Browsing a Museum Has Never Been Easier! Explore the Vast World of Modern Artistry without Ever Having to Leave Home.

[Choosy]

For those times when visiting the local art gallery isn’t convenient, Artscope allows parents to bring the art gallery right into their homes. Artscope has a broad range of artwork available at the click of a mouse. Artscope is designed for casually exploring art, but can be integrated into various subject matter

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Name of Product: SFMOMA ArtScope

Link to Product/website:http://www.sfmoma.org/projects/artscope/

Description of Product: “A visual browsing tool that allows you to explore more than 3,500 artworks in our collection.”

Description of Product: For those times when visiting the local art gallery isn’t convenient, Artscope allows parents to bring the art gallery right into their homes. Artscope has a broad range of artwork available at the click of a mouse. This site is free to use but requires Adobe Flash Player to view artwork (also free). This site is sponsored by the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.

Homeschool Uses: Artscope is designed for casually exploring art, but can be integrated into various subject matter. The works are displayed in a continuous map-like grid. The grid can be searched either by using zoom to pin point an image or by using the search option. For example, one day you can pick a topic, such as bridges, and search for all the artwork displaying bridges. The visitor just has to click on a keyword of choice and the search will show all the pieces available for your viewing that contain that keyword. Students/parents can also utilize the zoom and use Artscope to choose artists to further study or to compare/contrast the works of artists from the same era.

Experience Using the Product: This year my son is working on English and American literature and we have found that the early authors tied a lot of their literary works to art forms, such as paintings and sculptures. This site is fantastic because as we are working and we find a reference, he can jump online and view the piece. If he wants to look at more pieces by that artist, he clicks on the artist’s name and the rest of his works will be available. If he wants to see other pieces of that genre, circa, or any of the keywords again, all he has to do is click on them and the lens will automatically move to the next piece. Then, he can click on the arrows that show up with the number of hits in his search to view them all. This way he can piece together timelines and use art to explore history. We can take an era from our History curriculum and quickly view artworks from that period as well. In doing that, we can discuss how the art of a period reflects the history. By using the keyword search, we can explore architectural differences of buildings and how different artists use them to symbolize life in their works.

Summary: Overall, my family has found Artscope to be very useful. Artscope loads very well on dial-up Internet connections and is a site that I feel our family will continue to use over the course of my children’s high school careers–though it is easy to use and informative for all ages!

Editor’s Note: Read these Reviews of FREE Art Tools:
Review of Sister Wendy’s 1000 Masterpieces
Reviews for geeART16
http://www.choosyhomeschooler.com/Product/Meet+the+Masters+@Home