Interactive Prototype for Artists Lifes Project
When students start learning the History of Art, a typical issue they face is a lack of understanding of time periods and contexts. Academic texts and date numbers may seem too abstract for beginners. This project provides a bird’s-eye view of art through the ages and helps build a consistent framework in students' minds. I suppose that having this backbone will make it easier to perceive art exhibitions and academic articles, as all new incoming information will be linked with other facts and historical events in their consciousness.
The project reveals fascinating facts and stories in painters’ biographies, showing how long and productive their ‘creative paths’ were, how artists influenced each other, and what their last paintings were (whether they stopped their artistic careers or passed away). The infographic encourages the audience to learn more about the professional lives of painters and their most significant works.
The data is taken from Wikidata. The source list of artists was reduced to painters born between 1850 and 1950, who had at least one citizenship in a European country and have two or more paintings marked as notable by Wikipedia.
The prototype is created using the Processing framework (a Java-based language for learning how to code within the context of the visual arts) and works as a desktop application.
Programming consultant: Sergey Susikov.
