What does the Web Gallery of Art painter index contain?

The Web Gallery of Art features a massive online collection of approximately 34,000 images created by 4,000 artists. The alphabetical artist index catalogs named painters who have oil paintings in the database, complete with sample painting titles and locations. Over a quarter of these painters are of Italian origin, a significant third were born in the 17th century, and the vast majority are men.

What we know

• The Web Gallery of Art online collection contains roughly 34,000 images by 4,000 artists. [2]
• The alphabetical painter list includes only named artists who have oil paintings represented in the database, and the list is partitioned across multiple sections such as the L-Z index cataloged on Wikimedia. [1, 2]
• Over a quarter of the 2,463 painters in the database are Italian. [2]
• About a third of the painters in the database were born in the 17th century, and mostly men, with only 44 women listed. [2]

Where to go next

• a case in pointWho are some of the female artists in the Web Gallery of Art?
• the bigger pictureHow did Western painting evolve from the Renaissance to Modernism?
• compared withWhat characterizes the Modernist movement in visual arts?
• how we knowWhat is the complete structure of the Web Gallery of Art database?
• an unexpected connectionHow do architects approach the redesign of historical buildings?

Sources

• [1]list of artists in the Web Gallery of Art (L-Z) (Wikidata Q86009197) · CC0 1.0
• [2]List of artists in the Web Gallery of Art (L–Z) · CC BY-SA 4.0
• [3]Hubert-Jan Henket · CC BY-SA 4.0
• [4]Western painting · CC BY-SA 4.0
• [5]Modernism · CC BY-SA 4.0