Research Guides: Art and Art History: Visual Resources

Art Museum Links

Local and nearby

Arab American National Museum
Cranbrook Art Museum
Detroit Institute of Arts
Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit (MOCAD)
Cleveland Museum of Art
Toledo Museum of Art

Art Museums Worldwide

Artcyclopedia, includes art museums with online presence in the U.S., Canada, Central and South America, Europe (including Russia), Africa, Middle and Near East, and Asia

Click on this link

National

Art Institute of Chicago
Frick Collection
J. Paul Getty Museum
Guggenheim
Huntington Library
Los Angeles County Museum of Art
Metropolitan Museum of Art
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
Museum of Modern Art (MOMA)
National Gallery of Art
San Francisco Museum of Art
Norton Simon
Smithsonian American Art Museum
Walters Art Museum
Whitney Museum of American Art

International

Centre Pompidou
Courtauld Institute of Art: Art & Architecture Collection
Kunsthistorisches Museum Vienna
Louvre
Musee d'Orsay
Prado
National Gallery (UK)
Rijksmuseum
State Hermitage Museum
Tate

Museums Webzine

Global Museum
Museum news from around the world. Also includes plentiful museum job postings

Yale's Free Online Image Collection

Yale Digital Commons
Yale University now provides FREE ACCESS AND USE of 250,000 images from across its collections. Includes images from the Peabody Museum, Center for British Art, University Art Gallery, University Library Map Collection, and the Lewis Walpole Library of Prints and Drawings.

Other Library Guides for Image Searching

Yale University Library Visual Resources Collection
A rich resource for locating and using image collections.

Department of Art & Art History: Visual Resources Collection (VRC)

Visual Resources Collection (VRC)

The VRC is a unit within WSU's Department of Art and Art History, and supports the image needs of faculty and students. In collaboration with the Libraries, VRC maintains an image database.

Link to the VRC web site

LUNA

The VRC's image database is commonly called LUNA, named after the software which powers it.
Over 200,000 images relevant to the study of art, architecture, history, literature, anthropology, science etc. are available. Luna gives users the ability to create and save presentations and slideshows for classroom use, embed images and presentations in Blackboard, and search images from the popular photo-sharing site Flickr.

Link to the LUNA (Visual Resources Collection) database

For instruction on how to use the LUNA database, click on the link below:

Luna Flash Tutorials

Other Licensed Image Databases

Amica Art Library This link opens in a new window
The AMICA Library contains works of art from the collections of prominent museums worldwide. Cultures and time periods range from contemporary art, Native American and Inuit art, to ancient Greek, Roman, and Egyptian works, along with Japanese and Chinese works. Types of works include paintings, sculptures, drawings, prints, and photographs, as well as textiles, costumes, jewelry, decorative art, books and manuscripts. This is a subscription based collection.
Art images for college teaching This link opens in a new window
AICT is a royalty-free image exchange resource for the educational community.

WSU Digital Image Collections

Timeline of Art History

The Timeline is a chronological, geographical, and thematic exploration of the history of art from around the world, as illustrated by the Museum's collection.

Metropolitan Museum of Art: Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History

Ancient Greece, Rome, Egypt, and the Mediterranean

Arachne
Arachne is the central object-database of the German Archaeological Institute (DAI) and the Research Archive for Ancient Sculpture at the University of Cologne (FA). Focus is on the Mediterranean countries.
Claros
"Built on the art of ancient Greece and Rome, CLAROS is an international research collaboration, using the latest Information and Communication Technologies to enable simultaneous searching of major collections in university research institutes and museums." (from their web site)
Theban Mapping Project
"Since its inception in 1978, the Theban Mapping Project (TMP, now based at the American University in Cairo) has been working to prepare a comprehensive archaeological database of Thebes. With its thousands of tombs and temples, Thebes is one of the world's most important archaeological zones..."

Europeana

Europeana Art History
At last count, 1,363,721 paintings, drawings, prints and other artworks from across Europe are included in the Europeana Art History collection.
The Europeana site itself "enables people to explore the (more than 15 million) digital resources of Europe's museums, libraries, archives and audio-visual collections." 1500 institutions have contributed.
Europeana Fashion
"...composed of 22 partners from 12 European countries, which represent the leading European institutions and collections in the fashion domain...[includes] rich material about the history of European fashion, including more than 700.000 fashion-related digital objects, ranging from historical dresses to accessories, photographs, posters, drawings, sketches, videos, and fashion catalogues." (from their website)

Italian Renaissance Learning Resources

Italian Renaissance Learning Resources
Covers eight thematic modules on Renaissance art. Includes 340 images, 300 glossary terms, 42 primary source texts. From the National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C., Grove Art Online, and the Samuel Kress Foundation.

Eastern Art Online

"Eastern Art Online" Yousef Jameel Online Centre for Islamic and Asian Art
The Centre provides online access to the Ashmolean Museum's Eastern Art department collections.
As part of the University of Oxford, the collections hold particular value for teaching and research... (from their web site)

Streaming Video Licensed by the Libraries

Kanopy Streaming Media
Kanopy is an on-demand streaming video service for educational institutions that provides access to more than 26,000 films. Kanopy works directly with filmmakers and film distribution companies to offer award-winning collections including titles from PBS, BBC, Criterion Collection, Media Education Foundation and more.

Arts Videos on the Web

UbuWeb
UbuWeb is a completely independent resource dedicated to all strains of the avant-garde, ethnopoetics, and outsider arts.
All materials on UbuWeb are being made available for noncommercial and educational use only. All rights belong to the author(s).

The Getty "Open Content Program" Online Image Collection

"The Getty makes available, without charge, all available digital images to which the Getty holds the rights or that are in the public domain to be used for any purpose. No permission is required." (from their web site at http://www.getty.edu/about/opencontent.html

Search or browse the image collection, by using the link below:

The Getty Search Gateway
"Currently, there are more than 100,000 images from the J. Paul Getty Museum and the Getty Research Institute available through their Open Content Program. These include paintings, drawings, manuscripts, photographs, antiquities, sculpture, decorative arts, artists' sketchbooks, watercolors, rare prints from the 16th through the 18th century, and 19th-century architectural drawings of cultural landmarks." (from their web site)

Google Art Project

Google Art Project
"Explore 17 museums from around the world, discover and view hundreds of works of art at incredible zoom levels, take museum tours using Street View technology, and create and share your own collection of masterpieces." (text from the web site)

Google: Free Online Images

Google Images - Advanced Search
The form allows you to select "Only images labeled for reuse." You can also limit your search to images labeled for modification.

Books on Symbols in Art

The Hutchinson dictionary of symbols in art by Sarah Carr-Gomm
Call Number: Electronic Book
ISBN: 1859860034
Publication Date: 2005
An electronic book, arranged in A-Z format. Click on the blue title.

Search the Library Catalog by the SUBJECT: Symbolism in Art. There are 95 titles related to this topic.

Images on the Web

The Artchive
View over 2,000 images from 200 different artists. This site also provides Art CD-ROM Reviews, access to articles on art criticism, and artist resources.
Art in Context
On the Web since 1995, the Art in Context web site assists over six million visitors annually, providing public access to information concerning artists around the world. Member Metropolitan New York Library Council, Association of College and Research Libraries, ALA. (from their web site)

Artcyclopedia This link opens in a new window
An internet search engine where you can search by Artists name, artwork title or art museum.

ArtServe
From the Australian National University, an image database of over 130,000 images mainly from the Mediterranean Basin.
Carol Gerten's Fine Art--A Virtual Art Museum
This searchable site contains around 6,000 scans of work from 1000 CE to the 21st century. Contains a FAQ page containing tips on optimal viewing, copying scans and image requests. This site's images are of excellent quality, but the ads can be annoying.
Digital Images Collection Guide
"a curated bibliography of quality digital image collections spanning ~85 subjects, including ~950 digital collections" From the Image Resources Interest Group of the Association of College and Research Libraries.
Flickr: The Commons
Includes public photo collections.
Click here to see a complete list of participating institutions.
Library of Congress: Free to Use and Reuse Sets
Includes public domain images of baseball cards, travel posters, presidential portraits and more.
Library of Congress American Memory Project
A Library of Congress project, makes available collections of primary source and archival material relating to American culture and history. Contains a large section of historic photographs.
Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division
"The collections include photographs, fine and popular prints and drawings, posters, and architectural and engineering drawings. While international in scope, the collections are particularly rich in materials produced in, or documenting the history of, the United States and the lives, interests and achievements of the American people." (from their web site)
Smithsonian American Art Museum
The museum is the home to one of the largest and most inclusive collections of American art in the world. The online catalog allows searches by artist, keyword, etc. Results include colorful thumbnail images.
Smithsonian Institution Collections Center
"Search over 2 million records with 265,900 images, video and sound files, e journals and other resources..."
Web Gallery of Art
A virtual museum and searchable database of European painting and sculpture of the Gothic, Renaissance and Baroque periods. Includes biographies, commentaries and guided tours.
Worcester Art Museum-Early American Paintings
Includes biographies of twenty artists, detailed entries on fifty-three paintings from the museum's collection, checklist information on twenty-four additional works and reproduction of all seventy-seven works. This catalogue encompasses all of the paintings in the museum's collection that were created prior to 1830 by artists who were either born or active in America.
World Art Treasures
The 100,000 images in this database have been arranged in seventeen themed "itineraries" which deal with a specific artist, art movement or geographic area.

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Art and Art History

Art Museum Links

Yale's Free Online Image Collection

Other Library Guides for Image Searching

Department of Art & Art History: Visual Resources Collection (VRC)

Other Licensed Image Databases

WSU Digital Image Collections

Timeline of Art History

Ancient Greece, Rome, Egypt, and the Mediterranean

Europeana

Italian Renaissance Learning Resources

Eastern Art Online

Streaming Video Licensed by the Libraries

Arts Videos on the Web

The Getty "Open Content Program" Online Image Collection

Google Art Project

Google: Free Online Images

Books on Symbols in Art

Images on the Web

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Information

Help

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Art and Art History

Art Museum Links

Yale's Free Online Image Collection

Other Library Guides for Image Searching

Department of Art & Art History: Visual Resources Collection (VRC)

Other Licensed Image Databases

WSU Digital Image Collections

Timeline of Art History

Ancient Greece, Rome, Egypt, and the Mediterranean

Europeana

Italian Renaissance Learning Resources

Eastern Art Online

Streaming Video Licensed by the Libraries

Arts Videos on the Web

The Getty "Open Content Program" Online Image Collection

Google Art Project

Google: Free Online Images

Books on Symbols in Art

Images on the Web

Community

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