The National Gallery: Complete Illustrated Catalogue “aims to provide concise, systematic and up‐to‐date information on every work owned by the National Gallery.” The CD‐ROM contains the complete text found in the printed edition of the catalog. Along with buttons for the main access points, the main menu offers buttons for background information: the Director’s Introduction, History of the National Gallery, and two tutorials: How the Catalogue is Organized and How to Use this CD‐ROM. These consist of text with some images. This product contains no audio, animation, or motion video clips.
Three large buttons provide the main access points to the collection. The ARTISTS and the INDEX buttons provide alphabetical lists of the artists and the index terms used in the product. Researchers can type a desired term or select it from a list. With each keystroke, the cursor moves to the closest match in the alphabetical list to make selection easier. Selecting an item in the Artists section will display the biography of that artist plus thumbnail illustrations of his or her paintings in the National Gallery collection.
Selecting an item in the Index will display the entries for that term. Clicking on a painting title will display a painting and its catalog entry. The left and right arrows at the bottom of the screen will navigate through the list.
Using the index to locate terms like “portrait” or “still life” will compile a thematic list of art works by genre that the researcher can examine as desired. One could also use this feature to examine works by medium, such as charcoal, gouache, pastel, etc. However, the most common medium oil on board or oil on canvas needs to be searched by support medium (board, canvas).
One can also use the FIND button to locate terms. The search engine, designed by Cognitive Applications, searches the page text (default) or titles only. One can search for the whole word, use right truncation by selecting start of the word (default), or both left and right truncation by selecting anywhere. Upon completing the search, the program will display a list of titles in alphabetical order by artist. Choosing a reference will display that page. The search engine only searches for one word at a time; so to search by phrase, one would have to execute a search and select “refine.” This procedure apparently executes a Boolean AND operation. Selecting “extend” performs a Boolean OR operation. This is a very powerful search engine; but some of the features are not immediately intuitive to the user.
The buttons for Artists, Index, Find, and Find Again also appear on the navigation bar of the display windows for easy access. Here, one will find other buttons to access contents, add or delete bookmarks, return to the previous screen, access options (print, copy, find, find again). The Find Again feature automatically goes to the next occurrence of a search term and flashes a highlight three times to draw attention to its location.
Selecting a painting to study will display a reference image (about 2 x 2.5 inches in 256 colors) along with the catalog entry in a scrollable viewing window. Names of artists whose paintings are in the collection and National Gallery inventory numbers are underlined in red, enabling one to go directly to the artist or painting referred to. (Clicking thumbnail images on the artist biography pages will also go to the painting and catalog entry.)
Selecting “Whole Image,” “Show Detail,” or “Image Window” will display the images in millions of colors (compressed in JPEG format and decompressed by QuickTime software supplied on the disc). The larger images attempt “to make the best trade‐off between image size, quality of reproduction and storage requirements” while keeping the size of each image below a limit of approximately 450 KB to fit everything onto the CD‐ROM.
The Show Detail button permits viewing any area of the painting, enlarged as if it were about 20 inches square. The 4 x 5 inch viewing window cannot display the entire image at this magnitude; so a yellow square guide lets one scroll across the small reference image to view it enlarged in the viewing window. Clicking anywhere in the reference image will also enlarge that section. The Whole Image button will display the whole painting at a larger size than the reference image; but the image quality will probably not be as good as in the Show Detail view.
Selecting the Image Window button will create a new window to display the current painting. The program will support up to ten image windows during use. Researchers can use the Scale menu to adjust the image display in increments of 25%. The program defaults to fitting it in the window to display the whole image. One can use the resize control at the bottom right‐hand corner to resize the image window or the maximize button to display it over the whole screen. Opening an image window by clicking on the reference image will display the image at its most detailed (100%) and the initial visible portion will be centered on where the mouse was clicked within the reference image.
Each image window also has a Window menu to manipulate and manage the windows. The Tile Image Windows option is particularly useful as it allows the neat arrangement of all the image windows that are currently displayed. This permits comparing images side by side to see how one painting compares with another or how one painter influenced another. For example, one could use this feature to compare Elizabeth Louise Vigee le Brun’s Self Portrait in a Straw Hat with Rubens’s Le Chapeau de Paille. This could not be done easily in the gallery.
Some works may form part of a larger ensemble, e.g. a triptych, or may have a significant painting on the reverse. Show Reverse and Show Composite buttons permit viewing a reverse or a composite in a 4 x 5 inch window; but there are no facilities for viewing details of such works.
A Bibliography button will display the bibliography relating to the catalogue entry.
Microsoft and the National Gallery produced a similar title (Microsoft Art Gallery) in 1993. The state of the art of software and the installed base of hardware could only support image resolutions of 256 colors maximum far less than the true color images in The National Gallery: Complete Illustrated Catalogue. The image windows were of fixed size and did not allow the flexibility of use that this product permits. One should not expect, however, to be able to copy the images. They are copyrighted; and the CD is a tool for study and research; so it does not permit copying of images. Readers can copy the text of catalog entries and artist biographies, though.
The catalog entries in this product have been updated with some changes since the Microsoft Art Gallery. For example, the Arnolfini Marriage is now called the Arnolfini Portrait. The questionable attribution to Fragonard of an Interior Scene (NG2620), once called The Happy Mother, is more clearly identified. Greuze’s Child with an Apple appears in black and white in Microsoft Art Gallery with a seven‐word description. The National Gallery: Complete Illustrated Catalogue shows it in full color with a three sentence catalog entry. The National Gallery: Complete Illustrated Catalogue also offers more information about the provenance of the paintings.
The Microsoft product offered some multimedia bells and whistles, such as the audio pronunciation of names, a historical atlas, and guided tours (four illustrated discussions) that this product does not have. It also had more links built into the text. The National Gallery: Complete Illustrated Catalogue has a Related Index Terms button on the catalog page that will display the index terms related to the painting for cross‐referencing the collection. This performs the same function as the built‐in text links. It also serves a similar function to the historical atlas. For example, one could select “Paris 1775‐1800 (works from)” or “France 1775‐1800 (works from)”to locate paintings from this place and time. This will locate the same entries as does the historical atlas plus three others; but it will not provide a historical narrative.
The National Gallery: Complete Illustrated Catalogue provides easier access to the art works than does the Microsoft product whose principal access is via the artist’s biography. The Complete Illustrated Catalogue has more access points that are quicker and easier to use. The user interface has some similarities to the Microsoft product, particularly in the excellent search engine. After one becomes familiar with its features, it is very flexible and powerful. Art students will appreciate the ability to view the images in true color, to view them at various levels of magnification, to scan parts of them to see the details, and to compare related paintings side by side. Highly recommended.
