Art Without End: Olga's Gallery

Have you ever had a painting spring to mind that you know you learned about somewhere, but now you can't remember what it's called or who created it?  You can only recall a few details - it was from the Rococo period and there was a slipper and a swing involved - and it's driving you crazy.  But there's an easy way to solve this dilemma:  visit Olga's Gallery, type in a few keywords, and soon you'll find out that you're thinking of is The Swing by Jean-Honoré Fragonard.

Olga's Gallery claims to be one of the largest online art collections, and it's probably true.  You can search for pieces by artist, movement or country of origin.  You can even do a search by subject - so if you wanted to look up Prince Albert, you could find portraits by both British and German artists.  Olga's Gallery also provides a helpful index of which pieces are recent additions to the gallery.


But this museum is more than just images - it provides a wealth of information about each artist and most of their works.  Besides listing the year, medium, size and location of each image, Olga's Gallery also includes a detailed description of subject matter of many pieces.  And if you're confused about what is being referred to, just hop back to the homepage.  There you can find sections that explain Greek and Roman myths, stories about the saints, notes about the Bible and other religious traditions, and summaries of literature from around the world.  And if you want to delve even deeper into art history, you can read the archived newsletters that Olga's Gallery used to send out.

With so many images and resources available at your fingertips, Olga's Gallery would seem to be an art lover's paradise.  I do appreciate having so much information and history all in one place, but the website is marred by tons of ads.  There are Google ads off the side and embedded in the text; there are huge block ads that you have to scroll past to see the pieces; and there are those devilish pop-under ads that spring up every so often.  Be prepared with deal with these annoyances before you visit.


But do visit.  There's so much available to look at and learn, and you could spend hours jumping from one subject or artist to the next.  Sure, it's grating to find ads everywhere, but if that's the price to pay for having thousands of years of art right in from of you, so be it.


Olga's Gallery
Website:  www.abcgallery.com