FYI France: JOCONDE -- The museums of France are online! The database Joconde now may be reached at http://www.culture.fr , and provides general public access to the collection records -- and a small but growing number of their accompanying images -- of more than 60 museums in France. Joconde already can reach records of designs, prints, paintings, sculptures, photographs, and art objects, representing 130,000 works of art and 10,000 artists, and an increasing number of inline GIF images. The search procedure is friendly and interesting: sample screen (translated) -- Iconography (subject): Name of the artist: City or museum: School: Century: Type of work: Other indexes include style, technique, title, inscription, subject, provenance, and "onomastique" and "mille'sime". The interface provides the ability to limit searches to documents which are accompanied by an image, and provides for online browsing of lists of key terms. Numberic retrieval limits may be set for a) full records displayed, b) short records displayed, and c) titles displayed. There is online help, and the ability to ask questions. What you find is description in some detail: example -- currently, a search simply on "Nom d'artiste: gauguin" will obtain a list of 42 title entries, and the same search restricted to "Limitation aux documents avec image" yields the following two records, with very nice accompanying GIF inline images which blow up very well on an America Online viewer: 1) Gauguin, Paul [link to full list of 42 JOCONDE entries maintained for his works] , "Nature Morte aux Oranges" [link to full record -- and accompanying image -- of the holdings entry for the original work], (1882 avant); Rennes; Muse'e des Beaux - Arts; peinture a` l'huile; toile; 33H, 46L; Mille'sime: 1882 avant; Repre'sentation: nature morte (vaisselle, orange fruit, couteau, bouteille); Gene`se: avec oeuvre apparentee connue; 2) Gauguin, Paul [same link to full list of JOCONDE entries for Gauguin]; "Vase de Fleurs" [same link to full holdings record, and inline image]; (1880 vers); Rennes; Muse'e des Beaux - Arts; peinture a` l'huile; toile; 19H, 27L; Mille'sime: 1880 vers; Repre'sentation: nature morte (vase, bouquet, livre, fenetre, balustrade), maison, ciel; Gene`se: avec oeuvre apparentee connue. The full Muse'e des Beaux - Arts de Rennes holdings entry for work #1 above is: [first -- importantly, as this is the WorldWideWeb and online media after all -- a really very beautiful inline image, and then... ] Gauguin Paul "Nature Morte Aux Oranges" Pre'c. auteur: PERIODE IMPRESSIONISTE Ecole: France Pe'riode: 4e quart 19e sie`cle Mille'sime: 1882 avant Domaine: Peinture De'nomination: tableau Repre'sentation: nature morte (vaisselle, orange fruit, couteau, bouteille) Technique: peinture a` l'huile; toile Dimensions (CM): 33 H; 46 L Gene`se: avec oeuvre aparentee connue Pre'c. gene`se: coupe de fruits tres proche, par gauguin, presentee a l'exposition l'impressionnisme, a` Nancy, en 1938 Inscription: signe' Pre'c. inscription: P. Gauguin (S.B.G.) Localisation: Rennes; Muse'e des Beaux-Arts Statut juridique: Proprie'te' de l'Etat; Muse'e du Louvre Peintures Inventaire: D 55.5.1; RF 2766 Lieu en de'po^t: en de'po^t; Rennes; Muse'e des Beaux-Arts Date de de'po^t: 1955 Ancien de'po^t: Muse'e du Luxembourg Appartenances: Chaplet (1929) Exposition: 1882 Paris; 7e Exposition Impresioniste, Paris, 1882 Bibliographie: Cogniat, L'Oeuvre de P. Gauguin, 1966 Photo: Cliche' muse'e Date syste`me: 1990/05/28 Re'fe'rence: 00000074658 Copyright: (C) Copyright Direction des Muse'es de France, 1986 There is an astonishing richness here: not only of images and information and access points and indexing, but also of openness to the general public and overall effort. I am aware of a few extraordinary efforts under way in other countries to organize and mount such a service, but of none so advanced yet as this of the French. Where are the multimedia presentations, featuring text and sound and links, all the accompaniment which a good cdrom on the subject might have? One suspects that all this is not far behind. In the meantime a user has all the advantages of online over cdrom -- currency, greater availability (Joconde, the online service, may be reached from anywhere -- in airplanes now -- at any time, regardless of whether you've brought your cdrom drive along), constant updating of data and system features -- Joconde is a work - in - progress, and will grow as France's extraordinary effort in online media grows. Some of us may remember Andre' Malraux: "... And if, after so many years of oblivion, we hear the song that follows after a plainsong of a crusade or a chant of the Ramayana, it is not because the historians have restored the text to us, or because we have rediscovered the faith of the twelfth century or of the age of the Vedas; it is because we admire them in the company of the statues of Sumer and of the Indian grottoes, of the Acropolis and of the tombs of Florence -- in the company of all the statues of the earth. It is the song of metamorphosis, and no one before us has heard it -- the song in which esthetics, dreams, and even religions are no longer more than librettos to an inexhaustible music." The Music of the Spheres. Perhaps this is one mission -- perhaps _the_ mission -- of the Internet: to democratize and to harmonize. That schoolchildren in Mandalay might one day have access to scholarship and images by Gauguin located half a world away, by tapping on a laptop, is a dream which even Malraux might never have imagined. XXX FYIFrance e - newsletter ISSN 1071 - 5916 * | FYIFrance is a monthly electronic newsletter, | published since 1992 as a small - scale, personal, | experiment, in the creation of large - scale | "information overload", by Jack Kessler. Any material / \ written by me which appears in FYIFrance may be ----- copied and used by anyone for any good purpose, so // \\ long as, a) they give me credit and show my e - mail --------- address and, b) it isn't going to make them money: if // \\ if it is going to make them money, they must get my permission in advance, and share some of the money which they get with me. Use of material written by others requires their permission. FYIFrance archives may be reached online at http://infolib.berkeley.edu , or via gopher to infolib.berkeley.edu 72 or gopher.well.sf.ca.us or gopher.univ-rennes1.fr (BIBLIO-FR econference archive), or via telnet to a.cni.org , login brsuser (PACS / PACS-L e - conference archive). Suggestions, reactions, criticisms, praise, and poison - pen letters all will be gratefully received at kessler@well.sf.ca.us . XXX end