Leave a Review Art Authority for iPad
Poor picture quality on iPad third gen
No idea why they say they upped the image quality for the new retina display. The images are highly compressed and it shows.
Other than that, it's a decent app. I like the way it's organized. The interface is perfectly functional, but clunky. I think it would have been a lot more successful if they let go of the gallery metaphor and took cues from apps that have better interfaces. Also wish you could click on the time period to get the Wikipedia article about it. Seems like a no brainer.
10bucks for an app that simply consolidates content from art net and Wikipedia is way too expensive. I like the content and having it organized this way is nice, but not sure I would buy it again.Show lessDTrak23
Comprehensive and Superb
This was the first app that I bought for the new iPad (March 2012), based on the very favourable review by Patrick Jordan in iPad Insight. It's an excellent app ... you can easily find the paintings you love, and then move to those you've not seen before, all beautifully displayed ... I've had my £7 value from it in my first visit.Show lessDavidW London
Great app, room for improvement
I have only had this app for about an hour, but I already love it. It's a little slow when you're looking for something specific you don't remember the name of, but I love that you can look at different kinds of groups, down to choosing museums to see what art they have.
My one problem with this app is that as far as I can figure, you can't bookmark, favorite, or comment on art or artists. I think this app would be well-served if you could do that, and could even serve art history students extremely well in that capacity.Show lesslpcampbell
WOW! Fabulous for art lovers!
This is a fantastic app for art lovers! What an incredible app, not to mention great value! This program does all kinds of things.
It has paintings from private collections that I have never seen
Anywhere. You can look up things on Wikipedia about an artist, add music to the art work from i tunes, enlarge the piece, even find works of art that are similiar to the work you are looking at.
I can not say enough great things about it!!!!! It also tells you the location of the painting and if it is in a museum, will describe the museum and location for you. If you love art as I do, get this app. You will really enjoy it!Show lessTaster11
Amazing
I've been spending so much of my time browsing through this app, I thought it was due a review.
The sheer breadth and volume of this gallery is amazing. The pictures are high enough resolution that you can set them as a wallpaper or fit them to your screen without noticing any pixellation, but you unfortunately can't zoom in enough to look at small details. The information and references aren't the best, but it is visually stunning. It skips a lot of contemporary work, and here are a few holes in it's collection, but there's easily enough content in here to keep you occupied for lifetimes.Show lessHaley Bourke
References from Wikipedia?...
Ok this is supposed to be an educational virtual museum and all "details" they provide for paintings are from the not-so-trusty source of good old Wikipedia. I was expecting at least an expertly written and verified sentence or two explaining context and giving insight into the paintings. Worse some paintings ( I'm assuming those too obscure for a wiki reference?) don't even have any info at all. This is slightly useful in that it organizes art into user friendly categories and has introduced me to new paintings, but when I go to a museum (and spend $5) I expect to actually gain some deeper insight into the works. Especially since aside from say modern art, it is extremely common for cultural and historical context to come into play. It is super unfortunate because this app has huge potential, just sad to see they took short cuts and the easy way out instead of creating something truly extraordinary.Show lessIamanalien727
Good Pictures but BAD References
I love how I can view so many pieces of art by period in one place. The problem I have with this app is that when you click to find out about something it directs you to Wikipedia. I could have gone to this reference (which is not the most reliable source) myself and not paid the $5. Even the timeline is a screen shot from somewhere else. They need to reference a more reliable source or come up with their own researched content. Had they done that I would have given this app 5 stars.Show lesskcc852
I love this app!
I absolutely love this app. To have this collection of paintings at my fingertips is wonderful but to go further and sort by museum, style, artist... fantastic!!!
The picture quality is very nice. It is always a challenge to represent paintings accurately because texture is flattened out in photographs, but I have been happy with the images. I especially like the close-up detail shots.
I just returned from a four-month work assignment in Europe. This app was invaluable in helping me to get a handle on the museums and their collections before visiting a city. Even with no specific plans to head to a new museum, though, I love just browsing this app and its gorgeous collection of paintings. I have never felt more like a kid in a candy store.
Kudos to the developers for a beautiful app and for immediately responding to a suggestion I made!
A few extra bells and whistles I would love to see in future releases:
1) ability to track which paintings I've seen
2) information about special exhibits at museums. I have yet to find one comprehensive site that tracks exhibits at a large number of museums. I would happily pay good money for this, as I like to plan trips around special art happenings. To have to search each museum site individually and frequently is time consuming.
3) ability to search for museums by city location (eg, I am going to Berlin, what are my museum options?)Show lessBethD34
Great APP, but...
I wish tat every time an update comes out I would not lose ALL of my favorites paintings that I have cashed; they seem to always disappear from my iPad (mayor annoyance)! The lord knows it can take a long while to DL all of the works of an artist again, much less several artists, over and over and over again just because of updates! Can we PLEASE have an update that prevents all of the work you have already DL'ed from being whipped out? Besides this complaint, I love the app! I do wish there were higher res images more often than not. Alas, no APP seems to have yet catalogue higher res images of museum art in the majority. I also wish there was a way to submit request for artists whose work we might want to see in the APP (old artist and modern); can't even tell how many times I've come across an artist who is nowhere to be found in this APP. We can help the creators of this APP to keep up with current demand for both old and new art!Show lessCreateaflow
Fantastic!
I noticed that nobody had written a review for this app yet and I thought I should correct that given how fantastic this app is. When I first bought this, I thought it would be fun but figured it couldn't compare to actually being in the same room with a beautiful work of art. However, both the quality and sheer quantity of these paintings and sculptures far exceeded my expectations. I love that I can zoom in on details of a painting just as if I was standing in front of it in a museum. The author of this app seems to be meticulous about the quality of the pictures so that zooming in is a gratifying experience. I have found a number of new favorite artists, and the app is updated with more artists and more paintings regularly. Given how great this app already was when I first bought it, the regular updates feel like free gifts for new fun exploration. If you are a lover of art, I highly recommend this. It's like having the most amazing art museum in the world in your pocket.Show lessMollybobs
