You have to have mixed feelings about web exhibits: seeing art face-to-face is essential. So when a photo editor at Newsweek.com recently alerted me to just-posted exhibition of vintage photographs from turn-of-the-century Russia on its site, I was a tad skeptical that it was worthy of comment.
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Like all print properties struggling to make their way in the web world, Newsweek is trying new things, and posting arts and photo galleries on its site is one. Good for Newsweek.com.)
When I looked at the site, I changed my mind.
The photos belong to the Library of Congress, which also has an online exhibit about them. The photographs were taken by Sergei Mikhailovich
Prokudin-Gorskii (1863-1944), photographer to the last czar, who fled Russia, with his crates of glass plates. The LOC purchased them from his family in 1948. Prokudin-Gorskii took three consecutive photos of his subjects using three color filters and combined them into beautiful color images — they look as if they were taken yesterday.
The two web exhibits do different things and will appeal to different audiences. Newsweek’s slide show is more polished: editors chose some of the best images and added some context. It’s more likely to appeal to the general public. The LOC’s is more scholarly. You may want so spend some time at both.
Photo Credits: Peasant women offer berries to visitors to their izba, a traditional wooden house, near the small town of Kirillov, 1909 (top); Monastery of St. Nil’ on Stolobnyi Island in Lake Seliger in Tver’ Province, northwest of Moscow, 1910 (bottom), Courtesy Library of Congress.