Teaching Art with Leaflet

I really like the Leaflet-IIIF plug-in for creating a Leaflet based browser for IIIF manifests. I think it has enormous potential for creating explanatory lessons about paintings and manuscripts shared using IIIF.

The Leaflet-IIIF plug-in page on Github has a few example maps. However none of them include any interactivity. I've therefore created a quick example using Van Gogh's Self-Portrait Dedicated to Gauguin. My Vincent Van Gogh self-portrait example pans and zooms the map to explore different features in the painting. If you click on a button the map zooms in on a feature in the painting and loads some explanatory text beneath the painting.



You could of course use other features from Leaflet.js. For example you could add markers to the picture which users could interact with to explore these marked areas of the painting. Alternatively you could add polygon shapes around different features that when clicked open an information window with explanatory text. The possibilities are really only limited by your imagination.

The painting 'Self-Portrait Dedicated to Paul Gauguin' belongs to the Harvard Art Museums. The poor attempts at art criticism are my own and should be taken with a pinch of salt.