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The ART App for iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch

Reviewed by Bonnie Barrett, MFA

The Mona Lisa icon smiles inscrutabley from my iPhone screen--is this the Louvre in my pocket? Not quite, but 204 artists and over 6000 images are included in the ART app.

The ART launch screen gives you a menu of eight choices beginning with Artists, most identified by a portrait. You can sort artists by name or birthdate. When you select an artist, a gallery of thimbnails of artworks appears. Clicking on a thumbnail reveals a full-screen version along with the title. This is the heart of the App, and I for one, can spend hours browsing through the galleries. The reproductions are small, of course, but the colors are brilliant on the iPhone screen.

The bottom of the screen gives the option of viewing a short artist's biography or clicking on LINKS to be taken to external sites such as Wikipedia for further information. By one click on the DOWNLOAD icon at the bottom left of the screen, you can download additional works from Wikipedia and other websites into your copy of ART. The new images are neatly filed into the creator's gallery.

Some of the linked external sites such as Showmeart.info are hawking reproduction posters of the featured works along with other advertising.

The QUIZ option challenges you to identify the creator of randomly selected artworks by multiple choice. This is a very flattering feature, as correct answers can often be deduced with limited knowledge of the individual artist. I felt like a PhD. in Art History after aceing 100 questions!

The social-media-inclined can create an account through LEADERBOARDS to search for friends and compare quiz results.


Some artist's galleries are empty, as ART is limited to images in the public domain. I was able to use the LINKS feature to easily download a dozen images by M. Rothko with their titles into my phone.
The GALLERY option on the first screen allows you to assemble a gallery of your favorte works.

The SLIDESHOW option chooses works to show in random progression. You can also email selected images.


The "ART" app focuses on the traditional canon of European painting from the 13th Century through Impressionsim. There are a few exceptions; a handfull of Japanese printmakers and some engraving and drawings are included. There are also a few Americans such as Edward Hopper.

Some women artists are represented, but for the most part, this is the standard group of recognised (male) Western painters. It would greatly enrich the app if lesser-known women artists such as Sofonisba Anguissola, Adélaïde Labille-Guiard and Remedios Varo were represented.

The inclusion of some examples of manuscript painting, stained glass and tapestry would also give a more balanced picture of the history of two-dimensional art in Europe. Many works in these media are difficult to attribute to an individual artist, but could be identified by date and place of creation.

A WiFi or 3G connection is necessary because the images are downloaded as you access them. You can download the images of individual artists onto your phone for off-line use. There is an option to download the entire image library onto your phone, but this requires one GB of storage space.

The Bottom line

ART is a bargain at 99 cents. It is well worth the space on your phone or iPod Touch. It might be worthwhile to download the entire image library for offline use before traveling or being out of WiFi range for an extended time.

The Art app was last updated in November 2009. There is now a high-resolution version for the iPad. I hope that ADS Software continues to add new artists and features to Art.

Art
Published by ADS Software Group
Price: 99 cents
Available through the iTunes Store

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