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Here are some fabulous art history resources for the dedicated student and art lover.
(Please note some websites are taken down over time)
Go no further! Most of all art history can be researched via the sites listed below and will include ultra-comprehensive art resources on - 'Prehistoric Art, Ancient Near East Art, Ancient Greek Art, Ancient Rome, Art in Early Europe, 15th-Century Renaissance Art, 16th-Century Renaissance Art, 17th-Century Baroque Art, 18th-Century Art, 19th-Century Art, 20th-Century Art, 21st-Century Art.'
The Metropolitan Museum of Art
A sheer research feast for art students, educators, and art lovers at the Metropolitan Museum of Art web site. Start with the chronological Metropolitan Museum of Art Timeline of Art History, and explore the history of art from around the globe.
Artcyclopedia: The Guide to Museum-Quality Art on the Internet
An index of every artist featured at hundreds of museum sites, archives, and diverse internet art sources. Artcyclopedia provides references to sites on the Web where the works of artists can be viewed online. Mostly the artists in their database focus on painting and sculpture. Over 1200 arts sites are indexed, offering over 32,000 links to roughly 100,000 works by nearly 8000 international artists.
https://www.bergerfoundation.ch/Abydos/english/
World Art Treasures is being laid on by The “Jacques-Eduard Berger Foundation Art and Civilisation”. It's a great site for learning about art and artists throughout history. The site offers lectures and cultural itineraries among lots of other breath-taking goodies.
Voice of the Shuttle: Art & Art History
This is an humanities database with many links to art history resources. Among their numerous categories are Artists & Works By Chronology, Institutes & Centres, Museums, Galleries & Exhibitions etc etc.
Concordia University, Canada, provides this resource in which we have the Art History Research Centre which is a tool for comprehensive historical art research. It provides a portal to newsgroups, mailing lists, article indexes, online collections, library catalogues, art history, arts web servers and numerous links.
Huntington Photographic Archive of Buddhist and Related Art
The Huntington Photographic Archive of Buddhist and Related Art of the College of the Arts, Ohio State University, has virtually 300,000 original colour slides and colour photographs of art and architecture throughout Asia. This detailed collection has mainly Buddhist material, including Hindu, Jain, Islamic, and other works. It must be one of the most comprehensive resources available.
Managed by Shelley Esaak, who is a an educator, 'About.com', is a gateway to Art History resources. There are lots of helpful links in various categories including, Articles & Resources, Timelines of Art History, Movements and Schools etc. Ms Esaak is to be congratulated on establishing such a fantastic resource.
The History of Art Virtual Library is full of helpful links relating to Art History sponsored by CHArt, the Computers and History of Art Group. This site focuses on the academic study of Art History. If you would like to find images online or wish to research a particular artist, their lists will be useful.
One of the great American art institutions, the J. Paul Getty Museum Trust specializes in the visual arts and serves the public and specialized professionals. In this regard, it offers quite an array of services. For example, The Explore Art section allows you to look at many of the works of art on display at the Getty by name or theme and other categories. For teachers, there are also lesson plans on all aspects of art and art history.
Smithsonian American Art Museum
The Smithsonian American Art Museum (SAAM) is a federal organisation dedicated to the art and artists of the United States. Over 6,000 American artists are represented here, such as John Singer Sargent, and others. The themes in this collection include Colonial portraiture, American impressionism, twentieth-century realism and abstraction for example. It covers over 200 years of artistic expression.
Library of Congress: The American Memory
From the great Library of Congress we have The American Memory Collection containing materials relating to the culture and history of the USA. Over 6 million digital items from more than 100 historical collections and other collections of photographs, moving pictures, and digitized text etc are here for you to peruse.
Mark Harden’s ingeniously named Artchive shares over 2,000 high-quality scans of artwork for the researcher and student. The museum has several galleries: The Artchive, Glyphs Art Reviews, Theory and Criticism, Juxtapositions, Art CD-ROM Reviews, and Art Links. The Galleries is the entry point to the online exhibitions which are currently showing.
The ARTWORLD database lets you research over 36,000 images from throughout the world. Portfolios of art and sculpture is arranged geographically and by time period. Faculty, and students of the California State University System built this database. The vast range of categories include: Asian Art; European Paintings and sculpture; American Paintings, Sculpture; the Americas, Ancient Near Eastern Art; Arts of Africa and Oceania, Egyptian Art; Islamic and Greek and Roman Art. An absolute academic goldmine!
Art Images for College Teaching
AICT is a free image resource, free for educational purposes put together by art historian Allan T. Kohl. It freely disseminates images of art and architectural works to the public and educational community.
Reunion des Musees Nationaux (RMN), France
RMN - the French Photo Agency of the Reunion des Musees Nationaux, (French National Organization of Art Museums), has over 90,000 colour transparencies and 500,000 black-and-white negatives that relate to works of art in France’s wonderful national museums. We are talking about paintings, sculptures, drawings, photographs etc. This site also has an English Version.
Nineteenth-Century Art Worldwide
Nineteenth-Century Art Worldwide is really an e-journal, devoted to the study of nineteenth-century painting, sculpture, graphic and decorative arts, photography and architecture from all over the world. The overview starts in the nineteenth century, stretching from the American and French Revolutions, all the way to the outbreak of World War I.
Mother of all Art and Art History Links Page
Thanks to the School of Art and design at the University of Michigan, 'The Mother of all Art and Art History Links Page' offers the public an invaluable entrée to Art History Departments, Research Resources, and Online Exhibitions. A must for the researcher.
The British Museum of Antiquities is part of the Society of Antiquaries of Newcastle upon Tyne and the University of Newcastle upon Tyne. The history of the region is told, particularly from the perspective of Hadrian’s Wall and the Roman frontier. It's got artefacts, models, and archives relating to the Wall, and a reconstruction of the Temple of Mithras at Carrawburgh. A virtual gallery of special exhibits, including Hadrian’s Wall and Flints and Stones, with great images and explanatory text are there for your interest.
Site Officiel du Musée du Louvre
This is the official web site of the wonderful world famous Louvre which has virtual tours available of many of its galleries and exhibitions. Seven departments of the museum are represented here.
Spartacus: Encyclopedia of British Art, 1600-1950
Spartacus Educational UK presents handy essays and information on Art Institutions: Covering Artists 1600-1750, Artists 1750-1900, Artists 1900-1950, and Architects. A must visit.
AskArt provides information on over 50,000 American artists. Artists are searchable by their name.
'Hunt for Art History' offers a wealth of information on the whole field of the arts. Various periods and artists are profiled, and there are also numerous resources, lessons, and tutorials. This website was created by dedicated graphic art professionals.
Art History Resources on the Web
Professor Christopher Witcombe of Sweet Briar College has developed one of the most comprehensive art directories on the web. It's full of very useful and regularly updated links and is organised into groups and categories as follows: Prehistoric Art, Ancient Near East, Ancient Egypt, Ancient Greece, Ancient Rome, Art in Early Europe, 15th-Century Renaissance Art, 16th-Century Renaissance Art, 17th-Century Baroque Art, Baroque Art, 18th-Century Art, 19th-Century Art, 20th-Century Art, 21st-Century Art and Prints & Photography. The Professor has also set up an exhibition exploring the perception of Art and identity of artists throughout history and contemporaneously called 'What is Art ….?…. What is an Artist?'
Art History: A Preliminary Handbook
Dr. R. Belton of the Department of Fine Arts at Okanagan University College has created this guidebook to Art History. Sections include Why Study Visual Culture? Evaluation in Term Papers (Research, Thinking and Writing Skills), Further Basic Questions to Ask Yourself About the Work, Some Points for Writing Any Essay, and Academic Documentation in the Department of Fine Arts. A very useful handbook to have at your disposal.
Getty Center: Resources for Teachers
Now K-12 teachers can obtain reference materials, lessons, and activities from the information rich Getty Institute. In the Professional Development Opportunities section: Decorative Arts studies furniture, tapestries, porcelain, and scientific objects. Looking at Portraits offers lesson plans, suggested questions, and activities to prompt discussion and activities about six different portraits. Language Through Art helps ESL students learn new vocabulary, and then practice using it by looking at and describing portraits, landscapes, and narrative works of art. Art and Language Arts are lessons by L.A -area elementary teachers that use artwork in the Getty Museum collection to empower students with language and visual arts skills. ArtsEdNet has lesson plans, curriculum ideas, an image gallery, and ArtsEdNet Talk, an online community of teachers and students.
This interactive site by Pacific Bell is geared towards helping students learn how to look at art in general. The Teacher’s Guide section explains the rationale and criteria behind each of the student activities and offers ways to assist students in getting the most out of the curriculum.
Art Guide: The Art Lovers Guide to Britain and Ireland
Unfortunately this guide has moved and we are unable to locate it. However it was an exhaustive index to the art collections of Great Britain and Ireland. Art Guide is organized by artist, by museum, and geographically and is an absolute gem for researchers. The database currently has over 1,900 named artists, more than 650 museums and roughly 4,500 individual listings, and comprehensive exhibitions listings. For each artist there is a list of their artworks and where they can be found and for each museum there's a list of outstanding works in the collection, and other information.
The National Gallery of Art has over 100 education resources freely available. Titles range from colour slide programs and teaching packets, to videocassettes, CD-roms and DVD’s. The varied program also provides resources in social studies, literature, and foreign languages.
ARTSEDGE – the National Arts and Education Network – recommends creative use of technology to enhance the K-12 educational experience. ARTSEDGE offers students free, standards based teaching materials for use in and out of the classroom, as well as material for professional development; student resources, and guidelines for arts-based instruction and assessment.
The Odyssey Online project helps educators teach using works of art from the ancient Egypt, Greece, Rome and Africa. The Teacher Resource illustrates ways in which this project meets curriculum standards. It is mainly designed for students in elementary and middle school.
The Basics of Art section provides detailed and thorough lesson plans.
This very intriguing online activity is for independent readers, or can be supervised by an educator. It shows, interactively, how to detect which clues in any given portrait help to put it, and its subject, and often the artist, in an historical context. A great way to introduce the concept of critical thinking in art.
The Renaissance Connection, the Allentown Art Museum’s interactive educational web site, focusses on the Renaissance visual arts and innovations. There are online activities and resources, particularly for middle school students and teachers to help those who wish to put together their own innovations, examine Renaissance artworks in depth, and discover how past innovations effect our lives in the present.
A web form about composing an art history paper from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Educational Web Adventures provides award-winning online learning activities about history, art, and science. The idea is to create exciting and effective learning experiences for those interested. Their Art History Adventures is an educational experience ideal for elementary school children. There are also Teachers’ Resources.
KinderArt is all about making art fun for youngsters and easy for adults who teach art to them. There are over 1000 art-incorporating ideas and lesson plans, as well as a comprehensive library section and lots of other features.
Provides ideas, lesson plans, and projects for teachers, parents, and group leaders. It allows for the exchange of ideas between educators, as has after-school and adult education project areas.
From the Minneapolis Institute of Art and the Walker Art Centre we have an online art gallery, library, and interactivity for students. The Classroom section has a searchable database of educational materials and a comprehensive Teacher’s Guide.
Provides five art history related questions which change monthly.
This terrific resource - The Web Gallery of Art, is a virtual museum and searchable database of European painting and sculpture of the Gothic, Renaissance, and Baroque periods, currently with over 15000 reproductions. Biographies, commentaries, and excellent guided tours are available. A search engine allows you to find pictures in the collection using various search terms. The guided tours make it easy to visit the Gallery and to understand the historical relationship between the artwork and artists in the collection.
Cleopatra: A Multimedia Guide to the Ancient World
Cleopatra is a useful interactive guide to the Ancient Art collection of the Art Institute of Chicago. Historical 'stories' accompany the objects, and there are lesson plans for grades of 4-12.
The Perseus Classics collection has textual and visual materials on the Archaic, Classical Greek world and the Roman world. The collection provides diverse resources such as primary and secondary texts, site plans, digital images, and maps. Art and archaeology catalogues document a wide range of objects: over 1,500 vases, over 1,800 sculptures and sculptural groups, over 1,200 coins and gems and hundreds of buildings from nearly 100 sites.
ABZU: Guide to Resources for the Study of the Ancient Near East Available on the Internet
Abzu is a guide to the study and public presentation of the Ancient Near East. Abzu has been available on the Internet since 5 October, 1994. The editor is Charles E. Jones, Research Archivist and Bibliographer at The Oriental Institute at the University of Chicago.
The Theban Mapping project focuses on the Theban Necropolis, the Valley of the Kings, the tomb of Rameses II, and Egyptology. It provides maps, a timeline, Q&A’s, and updates on the KV5 (Rameses tomb) archaeological expedition.
The Age of Enlightenment in the Paintings of France’s National Museums
The Website offers extensive information about painters of the Age of Enlightenment and images of their paintings found in France’s National Museums.
Creating French Culture: Treasures from the Bibliothèque Nationale de France
Creating French Culture from the Bibliothèque Nationale de France traces the history of power and culture from Charlemagne to Charles de Gaulle, through the looking glass of more than 200 “magnificent treasures.”
Lantern Slides of Classical Antiquity
Bryn Mawr College provides a large collection of slides and prints from classical antiquity. These can be regarded as useful resources for scholarship.
Online tours are offered on this site of the collections of art and antiquities at the Vatican museums. These include the Gregorian Egyptian and Etruscan Museums, Raphael’s Rooms, the Pinacoteca (Art Gallery), and the Ethnological Missionary Museum. Visitors can view various rooms in the Vatican, including the Sistine Chapel. Virtual tours of each room are available.
This is a companion to the Islamic galleries at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. It offers a general introduction to Islamic art and draws upon examples from the museum's large collection, and covers works from southern Spain to Central Asia, dates range from the seventh through to the nineteenth century.
American Photographs: The First Century
The Smithsonian American Art Museum displays a broad selection of photographs from The Charles Isaacs Collection of American Photography. The pictures include Civil War images by George Barnard and the Mathew Brady Studio. There are also western landscapes by Timothy O’Sullivan and William Henry Jackson. There are numerous familiar and lesser-known photographers and styles of work. They help demonstrate the influence of photographic culture in the USA during the years from 1839 to 1939.
Treasures from the Royal Tombs of Ur
University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology presents an exhibition from the School of Art and Design at San Jose State University. It features over 150 Sumerian objects excavated by the British archaeologist Sir Leonard Woolley, who was director of the joint excavations of the British Museum and the University of Pennsylvania Museum at ancient Ur in the 1920s and 1930s.
Maecenas: Images of Ancient Greece and Rome
The photographs displayed are for use in teaching by a professor at the University of Buffalo. They can be used for any purpose except a commercial one. This website has been assisted by grants from the Classical Association of the Empire State and the Classical Association of the Atlantic States.
The Digital Michelangelo Project
Stanford University and the University of Washington are aiming to advance the technology of 3D scanning by creating a long-term digital archive of some important cultural artefacts. The project focuses on a number of Michelangelo’s sculptures, including the famous David statue. Of interest are two photographic essays about a physical replica of the David. You can download ScanView, a program which allows you “fly around” models of Michelangelo’s great statues.
Biographies of Impressionist artists can be found here, including such Degas, Monet, Morisot, Pisarro, and Renoir.
Treasures of the World: Mona Lisa
Part of the PBS Treasures of the World Series, the Mona Lisa painting is cast in a story of crime and discovery. The section concerns the Mona Lisa’s disappearance in 1911 but is focussed on Leonardo’s technique and the general myth of Mona Lisa. It should gain a greater appreciation of the Da Vinci masterwork.
This resource on the Renaissance artist Michelangelo Buonarroti deals with his life and achievements and provides links to many of his great works. There are three major sections: His Early Life, Mid Years, and Final Days. Each section focusses on the key events of Michelangelo’s life as well as his most famous works. It is aimed at high school students.
Rodin-Web.org claims to be the world’s largest website resource of the sculptor Auguste Rodin. It contains an overview of Rodin collections, biographical data, comprehensive bibliography, image database, links to useful resources. Rodin-Web is an Internet guide, and an online forum at the same time.
Below is a link to The Royal Academy of Arts Library and Research facility which will help you to find art-related publications:
https://www.royalacademy.org.uk/art-artists/search/books
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