{"@context":"http://www.shared-canvas.org/ns/context.json","@id":"https://spatial-humanities.library.utoronto.ca/oa/collections/2260/manifest.json","@type":"sc:Manifest","label":"The Boxwood Project","sequences":[{"@id":"https://spatial-humanities.library.utoronto.ca/oa/collections/2260/sequence.json","@type":"sc:Sequence","label":"","canvases":[]}],"description":"\"The Boxwood Project\" falls at the intersection of art and science, by analyzing the science of boxwood miniature with digital technologies, the craftsmanship as the techniques to beautifully carve and combine tiny pieces of wood together in the early 1500s (“Welcome to the Boxwood Project!”).

The researchers and curators of the project first used physics, archaeology, 3D imaging software, gaming computers, and simple x-radiography but they did not work (Ellis and Suda). Then “Micro CT scanning” finally helped them to get much more detailed 3D images of the artifacts all around, including “a hidden portrait of a king and a queen”, as well as how metal pins are arranged to connect the two hemispheres (Ellis and Suda). When one sphere is digitally divided into various layers, its complexity is simplified while its features are emphasized. X-radiography also uncovers its sophisticated structure. These technologies expose more details to be observed and studied which reflect the art history of high Medieval times. People are able to understand more correctly how the beads were made, and their curiosity is aroused:

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“We have even more questions about the people who made them. What motivated the artists to go to this extreme? Will we ever know who they are? Were their original owners aware of the incredible skill that the creation of these works of art demanded? We continue to be impressed by them and know that our audiences will be too.” (Ellis and Suda)

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The digital facsimiles as each single part of a bead can also be viewed as an independent artwork for a certain moment of imagination or meditation, which is a re-performance of their collective form. Viewers are able to enjoy aesthetic of the details “through the long successions of its ‘revivals’ all the way to the present” (Latour and Lowe, 7). The reproduction is also long-lasting and modifiable, from which viewers, researchers and curators can benefit without risking the life span of an original bead.

","attribution":"Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO)","license":"Charitable Registration # 11879 0401 RR0001 \r\nFree of charge for private studies only","metadata":[{"label":"Subject","value":"Virtual World"},{"label":"Creator","value":"Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO)'s Alexandra Suda, (Curator, European Art & R. Fraser Elliott Chair, Print & Drawing Council) and Lisa Ellis (Conservator of Sculpture and Decorative Arts), the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, and the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam"},{"label":"Source","value":"Art Gallery of Ontario. http://boxwood.ago.ca/publication/science-small-wonders."},{"label":"Date","value":"2016-present"},{"label":"Contributor","value":"Thomson Works of Art at the Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO)"},{"label":"Format","value":"Boxwood"},{"label":"Type","value":"Carvings"},{"label":"Coverage","value":"Europe in the early sixteenth century"}],"service":[{"@context":"http://iiif.io/api/search/1/context.json","@id":"https://spatial-humanities.library.utoronto.ca/oa/collections/2260/search","label":"Search this manifest with Omeka","profile":"http://iiif.io/api/search/1/search"}]}