Art: The Great Works On-Line

The Getty Art History Information Program, a 10-year-old operating agency, has created a program to study the effects of the information superhighway on the art world.

The Image Initiative program has been formed to ensure that museums and art researchers have access to high-quality art images via computer networks.

The program will study intellectual property rights to prevent artistic piracy as well as ensure common standards for painting replications in digital images.

“We stand on the brink of fulfilling the 15th Century humanist Erasmus’ dream of a “library (of art) with no limits other than the world itself,” said Stuart Lynn, president of the Commission on Preservation and Access, and one of the participants in the program.