The Web Gallery of Art (WGA) is a virtual art gallery website. It displays historic European visual art, mainly from the Baroque, Gothic and Renaissance periods.
The website contains over 15,400 works[citation needed] and includes accompanying text on the artworks and artists, accessible through a searchable database. The site is a leading example of an independently established collection of high-quality historically important pictures.
The viewer can select the size of the image; associated music is also included to accompany viewing, and posters of displayed artworks are available. The facility was created by Emil Kren and Daniel Marx.
Most of the images in the gallery are of works that are out of copyright. However copyright may exist in the reproductions, within some legal systems. The Gallery itself gives the following copyright statement: "The Web Gallery of Art is copyrighted as a database. Images and documents downloaded from this database can only be used for educational and personal purposes. Distribution of the images in any form is prohibited without the authorization of their legal owner". In general no information is given on the pages presenting the images, as to who the legal owner of each might be. In the United States copyright would not exist in the reproductions of those images that are themselves in the public domain, following the decision in the case of Bridgeman Art Library v. Corel Corp.; a similar situation exists in some other jurisdictions but not all.
The texts used to describe the works, are often, or usually, taken without acknowlegement from published works by art historians, apparently often in breach of copyright. For example, the texts used to describe prints by Albrecht Dürer are taken wholesale from: Kurth, Willi. The Complete Woodcuts of Albrecht Durer, Dover Books, New York, 1963, and Strauss, Walter L. The Complete Engravings, Etchings and Drypoints of Albrecht Durer, Dover Books, New York, 1972.
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