New research platform Van Gogh Worldwide launched

November 5, 2020 - The new digital platform Van Gogh Worldwide was launched on November 5. It is a unique, innovative and high-quality platform on which art-historical and material-technical information about the work of Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890) is brought together.

The RKD - Netherlands Institute for Art History, the Van Gogh Museum and the Kröller-Müller Museum are the founding partners of Van Gogh Worldwide. They have solid information about Van Gogh's work. In addition, they bundle specialist knowledge about the digital disclosure of data. In the realization of the platform, they work together with a large number of participants, including museums, private individuals and research institutions, in particular the National Heritage Laboratory of the Cultural Heritage Agency of the Netherlands.

Website
At launch, the platform will display the details of Vincent van Gogh's paintings, drawings and prints in the Netherlands: more than 1,000 paintings and works on paper. The object data, provenance, exhibition and literature data, letter references and material-technical information of all works can be consulted. A special feature is the link to Van Gogh's letters, so that it is clear how Van Gogh himself described the work in question. The technical data contains various recordings of a work (such as back cover and grazing light) and references to research reports. Each image can be examined in detail.

Within the website it is easy to search for specific works, both by Dutch and English keywords and oeuvre catalog numbers. Search results can also be filtered by categories, such as subject, material and period of manufacture. The platform aims to be objective: all scientifically published research results about the artworks are displayed. In the second phase, which will start in 2021, works from collections abroad will also be added to the platform. In total there are about 2,000 works of art by Van Gogh known.

Linked data
Van Gogh Worldwide complies with the principles and starting points of the Network Digital Heritage and Digital Heritage Reference Architecture. This means that information from the different source systems is published as Linked data and connected to each other through the use of thesauri. In this way, the information is reliable and always up-to-date. Van Gogh Worldwide is also the first platform in the museum and cultural world to publish data in accordance with the Linked Art data model.

Van Gogh Worldwide is made possible in part by the Mondriaan Fund and the Vincent van Gogh Foundation.

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credits image:

Van Gogh Museum, Self-portrait: Vincent van Gogh, Self-portrait with gray felt hat, 1887, oil on cotton, 44.5 cm x 37.2 cm, Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam (Vincent van Gogh Foundation)