About.
An atlas that reads art history as a mosaic: every painter, movement and place a single tile, and the picture visible only once they're set together.
Painters and eventually Artists.
An ambitious project from the get-go, Tesserarum wishes to provide a full overview of public domain arts information. By handling first comprehensive, documented Western Canon sources for painters we are able to demonstrate a fraction of the larger project and get feedback. We ultimately wish to survey much more information and use modern technology to contribute to art-historical research.
Atlas Tesserarum.
A tessera is the small block set into a mosaic. Atlas Tesserarum is an atlas of tiles. We consider the history of visual arts to be like a mosaic with a series of interlinked and overlapping tiles that show patterns of influence and development.
Each painter, movement, and place is one tile. On its own a tile says little; the picture appears only when we can see things as a larger whole. This was a core factor in creating the Atlas, a way to more holisitcally envisage art history.
The Atlas is mission-driven. It aims to improve access to art-historical knowledge by structuring it in a visual, informative way. We wish to refine and catalogue further works to create a comprehensive resource.
Where a source gives a date as uncertain or approximate, the atlas shows it that way rather than inventing precision. We do not provide value judgement on the existing data, instead providing it.