Art history

Founded at ENS-PSL in 2009, Artl@s is structured around a digital database of exhibition catalogs, intended to contain all types of exhibition catalogs, from the invention of the catalog (Salon de Paris, 1673) to the present day.

The DatArt project brings together initiatives whose aim is to decentralize the study of the art world from Paris to the regions. Even if the capital was a major artistic center at the national and international level, other cities constituted a cultural breeding ground, both in the market structures and in the actions set up by local artists. 

Between the beginning of the 20^th century and his death, the dental surgeon George Viau (1855-1939) built up an exceptional collection, both in terms of size - approximately 1,200 works of art - and quality, bringing together the greatest impressionist and post-impressionist names such as Monet, Renoir, Sisley, Pissarro, Degas, Morisot, Toulouse-Lautrec, Cézanne, Van Gogh, Denis, Vuillard, and many others.

IMAGO is a Jean Monnet Excellence Center, co-funded by the Erasmus+ Programme of the European Union and the ENS-PSL during three years, from 2019 to 2022. It aims at better understanding images’ circulation with the help of new digital methodologies and cartographies, in order to write a new kind of visual history of globalization within and out of Europe.