| When
Susan and John Huntington, both professors of art history, first
trekked into the high Himalayas two decades ago to photograph
ancient murals in crumbling Buddhist monasteries, they never guessed
their photographic efforts there and elsewhere in Asia would become
the core of one of the world's greatest collections of images
of Asian art. But that is exactly how the Huntington
Photographic Archive of Buddhist and Related Art came to be,
fueled by a desire to preserve images that otherwise might have
been lost forever and to create a valuable resource for the study
of Asian art.
The
collection now numbers upwards of 300,000 slides and photographs
and covers art and architecture from India, Afghanistan, Pakistan,
Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nepal, China, Japan, Thailand, Indonesia,
and Myanmar (Burma). The works of art documented in the photo
collection span thousands of years and while predominantly Buddhist,
the collection also includes Hindu, Jain, Islamic, and other
forms of art. So far, about 80,000 of the images have been digitized
and an equal number catalogued in a text-based database, with
many of the images already accessible via the World Wide Web.
The collection has become one of the most important assemblages
in the world of art, a gold mine for scholars and students alike.
Susan
Huntington, now dean of the Graduate School, sees the archive
as a way to change how art history is taught. By providing students
with comprehensive visual materials for various areas of study,
they will be able to address broader issues and teaching can
emphasize contextual issues rather than rote memorization. For
the future, the Huntingtons are working to develop the means
to enable computer searches for similar images in the way it
now can search by words. And other major collectors are signing
on to add copies of their images as well, making the Huntington
Archive an even greater asset.
More Information
Huntington
Archive
Ohio
State College of the Arts
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Huntingtion
Archive sample images:
For
complete collections, visit the Huntingtion
Archive
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