thumbnails to be too large – my thumbnail pages load slow enough as it is – I’m looking for 3k perfect, 4k, 5k, 6k tops – there are always exceptions, but it gives you a yardstick or a rule of . . . . thumb-nails

Hey! You -- the one with your hand on the mouse! Stop rolling your eyes!

For me I want a lot of thumbnails on a page, I want them relatively large and I want the page to load fast -- now that's not asking too much, is it? -- I say with more than a little sarcasm. To get that, I have worked with each and every thumbnail personally -- sometimes they don't end up that clear -- here is one. This is 4.62 KB.

I know, It makes Sargent look more like Monet than he is. I'm not totally convinced I've made the right concessions -- Of late -- (it's hard for me to admit this) but I've let my file size creep more towards the 6k level -- and I'm having a hard time sleeping with myself.