Sadly, fine art on the Web still seems to be largely theoretical. Sadder still, to access some of the more interesting visuals, I found I needed to upgrade my hardware and software--not my paintbrushes. Not having yet risen to even the mediocrity of Netscape, I was stuck using the still-under-construction America Online browser, which is actually fairly fun and simple to use if you don't mind seeing things in weird colors.
The key here is the key word. Try "art gallery" and you'll raise nothing, but use the word "gallery" and you'll get everything including The Marijuana Gallery, a marijuana plant gallery where Joe Schmoe's favorite pin-ups of buds are lined up with color photos of other buds. You'll also find such grabbers as Nightmare Gallery Walkthrough, a mad Englishman's idea of virtual gallery fun; click on any part of the floor plan you wish and you move to that spot to view the paintings. The Algorithmic Image Gallery, with its rows of beautifully ordered signs and symbols, will surely be a hit with engineering types. Then there's The Kenneth Cole Gallery, with its mildly amusing black-and-white posters of overweight matrons. Yawn.
You'll also find that the enterprising faculty members of the University of Illinois Art Department have put together a "collective," as they call it, featuring a curatorial statement for an exhibition they are currently assembling for their site. (If you're familiar with a hoity-toity magazine called Art Forum, you'll feel right at home.) Be forewarned, however. The professors are still trying to work out the kinks, so if you try to access anything at this site you'll probably receive that endlessly irritating error message: "Could not be retrieved due to temporary problem at site or a problem caused by network traffic." It's worse than a "Ride Closed" sign at Disneyland.
The key word "fine arts" will tantalize you with more interesting visual fare. The list sounds great: Digital Fine Arts Web Pages promises something right off the screens of Industrial Light and Magic, or a leisurely virtual tour through the halls and galleries of a major museum or private collection.
Unfortunately, this heavenly place is still largely contraction. There was an apology, and a note that read, "By the way, make sure you are using Netscape as your Web browser." Foiled again! (I called AOL tech support. "Yeah, some sites are like that," said the weary voice on the other end of the line, "but the AOL browser is very good. Also, you might try downloading and installing AOL 2.5 again, since it has been finished. Your earlier downloaded version might have been a pre-release version.") Ah, life in the cyberworld. So, I downloaded yet another version, and encountered better pictures; click on Ruskin School of Drawing and Painting at Oxford, and you get an online Oxford University catalogue, complete with places to go and things to do around Oxford University.
The moral of the story? Don't spend a lot of time online trying to find fine art. It's probably cheaper to fly to Paris. But wait, what's this? The Louvre is online? More on this later!