For today’s post I’m going a bit rogue. This morning, my youngest daughter headed off on a school excursion to the Art Gallery in Sydney, and it reminded me of something I recently read. I know that a lot of my readers are also bloggers, so I wanted to share the news with you all. The article (from last month) announced that the Getty Museum was making thousands and thousands of its images free to download and use.

Here’s the article location: The Getty Makes Nearly 88,000 Art Images Free to Use However You Like | Open Culture

It was interesting to note in the comments below the article, most people were woo-hooing, but there was one voice of dissent that reminded people that many of the ‘free’ images are of objects presumably sourced from overseas, whose purchase and provenance was potentially dubious, and whose cultural appropriation may not have been recognized. It’s a valid point to qualify your curiosity with concern for the rightful custodians, but I’m slightly embarrassed to admit that in a world where AI is now the resident expert at colonial pilfering, I was curious to head over to Getty regardless.

[Disclaimer: as weird as this sounds, I’m going to remind you – I’m a blogger with migraines, not a lawyer, so whilst the advice in the news seems to be true, please do your own due diligence to confirm it before you proceed!]

If you’re wondering what’s available in the Getty archives – it’s pretty much anything you can imagine. On top of several famous artworks, there is also a huge collection of artefacts. Whilst there was nothing under the search term “migraine”, there was this under “headache”:

It’s apparently a “Magical Amulet inscribed with a Protective Prayer”; AD. 100-250, and asks Gaia to protect the female owner against fever, chills, and headache.

(Image source: Magic Amulet inscribed with a Protective Prayer)

Next, I tried “skull” and got lots of images of skulls – no surprises there. But in amongst the images was “Study of Jealousy” by Agnolo Bronzino, c. 1545. It’s curious to me, because I’ve felt more than my fair share of jealousy throughout my 50 years, but it doesn’t take on this sort of hunchy-scrunchy agonized posture, which actually screams “migraine!” to me.

(Image source: Study of Jealousy (Getty Museum))

I made the not-so-great decision to search “medication” and got waaaaay too many metal objects that looked to be related to Egyptian embalming or perhaps medieval surgery, and an even greater volume of photos of pant-less men demonstrating their gunshot wounds, presumably from the American Civil War. Seriously – I’m so sorry for you guys – but yikes!

When I searched “medicine”, several photos of American Indians and African Shaman came up. The photos were fascinating, but it did bring to mind the potential insensitivity of what I was doing. In Australia, many of our first nations people believe that displaying images or saying the names of the deceased is distressing and offensive in accordance with their cultural beliefs. That’s why I’m not reproducing any here. There was, however, a great photo of a Greek statue of Asclepius, Greek god of medicine, holding his snake-coiled-staff, possibly taken by James Anderson in 1859. There seems to be a real intimacy between Asclepius and the snake, it’s almost as if he’s stroking its forehead as you would a pet:

(Image source: Esculape. Vatican (Getty Museum))

Perhaps the strangest entry under “medicine” and the reason that these sorts of searches are fun and fantastic, was one of the last ones:

It’s a painting titled “A young girl defending herself against Love”, by William-Adolphe Bouguereau, c. 1880. What this has to do with medicine, I’m not sure – I thought love and laughter were two of the best cures for any ailment… so pushing help away, even if you’re smiling, has me stumped.

(Image source: A Young Girl Defending Herself against Love)

Anyway – if you’re interested in looking through the files, here’s the main page that Getty sends you to:

Getty Search Gateway Home

Alternatively, this is the link to the database that the article uses – it seems to have the same images, but is presented in (I think) a nicer format:

All records in the Open Content Program (Getty Museum)

Back to healing tomorrow.

Take care, Linda x

[PS – if you think your friends would benefit from this post (or this blog!), I’d love you to share it; sharing is caring! Best wishes as always, Linda xx]