You may remember New York's famous Metropolitan Museum of Art from Gossip Girl—those steps were S and B's fave after-school hangout, right?—but much, much more than that, its hallowed halls are home to "5,000 years of art spanning all cultures and time periods".
Here's the clincher: as of February 8, MoMA has announced that 375,000 of its pieces in the public domain are now available without restrictions!
IMAGE New York Metropolitan Museum of Art
The new policy, called Open Access, allows individuals to easily access the images and use them for “any purpose, including commercial and noncommercial use, free of charge and without requiring permission from the Museum,” its official website states. The available works represent a wide range of movements, styles, and mediums—think iconic paintings by Claude Monet and Vincent van Gogh, ancient Egyptian, Chinese, and Japanese art, even centuries-old costumes and armor. Time to brush up on some fashion history!
IMAGE New York Metropolitan Museum of Art
All of this is in collaboration with the non-profit Creative Commons, which aims to promote the legal sharing and distribution of information, ideas, and images through its free and easy-to-use copyright licenses. “Sharing is fundamental to how we promote discovery, innovation, and collaboration in the digital age,” said Ryan Merkley, the CEO of Creative Commons. “The Met has given the world a profound gift in service of its mission: the largest encyclopedic art museum in North America has eliminated the barriers that would otherwise prohibit access to its content, and invited the world to use, remix, and share their public-domain collections widely and without restriction.”
IMAGE New York Metropolitan Museum of Art
Care for some Degas? Check out the images here! Now, excuse us as we go on a serious downloading spree in 3, 2, 1...
Hey, Preview readers! Follow us on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Tiktok, and Twitter to stay up to speed on all things trendy and creative. We’ll curate the most stylish feed for you!
