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Art History, Art, and Design

Use this guide to identify resourcees in Art History, Contemporary Art, Studio Art, Design, Applied Arts, and Architecture

Metropolitan Museum of Art Resources

 

Finding Articles and Books about Art History through Pace (Most not on free Internet!)

Here are some direct links to library databases you can use in your research project. Log in for off campus access.

Quick Search tips

Try searching for the exact title of a work of art, and put parantheses around it, for example: "Two Men Contemplating the Moon."  Use AND to add the artist's last name, if necessary. (Use AND in general to join two or more search terms.)  Use OR if search terms are very similar; use NOT to exclude. Some examples:

"Two Men Contemplating the Moon" AND Friedrich

Manet AND criticism                                     

drawing OR illustration

Expressionism NOT abstract

Surrealists AND (drawing OR illustration)

Put quotation marks around phrases and names, e.g.:  “landscape painting”; “historical context” "self-portrait" "women artists"

Oxford Art Online

  • Full-text entries and images from the following art reference resources: Grove Art Online, the Concise Oxford Dictionary of Art Terms, Encyclopedia of Aesthetics, and the Oxford Companion to Western Art. A good place to search for biographical and background information on art and artists.
    Years covered: antiquity-present
  • Is not the place to search for peer-reviewed journal articles

Ebook Central (Books)

  • This is a mega book database that includes books and chapters about art, artists, and art history
  • you can read online, download a book, download a chapter, or print a certain number of pages (usually at least one or two chapters)
  • use the "look within book" search box once you find a book that looks relevant

JSTOR (Journal Articles):

  • JSTOR includes more than 125 journal titles and hundreds of ebooks within the discipline of art & art history, including color or b&w imagery.
  • Articles from the last 3 years are not included
  • Search the Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin and Metropolitan Museum of Art Journal by the artist’s last name and the exact title of the work, or by keywords from the title or description of the work
  • You can limit your results to the discipline Art & Art History

Fine Arts & Music (Journal Articles)

  • Includes some journal titles that are not included in JSTOR
  • More than 250 journals are available in full text.

Bibliography of the History of Art

  • includes the indexing database Répertoire international de la littérature de l'art (RILA) 1975-1989
  • BHA and RILA cover European and American visual arts including articles from over 1,200 journals. These citation databases, searchable together, cover material published between 1975 and 2007.
  • Note: BHA does not link to Pace Library resources
  • Select the  JOURNAL TITLE tab to see if Pace has a journal and issue in full text; if not, request via InterLibrary Loan (ILL)

What are scholarly, peer-reviewed journal articles in art history?

Scholarly articles are those that are reviewed by  peers of the author. The "peers" who decide whether or not an article should be published are typically experts on the topic--usually other art historians who have published in the field. For this class, most authors and peer reviewers are art history professors or independent researchers and scholars.

Scholarly peer-reviewed journal articles in the Humanities can be identified by the following characteristics:

  • Author(s): They are typically written by professors, researchers, or other scholars who specialize in the field and are often identified by the academic institution at which they work.
  • Purpose: They are published by professional associations, university publishers or other academic publishers to report research results and participate in the scholarly communication about something or someone (for example, about the works and accomplishments of the painter Manet)
  • Language: They are highly specialized and may use technical language. Not written for a popular audience
  • Layout: They will cite their sources and include footnotes, endnotes, or parenthetical citations and/or a list of bibliographic references.
  • Content: The discussion is lengthy, there will not be a methodology as in science articles, images are often included

Searching for Books Available at Pace or By Request from Other Libraries

When searching for books, notice that your initial results are limited to just the Pace Libraries:

Using the menu on the left side of the page, under HELD BY MY LIBRARY, change to Libraries Worldwide to search all over the region, nation, and world. (This search type includes Pace.) You may request books that Pace Libraries do not own. Follow the links to InterLibrary Loan. The con to this is that the search is huge and may return more results than you want, including some that will not seem to be best matches.

About Your Paper

Important details to remember from your assignment:

Each topic will suggest its own emphasis, but in most cases you will want to devote special attention to the analysis of style and to placing the work into its original cultural and historical context.  How is it expressive of the time in which it was created?  To what tradition, school, or movement does it belong?  Where does it fit in the career of its author (if known)?  To what extent was it influenced by specific works of preceding or contemporary artists? 

Click on the CITING SOURCES tab on the left menu of this page (scroll up a bit and look on left side) for more resources to help you follow the Notes and Bibliography format in the Chicago Style.

If you have specific questions about developing or  formatting your paper, please visit The Writing Center. Click here to make an appointment with a writing tutor.