Image via WikipediaI was really glad to see that people have stepped up and supported Smarthistory – this is a really amazing site that needs and deserves our support. Their Kickstarter page is here, but PLEASE contribute; this is an incredible project that can really promote art history and online education, and despite reaching their financial goals, we have to think about on-going support. These are just the kinds of courses that are on the chopping block right now in these hard economic times and we need to step up.
We don’t know what is going to happen as we lose liberal arts education. This used to be one of the most important parts of learning: participating in a shared culture. When we lose the liberal arts, we lose our sense of history. Being able to access arts on the web means that students in schools across the world get to benefit from the curation of professional art historians. Yes, looking at pictures on the web is not the same as being there. But this is the next best thing. It is also something completely different. It is a guided view of art and art history scholarship that you could not get in a static textbook. Also, I have seen paintings here for the first time that I could not get to experience any other way. Please support this site!
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