Visual Arts Resources

• Art History
• Photography
• Graphic Design
• Career Resources

In the Library

• Grove Art Online (Oxford)
  Grove Art Online provides web access to the entire text of The Dictionary of Art (1996, 34 vols.) with ongoing additions of new material and updates to the text, plus extensive image links and all the sophisticated search advantages possible with an online reference resource.
• ARTstor – An image database including images from ancient to contemporary art. Pacific users only.
• Bridgeman Art Library
  Available via Grove Art Online -- Click on Bridgeman Art Library. The Bridgeman Art Library provides fine art images that accompany some of the articles in the Grove Art Online.  Museums represented include the British Museum and the British Library, the National Galleries of Scotland, Sweden and South Africa, the Hamburg Kunsthalle and major collections in France and Italy. American collections include the Harvard Art Museums, Yale Center for British Art, the museums of Detroit, Houston and Phoenix plus the Barnes Foundation in Pennsylvania.
• Havlice, Patricia Pate.  World Painting Index.
  [Reference ND45 .H38 v.1-2]
  Indexes prints of Western art dating from 1700’s to mid-1970’s that appeared in 100 English-language books.  Includes indexes for artist, title, and subject.
• Parry, Pamela Jeffcott.  Photography Index:  a Guide to Reproductions.
  [Reference TR199 .P37]
  Helps locate artistic and journalistic photos dating from the 1800’s to the 1970’s that were published in English-language books and exhibition catalogs.  Includes indexes for photographer, title, and subject.

On the Web

• Image Collections and Online Art (University of Michigan)
  This site is a collection of links to image collections hosted by many universities, libraries and organizations.
• Altavista Image Search - "The largest image search on the web."  You can select images by color, source and size - Expand your search with audio clips and video files from the web - Very useful "Help" section.
• American Memory
  Created by the Library of Congress, American Memory is a gateway to rich primary source materials relating to the history and culture of the United States. The site offers more than 7 million digital items from more than 100 historical collections.
• Artcyclopedia - Search engine for fine art images. Enter search terms by name of artist, title of artwork or name, place of museum. Browse by movement, medium, subject, nationality or name of artist.
• CORSAIR
  A collaboration between the Pierpont Morgan Library and the Index of Christian Art, CORSAIR provides access to more than 5,000 digital images from the Morgan Library’s renowned collection of medieval and Renaissance manuscripts, spanning some ten centuries of Western illumination. Includes a complete list of manuscripts with images in CORSAIR.
• Google.com Image Finder
  Search more than 880 million images on the Web! You can limit your search on the Advanced Image Search page by size (small, medium, or large) color, filetypes (.jpg, .gif, .png) and by domains (.edu , .gov, .org, etc).
• All The Web Advanced Picture Search
  Search a wide variety of images and limit by file format (.jpeg, .gif, .bmp) image type(color, grayscale, line art) and transparent or non-transparent background. Results are shown as 12 thumbnails per page with direct links to webpages.
• Mother of all Art and Art History Links Page – A page providing links to a number of research-related sources, including images, textual resources, and online exhibitions.  Sponsored by the School of Art & Design at the University of Michigan
• Voice of the Shuttle: Art and Art History Page - Extremely rich server covers general resources, museums, galleries and exhibitions, auctions, artists and work by chronology, cartography, design, art and technology, and more.
• Web Gallery of Art - A virtual museum and searcheable database of European painting and sculpture between the years 1150 and 1800.  Artists Index, biographies, guided tours.

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In the Library

These databases are the best places to look for articles about particular artists, photographers, and their works. 

• Art Full Text (Wilson)
  A bibliographic database that indexes and abstracts articles from periodicals published throughout the world. Full-text coverage for selected periodicals is also included. Periodical coverage includes English-language periodicals, yearbooks, and museum bulletins, as well as ... Pacific users only.
• Art Retrospective (Wilson)
  The counterpart to Art Full Text, this database indexes 55 years of contemporary art history and criticism and information in a variety of journals, important yearbooks, and selected museum bulletins.  Pacific users only.
• JSTOR
  Full-text archive of scholarly journals covering a broad range of disciplines in the arts, humanities, and sciences.  Includes every back issue for 64 art journals.  Pacific users only.
• Arts and Humanities (OCLC)
• Indexes articles, bibliographies, editorials, letters, reviews, and more from the leading arts and humanities journals and selected articles from social science and science journals.  Pacific users only.
• Academic Search Premier
   Academic Search Complete is a scholarly, full text database designed for academic institutions. The database includes full text for 1800 publications as well as images, for nearly every academic field of study. Pacific users only.
• LexisNexis Academic
  Search here for full-text newspaper reviews of exhibitions, installations, etc.  Updated daily, this resource covers New York Times, Washington Post, Boston Globe, and more.  Pacific users only.

On the Web

Some listed here are scholarly, some are popular, and all are freely available on the web.

• Nineteenth-Century Art Worldwide - An electronic journal of 19th century visual culture.
• Aesthetics On-line you'll find articles about aesthetics, philosophy of art, art theory and art criticism, as well as information about aesthetics events worldwide, and links to other aesthetics-related resources on the internet, including the Aesthetics-L email discussion list.
• Crossings:  Electronic Journal of Art and Technology – A peer reviewed multidisciplinary journal that explores the intersection of art and technology.
• La Boite de Pandore - French online magazine dedicated to Art Nouveau
• FindArticles : indexes nearly 500 free to access e-magazines (over 10 million articles).
• OAIster : indexes over 5 million articles (refereed, pre-refereed, non-refereed) from over 400 academic institutions.
• Open J-Gate : offers article level indexing to over 4000 open access journals.

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In the Library

Detailed Information on Artists & Artistic Movements

• Grove Art Online (Oxford)
  Also available in print: Reference – N31 .D5 1996

Biographical Information on Artists

• Contemporary Artists  Reference N6490 .C6567 2002
• Artist biographies (search PacifiCat for the LAST name of the artist, and add “and biograph?” to the search.

Encyclopedias & Dictionaries

• Praeger Encyclopedia of Art
  Reference -- N33 .P89          
• Oxford Dictionary of Art (via Oxford Reference Online)
  Also available in print: Reference – N22 .O93 2001
• The Hutchinson Dictionary of Symbols in Art

Key General Overviews

• The Encyclopedia of Visual Art
  Reference – N25 .E53 1983
• The Oxford Companion to Western Art
  Reference – N33 .O923 2001
• An Introduction to music and art in the Western world
  NX447 .I58 1991
• Gardner’s Art Through the Ages
   N5300 .G25 1996

On the Web

Biographical Information on Artists

• Contemporary Artists Index
  A master index to contemporary group exhibition catalogs.
• The Union List of Artists Names Online, Getty Research Institute
  The ULAN is a structured vocabulary containing more than 225,000 names and biographical and bibliographic information about artists and architects, including a wealth of variant names, pseudonyms, and language variants.

Encyclopedias & Dictionaries

• Artcyclopedia
• ArtLex Art Dictionary
  A brief dictionary of terms in the visual arts.

Key General Overviews

• Art History Resources on the Web  A site that links to information by historical period and by geographic area.  A project of Christopher L.C.E. Witcombe of Sweet Briar College.
• Timeline of Art History
  The Timeline of Art History is a chronological, geographical, and thematic exploration of the history of art from around the world, as illustrated especially by the Metropolitan Museum of Art's collection.