LibGuides: Art and Art History: Overview Resources

Overview Resources

Find background information, including definition of art terms and biographies in these resources.

Contemporary Artists Index
covers over 37,000 artists appearing in more than 2,000 exhibition catalogs and art publications

Gale Virtual Reference Library
find information on artists and art movements, including contextual history in this database of encyclopedias

Updated regularly. A database of encyclopedias, almanacs, and specialized reference sources. Fully searchable across all files. A list of sources included in our subscription is available.
For more information on ebooks see the Ebook Guide
Oxford Art Online
Oxford Art Online is the access point for Grove Art Online and the Benezit Dictionary of Artists with entries on artists from antiquity to the present day, including auction records, museum holdings, and bibliographies.

Updated daily. Provides Web access to the entire text of The Dictionary of Art (1996, 34 vols.) with annual additions of new material and updates to the text, plus extensive image links.
Covers the artistic traditions of the world's leading cultures, countries, cities, towns, and regions as well as important archaeological sites, monuments, and buildings. Includes over 45,000 signed articles on every aspect of the visual arts from prehistory through the present as well as over 40,000 web links to important art images in galleries and museums around the world. Both the fine arts (painting, sculpture, and architecture) and the decorative arts (ceramics, textiles, jewellery, interior design, furniture, glass, metalwork, and more) are included.
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Smarthistory: Art History on Khan Academy
web-based multimedia art history textbook

Background Information

Find background information on your topic so that you'll begin to understand the who, what, when, where, why, and vocabulary surrounding your topic. This will help you narrow your topic to something manageable and will give you a bit of context so that you can decide more easily where to search later. Begin in Gale Virtual Reference Library, a collection of (mostly) encyclopedia articles, which are short overviews of a topic.

Gale Virtual Reference Library
Most current edition. Unlimited users. Usage Rights

Updated regularly. A database of encyclopedias, almanacs, and specialized reference sources. Fully searchable across all files. A list of sources included in our subscription is available.
For more information on ebooks see the Ebook Guide