Table of Contents
Introduction
There are several important physical features of artworks that it is important to capture, including the size and materials that it is made of. The model allows for both being explicit in the model for these, as well as simply including a textual description. The explicit form is strongly prefered, however it is recognized that not all systems will be able to provide it.
Beyond dimensions and materials, the model allows for the description of parts of objects, and parts of parts. These parts can be thought of as objects in their own right, and thus have titles ("Left Panel" of a triptych), descriptions, rights, images, dimensions, materials, and so forth.
Dimensions
Dimensions are included in the dimension property, and consist of three primary pieces of information: the numeric value in value, the type of dimension (e.g. height vs width) in classified_as referencing an external vocabulary of dimension types, and the unit used to align the value with the real world such as inches, pounds or seconds. The unit should also be given from a controlled vocabulary.
For example, a painting that measures 16 inches wide, by 20 inches tall, could be described as given below. Note that the repeated unit is not duplicated in its entirety, just its URI given in the second dimension.
{ "@context": "https://linked.art/ns/context/1/full.jsonld", "id": "https://linked.art/example/object/39", "type": "ManMadeObject", "label": "Example 16x20 Painting", "classified_as": ["aat:300033618","aat:300133025"], "dimension": [ { "id": "https://linked.art/example/Dimension/2", "type": "Dimension", "value": 16, "classified_as": ["aat:300055647"], "unit": {"id": "aat:300379100","type": "MeasurementUnit","label": "inches"} }, { "id": "https://linked.art/example/Dimension/3", "type": "Dimension", "value": 20, "classified_as": ["aat:300055644"], "unit": "aat:300379100" } ] }
Raw | Playground | Raw Turtle | Styled Turtle
Dimension Statement
If the dimension text is not recorded in a way that is condusive to generating the full set, then it can be given as a LinguisticObject, classifed as dimensions by reference to aat:300266036, and the text provided in value.
The same object might have a dimension statement as below.
{ "@context": "https://linked.art/ns/context/1/full.jsonld", "id": "https://linked.art/example/object/40", "type": "ManMadeObject", "label": "Example Painting", "classified_as": ["aat:300033618","aat:300133025"], "referred_to_by": [ { "id": "https://linked.art/example/text/5", "type": "LinguisticObject", "value": "The painting is approximately 16 inches wide, by 20 inches high", "classified_as": ["aat:300266036"] } ] }
Raw | Playground | Raw Turtle | Styled Turtle
Materials
Objects are made_of different materials. The materials are the type of material, rather than the specific bits of matter and therefore can refer directly to external vocabularies. When possible, it is good to use this model, and combined with the parts model described in the next section, allows for a comprehensive set of information about which parts are which sizes and made of which materials.
For example, a statue made of marble could be described as below.
{ "@context": "https://linked.art/ns/context/1/full.jsonld", "id": "https://linked.art/example/object/41", "type": "ManMadeObject", "label": "Example Marble Sculpture", "classified_as": ["aat:300047090","aat:300133025"], "made_of": [{"id": "aat:300011443","type": "Material","label": "marble"}] }
Raw | Playground | Raw Turtle | Styled Turtle
Materials Statement
Similarly to dimensions statements, it is possible to describe the materials using a LinguisticObject classified as being about the materials of the object via aat:300010358.
{ "@context": "https://linked.art/ns/context/1/full.jsonld", "id": "https://linked.art/example/object/42", "type": "ManMadeObject", "label": "Example Multi-Media Painting", "classified_as": ["aat:300033618","aat:300133025"], "referred_to_by": [ { "id": "https://linked.art/example/text/6", "type": "LinguisticObject", "value": "Oil, French Watercolors on Paper, Graphite and Ink on Canvas, with an Oak frame", "classified_as": ["aat:300010358"] } ] }
Raw | Playground | Raw Turtle | Styled Turtle
Parts
As described in the baseline patterns, one of the main modeling paradigms used is to separate parts of resources from the whole. Physical objects are particularly amenable to this, and allows reuse of the rest of the model as needed. The parts do not need to be physically separable without destroying the object, but do need to be objectively definable in terms of the matter that makes it up. For example, the arm of a sculpture could have dimensions and materials, but while an arch in a rock formation might have dimensions, it is not made of anything, and is thus not a part of anything.
Physical parts are given using the part property, and use the high level PhysicalObject class. The classified_as property can be used to be more specific as to the sort of part, in this case the support for the painting, which is in turn made of canvas.
The model does not have a separate parts statement to describe this in a human-readable way, as this is traditionally done using the materials statement as demonstrated above.
{ "@context": "https://linked.art/ns/context/1/full.jsonld", "id": "https://linked.art/example/object/43", "type": "ManMadeObject", "label": "Example Painting", "classified_as": ["aat:300033618","aat:300133025"], "made_of": [ {"id": "aat:300015045","type": "Material","label": "watercolor"} ], "part": [ { "id": "https://linked.art/example/object/43/part/1", "type": "PhysicalObject", "label": "Canvas Support", "classified_as": ["aat:300014844"], "made_of": [{"id": "aat:300014078","type": "Material","label": "canvas"}] } ] }
Raw | Playground | Raw Turtle | Styled Turtle
Features
The model distinguishes between objectively-definable parts, such as the frame of a painting being distinct from the canvas, from features which have no objectively-definable border, such as the recto and verso of the canvas. This pattern allows separate identities for the recto and verso of a page, the obverse and reverse of a coin, without implying that there are two separate physical objects.
These are modeled as instances of ManMadeFeature, as opposed to a ManMadeObject. An object representing the whole then bears the features, and those features can have one or more parts for further sub-division.
The artwork or content that is part of the front or back is modeled as a ManMadeObject which is part of the Feature. This is to provide consistency with the more common situation when the features are not modeled at all, despite the painting only being on one side of the canvas.
{ "@context": "https://linked.art/ns/context/1/full.jsonld", "id": "https://linked.art/example/object/44", "type": "ManMadeObject", "label": "Photograph of Example Artwork", "description": "Photograph of an Artwork, with commentary on the back", "classified_as": ["aat:300128347"], "bears": [ { "id": "https://linked.art/example/ManMadeFeature/0", "type": "ManMadeFeature", "label": "Photograph's Front", "classified_as": ["aat:300190703"], "part": [ { "id": "https://linked.art/example/object/45", "type": "ManMadeObject", "label": "Photographic Part", "depicts": [ { "id": "https://linked.art/example/object/46", "type": "ManMadeObject", "label": "Example Artwork", "classified_as": ["aat:300133025"] } ] } ] }, { "id": "https://linked.art/example/ManMadeFeature/1", "type": "ManMadeFeature", "label": "Photograph's Back", "classified_as": ["aat:300190692"], "part": [ { "id": "https://linked.art/example/object/47", "type": "ManMadeObject", "label": "Back Part", "carries": [ { "id": "https://linked.art/example/text/7", "type": "LinguisticObject", "value": "Photograph of Example, taken 1932" } ] } ] } ] }
Raw | Playground | Raw Turtle | Styled Turtle