Art History & the History of Art - Resources for Art Lovers

Glossaries of art terms used in the history of art 

Tate Museum | Glossary

The Tate Glossary online is designed to explain and illuminate some of the art terminology you will find in the collection pages. It contains definitions, most with illustrations, of nearly 300 terms including artist groups and art movements, techniques, media and other art jargon.

Terms are listed alphabetically - to browse the glossary choose a letter from A to Z above.

Most definitions are illustrated by example images

Multilingual Glossary for Art Librarians - Section of Art Libraries

A multilingual glossary designed for Art Librarians by the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions
Gossary is organised alphabetically - with multilingual indices. All English terms contain their Dutch, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Swedish equivalent.

ArtLex Art Dictionary

Great reference material in art, art history, art criticism, aesthetics, and art education. Definitions of thousands of terms, illustrations, quotations, and links to other resources.

Greek artists - Greek fine art - art glossary

A glossary of art terms on a personal website

University of British Columbia - Words of Art

Creative Studies at UBC Okanagan, Kelowna, B.C., CANADA

Glossary of Visual Art Terms - Nancy Doyle Fine Art

Definitions of visual art terms, including drawing, painting, art history, design, space, color, techniques, and more.

Art Historians 

Dictionary of Art Historians

The Dictionary of Art Historians
A Biographical Dictionary of Historic Scholars, Museum Professionals and Academic Historians of Art

AAH | Association of Art Historians

The Association of Art Historians (AAH) was formed in 1974 to support and promote the study of art history. We are the national organisation for professional art and design historians, researchers or students who are involved in education, galleries, museums and art-related publishing, or any other activity linked with art and design history.

The AAH represents the interests of those involved in all aspects of the discipline, including art, design, visual culture, architecture, film, photography, conservation and museum studies.

Category:Art historians - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Art Historians on Wikipedia

Art History Resource sites 

ART HISTORY RESOURCES ON THE WEB: Contents

Christopher L. C. E. Witcombe Professor, Dept of Art HistorySweet Briar College, Virginia. Online since 24 October 1995

"Art history in just a minute"

Best of History Web Sites: Art History

Visit Best of History Web Sites for the best Art History sites -- reviewed and rated

An excellent list although somewhat biased towards the USA

ArtLex Art Dictionary

Great reference material in art, art history, art criticism, aesthetics, and art education. Definitions of thousands of terms, illustrations, quotations, and links to other resources.

ART HISTORY RESOURCES ON THE WEB: Research Resources

Christopher L. C. E. Witcombe Professor, Dept of Art HistorySweet Briar College, Virginia
Online since 24 October 1995.
Research Resources - Last updated January 2008

WWW Virtual Library: Art History

The History of Art Virtual Library is a collection of links relating to Art History and computer applications in Art History. The site is sponsored by CHArt, the Computers and History of Art Group.

This site is aimed at everybody interested in art, but it has a special focus on the academic study of Art History. If you think we should add a site to our listings, or if you experience any problems with the links listed here, please follow this link to email us.

If you are looking for art galleries or museums, go to the Museums Virtual Library.

There are also extensive resources at specialised Virtual Libraries covering e.g. Chinese and Japanese Art History and Art and Archaeology of Africa, Burmese Art, and Indian Traditional Arts. Search for 'art' at VLsearch.

Last revision May 2007

Also relevant to those with a general interest n art history and who would like to find images online or learn more about particular artists.(Note specialist suppliers sell books, prints and posters and the online teaching section also includes some material suitable for younger children.)

Mother of all Art and Art History Links Page

Sponsored by the School of Art and Design at the University of Michigan

Resource Library: America's Representational Art Publication

Resource Library is an online publication of Traditional Fine Arts Organization devoted to American representational art, including aspects of both a scholarly journal and a popular magazine. It maintains a balance between both emphases, while building an interconnected body of knowledge including the relationships of American artists to their teachers in foreign nations and America, the history of American art centers, schools, ateliers and museums, the evolution of methods and styles of artistic expression, and changing cultural emphases over time within its field of interest.

Art Renewal International

The Art Renewal Center website. Here you can see the largest online museum in the world, articles, and additional materials. For the main ARC page, see http://www.artrenewal.org/

Geographic Tour of American Representational Art History

Geographic Tour of American Representational Art History
The Hudson River School is the earliest thematic community
of American artists. The Cape Ann art colony is the oldest, most continuously
active art colony in America

Museum Syndicate: Experience Art and History

Welcome to the World's Greatest Virtual Museum!Featuring the largest collections by artists like Grant Wood, Andrew Wyeth, Richard Feynman, Rembrandt, Edward Hopper, and Others at No Cost!
Statistics:Exhibit Items: 21310 Artists: 575
Website designed and maintained by Jonathan Dunder

Irish Art | Encyclopedia of Visual Arts in Ireland | History of Painting, Sculpture, Printmaking

Irish Art Encyclopedia: Painting, Sculpture, Printmaking: History of Visual Arts in Ireland: Famous Artists: Museums, Galleries, Exhibitions, Schools

19th Century France - A Visual Resource - Painting

An overview of different styles of painting in 19th century France

Online Art History Sites 

ART HISTORY RESOURCES ON THE WEB: Museums & Galleries

Christopher L. C. E. Witcombe Professor, Dept of Art HistorySweet Briar College, Virginia
Online since 24 October 1995
Museums & GalleriesLast updated September 2007

SITE INDEX for Museums & Galleries in various countries around the world

Welcome to The Athenaeum

Best site I know for tracking down good quality images of different works
The Athenaeum is building a set of online tools for studying the humanities.

Art cyclopedia: The Fine Art Search Engine

The Artcyclopedia is an index of online museums and image archives: find out where the works of over 8,000 different fine artists can be viewed online.

Excellent for tracking down where the works are of a particular artist.

Mark Harden's Artchive

Worth exploring for the parts most people don't realise are there

Smarthistory: a multimedia web-book about art and art history

Created in 2005 - this is a different sort of art history website.
Smarthistory.org is a free multi-media web-book designed as a dynamic enhancement (or even substitute) for the traditional art history textbook.
Smarthistory's pages have been viewed over 750,000 times by faculty and students, museum professionals and visitors, artists and other creatives. Numerous institutions list it as a resource

WebMuseum: Bienvenue! (Welcome from the curator)

Nicholas Pioch's website - Online since 1994

Web Gallery of Art, image collection, virtual museum, searchable database of European fine arts (1100-1850)

The Web Gallery of Art is a virtual museum and searchable database of European painting and sculpture of the Gothic, Renaissance, Baroque, Neoclassicism and Romanticism periods (1100-1850), currently containing over 18,400 reproductions.

Biographies, commentaries, guided tours, free postcar

Distinguished Artists / American Art History

Online catalogs and links to
works of notable American painters and sculptors.

Allpaintings - Art Portal

Allpaintings, the art portal with the information of the best painters and the most important art works. Currently there are available in our server more than 33,000 images.

Open Directory - Arts: Art History

dmoz open directory project
Art History  (2,345)

Art in the Picture.com - An introduction to art history

An introduction to art history

Artinthepicture.com blog

Artinthepicture.com blog - Official weblog of Artinthepicture.com

Stylistic Periods in Western Art - on Wikipedia 

Medieval art - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Medieval art From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia This article is about art. See also medieval architecture.

Medieval art covers a vast scope of time and place, over 1000 years of art history in Europe, the Middle East and North Africa. It includes major art movements and periods, national and regional art, genres, revivals, the artists crafts, and the artists themselves.

Art historians classify Medieval art into major periods and movements. They are Early Christian art, Migration Period art, Celtic art, Pre-Romanesque and Romanesque art, Gothic art, Byzantine art and Islamic art. In addition each "nation" or culture in the Middle Ages had its own distinct artistic style and these are looked at individually, such as Anglo-Saxon art or Viking art. Medieval art includes many mediums, and was especially strong in sculpture, Illuminated manuscripts and mosaics. There were many unique genres of art, such as Crusade art or animal style.

Renaissance - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Renaissance From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
This article is about the European Renaissance of the 14th-17th centuries. For the earlier European Renaissance, see Renaissance of the 12th century.

The Renaissance (from French Renaissance, meaning "rebirth"; Italian: Rinascimento, from re- "again" and nascere "be born"[1]) was a cultural movement that spanned roughly the 14th through the 17th century, beginning in Italy in the late Middle Ages and later spreading to the rest of western Europe. It encompassed a revival of learning based on classical sources, the development of linear perspective in painting, and educational reform. The Renaissance saw developments in most intellectual pursuits, but is perhaps best known for its artistic aspect and the contributions of such polymaths as Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo, who have inspired the term "Renaissance men".

Mannerism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Mannerism From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Mannerism is a period of European painting, sculpture, architecture and decorative arts lasting from the later years of the Italian High Renaissance around 1520 until the arrival of the Baroque around 1600. Stylistically, it identifies a variety of individual approaches influenced by, and reacting to, the harmonious ideals associated with Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael, and early Michelangelo. Mannerism is notable for its intellectual as well as its artificial (as opposed to naturalistic) qualities.

Baroque - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Baroque From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

In the arts, the Baroque was a Western cultural epoch, commencing roughly at the turn of the 17th century in Rome. It was exemplified by drama and grandeur in sculpture, painting, literature, dance, and music

The popularity and success of the Baroque style was encouraged by the Roman Catholic Church which had decided at the time of the Council of Trent that the arts should communicate religious themes in direct and emotional involvement. The aristocracy also saw the dramatic style of Baroque architecture and art as a means of impressing visitors and expressing triumphant power and control.

Some traits and aspects of Baroque paintings that differentiate this style from others are the abundant amount of details, often bright polychromy, less realistic faces of subjects, and an overall sense of awe, which was one of the goals in Baroque art.

Neoclassicism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Neoclassicism From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Neoclassicism (sometimes rendered as Neo-Classicism or Neo-classicism) is the name given to quite distinct movements in the decorative and visual arts, literature, theatre, music, and architecture that draw upon Western classical art and culture (usually that of Ancient Greece or Ancient Rome). These movements were dominant during the mid 18th to the end of the 19th century. This article addresses what these "neoclassicisms" have in common.

In the visual arts the European movement called "neoclassicism" began after ca 1765, as a reaction against both the surviving Baroque and Rococo styles, and as a desire to return to the perceived "purity" of the arts of Rome, the more vague perception ("ideal") of Ancient Greek arts (where almost no western artist had actually been) and, to a lesser extent, 16th century Renaissance Classicism.

Contrasting with the Baroque and the Rococo, Neo-classical paintings are devoid of pastel colors and haziness; instead, they have sharp colors with Chiaroscuro.

Romanticism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Romanticism From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Romanticism is a complex artistic, literary, and intellectual movement that originated in the second half of the 18th century in Western Europe, and gained strength during the Industrial Revolution.[1] It was partly a revolt against aristocratic social and political norms of the Age of Enlightenment and a reaction against the scientific rationalization of nature, and was embodied most strongly in the visual arts, music, and literature.

The movement stressed strong emotion as a source of aesthetic experience, placing new emphasis on such emotions as trepidation, horror, and the awe experienced in confronting the sublimity in untamed nature and its qualities that are "picturesque", both new aesthetic categories. It elevated folk art and custom, as well as arguing for a "natural" epistemology of human activities as conditioned by nature in the form of language, custom and usage.

Realism (visual arts) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Realism (visual arts) From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Realism is a visual art style that depicts the actuality of what the eyes can see. Realists render everyday characters, situations, dilemmas, and objects, all in verisimilitude. They tend to discard theatrical drama, lofty subjects and classical forms in favor of commonplace themes.

Gustave Courbet is credited with coining the term.

A fondness for humble subjects and homely details characterizes much of Dutch art, and Rembrandt is an outstanding realist in his renunciation of the ideal and his embrace of the life around him. In the 19th century a group of French landscape artists known as the Barbizon School emphasized close observation of nature, paving the way for the Impressionists. In England the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood rejected what they saw as the formulaic idealism of the followers of Raphael, which led some of them to an art of intense realism.

Trompe l'oeil (literally, "fool the eye"), a technique which creates the illusion that the objects depicted actually exist, is an extreme example of artistic realism.

Modern art - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Modern art From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Modern art is a general term used for most of the artistic work reckoned anywhere from the early 17th century until the present time.[1] (Recent art production is often called Contemporary art or Postmodern art). Modern art refers to the new approach to art which placed emphasis on representing emotions, themes, and various abstractions. Artists experimented with new ways of seeing, with fresh ideas about the nature of materials and functions of art, often moving further toward abstraction.

The notion of modern art is closely related to Modernism.

Contemporary art - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Contemporary art From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Contemporary art can be defined variously as art produced at this present point in time or art produced since World War II. The definition of the word contemporary would support the first view, but museums of contemporary art commonly define their collections as consisting of art produced since World War II.

This article includes links to the various art movements in every decade since WWII

Western Painting on Wikipedia 

Western painting - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Western painting From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The history of Western painting represents a continuous, though disrupted, tradition from Antiquity.[1] Until the early 20th century it relied primarily on representational and Classical motifs, after which time more purely abstract and conceptual modes gained favor.

Developments in Western painting historically parallel those in Eastern painting, in general a few centuries later.[2] African art, Islamic art, Indian art,[3] Chinese art, and Japanese art[4] each had significant influence on Western art, and, eventually, vice-versa.[5]

Initially serving religious patronage, Western painting later found audiences in the aristocracy and the middle class. From the Middle Ages through the Renaissance painters worked for the church and a wealthy aristocracy. Beginning with the Baroque era artists received private commissions from a more educated and prosperous middle class. By the 19th century painters became liberated from the demands of their patronage to only depict scenes from religion, mythology, portraiture or history. The idea "art for art's sake" began to find expression in the work of painters like Francisco de Goya, John Constable, and J.M.W. Turner.

Western painting's zenith takes place in Europe, during the Renaissance in conjunction with the refinement of drawing, use of perspective, ambitious architecture, tapestry, stained glass, sculpture, and the period before and after the advent of the printing press.[6] Following the depth of discovery and the complexity of innovations of the Renaissance the rich heritage of Western painting (from the Baroque to Contemporary art) continues into the 21st century.

Timelines 

Timelines/Regions, 500-1000 A.D. | Timeline of Art History | The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Timelines/Regions, 500-1000 A.D. SubjectArtistTimelines/RegionsThematic EssaysAccession NumberLists of RulersUseful LinksSelected Readings site map, outline, timelines, maps, geography, world regions, country, continent, chronology What is th

Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History | The Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History provides an overview of the history of art as illustrated and represented in the Museum's collection. The material presented here has been researched, written, and reviewed by the Museum's curatorial staff. It serves as an important reference and research tool

National Gallery of Australia - Paris Salons

Paris salons

Salon is the name given to the official exhibition of members' work of the French Academy, the Académie royale de peinture et de sculpture. The Academy was founded in 1648, and its statues of 1663 also required academicians to submit work for an annual public exhibition of painting and sculpture.

A listing of catalogues held in the National Gallery of Australia Research Library

* Chronology
* Traps and idiosyncrasies
* Formats
* Exclusions and scope of list
* Paris Salons - tips & suggestions for usage in National Gallery of Australia
* Arrangement of Salons
* Links of interest
* Salon dictionary listing
* Bibliography of Paris salon materials in NGA Research Library, in chronological order
* Chronological Listing

Recommended reading lists 

Essential art history texts for budding art historians - Times Online

From John Berger's "Ways of Seeing" to Vasari's "Lives of the Artists"

Art for Art's sake 

Dictionary of the History of Ideas

ART FOR ART'S SAKE
The phrase ?art for art's sake? expresses both a battle cry and a creed; it is an appeal to emotion as well as to mind. Time after time, when artists have felt
themselves threatened from one direction or another, and have had to justify themselves and their activities, they have done this by insisting that art serves no
ulterior purposes but is purely an end in itself.

Art for art's sake - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Art for art's sake From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
  
"Art for art's sake" is the usual English rendition of a French slogan, from the early 19th century, ''l'art pour l'art'', and expresses a philosophy that the intrinsic value of art, and the only "true" art, is divorced from any didactic, moral or utilitarian function. Such works are sometimes described as "autotelic", from the Greek autoteles, ?complete in itself?, a concept that has been expanded to embrace "inner-directed" or "self-motivated" human beings.

Modernism: Art for Art's Sake

Christopher L. C. E. Witcombe1. Roots of Modernism2. Art for Art's Sake

Art for Art's Sake, however, was a ploy that backfired. The same bourgeois whose tastes and ideas and prescriptions Whistler was confronting through his art, quickly turned the call of "Art for Art's Sake" into a tool to further neutralize the content and noxious effects of progressive modernist art.

Museums and Art Galleries in the UK 

The National Gallery, London

The National Gallery, London, houses one of the greatest collections of European painting in the world. These pictures belong to the public and entrance to see them is free.

National Galleries of Scotland

National Galleries of Scotland is comprised of the National Gallery of Scotland, the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, the Dean Gallery and the Scottish National Portrait Gallery.

Tate Online: British and international modern and contemporary art

Tate is a family of four art galleries housing the UK's collection of British art from 1500 and of international modern art.

National Portrait Gallery

The National Portrait Gallery was established with the criteria that the Gallery was to be about history, not about art, and about the status of the sitter, rather than the quality or character of a particular image considered as a work of art. This criterion is still used by the Gallery today when deciding which works enter the National Portrait Gallery's collection.

Originally, it was decided by the Trustees that "No portrait of any person still living, or deceased less that 10 years, shall be admitted by purchase, donation, or bequest, except only in the case of the reigning Sovereign, and of his or her Consort". This rule changed in 1969 in order to encourage a policy of admitting living sitters.

Royal Academy Home - Royal Academy of Arts

This is the website of the Royal Academy of Arts, London. The Royal Academy has free exhibitions and paid-entry exhibitions all year round in its historic galleries on Piccadilly in London's West End. On this site you can buy tickets for our exhibitions and read more about the Royal Academy of Arts,

The Courtauld Gallery : Homepage

The Courtauld Gallery is one of the finest small museums in the world. Its collection stretches from the early Renaissance into the 20th century and is particularly renowned for the unrivalled collection of Impressionist and Post-Impressionist paintings. The Gallery also holds an outstanding collection of drawings and prints and fine example of sculpture and decorative arts

Christ Church Website - Picture Gallery

Christ Church is unique among the Oxford and Cambridge colleges in possessing an important collection of Old Master paintings and drawings, housed in a purpose-built Gallery of considerable architectural interest in itself.

British Museum - Welcome to the British Museum

Welcome to the British Museum website. The Museum houses a vast collection of world art and artefacts and is free to all visitors. Search highlight objects of the collection and view current research projects. Find information about visiting, including admission and opening times, events and exhibit

Estorick Collection of Modern Italian Art

The Estorick Collection of Modern Italian Art opened in Islington, London in 1998. Its new home - a Grade II listed Georgian building - was restored with support from the Heritage Lottery Fund and contains six galleries, an art library, cafe and bookshop.

Museums and Art Galleries in Europe 

Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid (International access)

International gateway for different languages

Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid (English)

The Prado in Madrid houses some great paintings

Opening hours of the museum
From 9am to 8pm: Tuesday to Sunday and public holidays.
From 9am to 2pm: 24 December, 31 December and 6 January.

Prado - 15 Masterpieces

15 Masterpieces in the Prado - image and narrative

The Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium,

The Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium, Brussels, de Koninklijke Musea voor Schone Kunsten van Belgi%uFFFD,

Centre Pompidou

Centre Pompidou
In a unique location under one roof, the Centre Pompidou houses one of the most important museums in the world, featuring the leading collection of modern and contemporary art in Europe, a vast public reference library with facilities for over 2,000 readers, general documentation on 20th century art, a cinema and performance halls, a music research institute, educational activity areas, bookshops, a restaurant and a café.

Inicio | Museo Guggenheim Bilbao

Guggenheim Museum Bilbao website.
The Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, designed by North American architect Frank O. Gehry, is a magnificent example of the most groundbreaking architecture to have come out of the 20th century. The building itself is an innovatively designed architectural landmark that creates a seductive backdrop for the exhibition of contemporary art.

The State Hermitage Museum

The State Hermitage Museum: English Home Page

The State Hermitage occupies six magnificent buildings situated along the embankment of the River Neva, right in the heart of St Petersburg. The leading role in this unique architectural ensemble is played by the Winter Palace, the residence of the Russian tsars

The State Hermitage Museum: Virtual Tour

Virtual Tour of the Hermitage

State Hermitage Museum Unofficial

State Hermitage Museum is a museum of art in Saint Petersburg, Russia. The Hermitage is the largest public museum in Russia and home to one of the greatest art collections in the world. Russian empress Catherine the Great founded the Hermitage in 1764 as a museum for the royal court. The holdings originally consisted of Western European works of art that she purchased http://static.squidoo.com/images/icon-reorder.giffrom private collections.

Louvre Museum Official Website

The official site of the Louvre Museum (Paris, France) : Collection & Departments, Exhibitions, Guided Tours, Virtual Tours, Calendar, History of the Louvre, Gardens, Concerts, Lectures & Symposia, Readings & Performances, Opening Hours

Museums and Art Galleries in the USA 

The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York: metmuseum.org

The Metropolitan Museum of Art Web site features information on upcoming museum events, fine art exhibits, special exhibitions, the Met collection and art galleries online.

The Art Institute of Chicago: Home:

The Art Institute of Chicago, founded in 1879 as both a museum and school, first stood on the southwest corner of State and Monroe Streets. It opened on its present site at Michigan Avenue and Adams Street in 1893. Built on rubble from the 1871 Chicago fire, the museum housed a collection of plaster casts and had a visionary purpose: to acquire and exhibit art of all kinds and to conduct programs of education. The collection now encompasses more than 5,000 years of human expression from cultures around the world, and the school's graduate program is continually ranked as one of the best in the country. Within the next decade, a new complex will continue this process of growth.

MoMA | The Museum of Modern Art

The Museum of Modern Art's Web site provides information on current and upcoming art, film and media, and online exhibitions; highlights from MoMA's ...

MFA Boston: Home

Museum of Fine Art in Boston

The original MFA opened its doors to the public on July 4, 1876, the nation's centennial. Built in Copley Square, the MFA was then home to 5,600 works of art. Over the next several years, the collection and number of visitors grew exponentially, and in 1909 the Museum moved to its current home on Huntington Avenue.

Today the MFA is one of the most comprehensive art museums in the world; the collection encompasses nearly 450,000 works of art. It welcome welcome more than one million visitors each year to experience art from ancient Egyptian to contemporary, special exhibitions, and innovative educational programs.

National Gallery of Art

The mission of the National Gallery of Art is to serve the United States of America in a national role by preserving, collecting, exhibiting, and fostering the understanding of works of art, at the highest possible museum and scholarly standards.

The National Gallery of Art was created in 1937 for the people of the United States of America by a joint resolution of Congress, accepting the gift of financier and art collector Andrew W. Mellon. During the 1920s, Mr. Mellon began collecting with the intention of forming a gallery of art for the nation in Washington. In 1937, the year of his death, he promised his collection to the United States. Funds for the construction of the West Building were provided by The A. W. Mellon Educational and Charitable Trust. On March 17, 1941, President Franklin D. Roosevelt accepted the completed building and the collections on behalf of the people of the United States of America.

The paintings and works of sculpture given by Andrew Mellon have formed a nucleus of high quality around which the collections have grown.

The NGA is open 363 days of the year at no charge to visitors.

Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco - de Young - Legion of Honor

The Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco (FAMSF) is the city's largest public arts institution. Comprising the de Young Museum and the Legion of Honor, FAMSF is also the city's most successful public/private partnership. Although a designated city department, most of the Museums' operational funding and all funding for art acquisitions and exhibitions are raised privately.

MFAH: The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston

The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, is the largest art museum in America south of Chicago, west of Washington, D.C., and east of Los Angeles.

There are two major museum buildings, the Caroline Wiess Law Building and the Audrey Jones Beck Building; two facilities for the Glassell School of Art, the Studio School for Adults and the Glassell Junior School; two house museums that exhibit decorative arts, Bayou Bend Collection and Gardens and Rienzi; the Lillie and Hugh Roy Cullen Sculpture Garden; and 18 acres of public gardens.

A total of 300,000 square feet of space is dedicated to the display of art. The Hirsch Library is one of the largest art libraries in the Southwest.

More than 2.5 million people visit the MFAH each year. Community outreach programs touch the lives of more than 670,000 people each year.

The Barnes Foundation

The Barnes Foundation - Home
The Barnes Foundation was established by Albert C. Barnes in 1922 to "promote the advancement of education and the appreciation of the fine arts." Located in a twelve-acre arboretum, the Foundation is home to one of the world's largest collections of Impressionist, Post-Impressionist and early Modern paintings, with extensive holdings by Picasso, Matisse, Cézanne, Renoir and Modigliani, as well as important examples of African sculpture. The Gallery and Arboretum are open to the public ( reservations are required), and courses in aesthetics and horticulture are available through the education department.

Harvard University Art Museums

The Harvard University Art Museums-a leading center for research and teaching in the visual arts comprised of three museums and four research centers-today announced that it is changing its name to the Harvard Art Museum, effective April 30, 2008. The new name, selected because it better expresses the institution's mission, grows out of an initiative to further unify and integrate the museum's collections and programs.

The Harvard Art Museum will maintain the identity of its three museums, the Fogg Museum, the Busch-Reisinger Museum, and the Arthur M. Sackler Museum, as well as its research centers, among them the Straus Center for Conservation.

The Getty

The official Web site of the J. Paul Getty Trust in Los Angeles, California.

Guggenheim Museum - New York

Museums and Art Galleries in Australasia & Pacific 

Art Gallery of New South Wales

The Art Gallery of New South Wales is the leading museum of art in New South Wales and Sydney, and one of Australia's foremost cultural institutions. It holds significant collections of Australian, European and Asian art, and presents nearly 40 exhibitions annually.

National Gallery of Australia

Parkes Place
Parkes, Canberra ACT 2601
AUSTRALIA

Queensland Art Gallery - Home Page

The Queensland Art Gallery is Queensland's premier visual arts institution and a leading art museum nationally. Established in 1895, since 1982, it has had a permanent home in an architecturally acclaimed building on Brisbane's south bank.

Welcome to The Art Gallery of South Australia

The Art Gallery of South Australia

Art Gallery of Western Australia Website

Welcome to the Art Gallery of Western Australia | Perth Cultural Centre

Gallery Resources for Education and Learning 

National Gallery London/Education/Adult Learners

Every day, there are free talks and tours for adult visitors. Debates, discussion groups, short courses and study days offer the chance to engage with and explore National Gallery paintings in more depth.

If you're feeling creative, there are practical sessions ranging from free lunchtime Talk and Draw activities to one-day life-drawing, print-making, sculpture, movement and writing workshops.

Group Visits: You can organise a tailor-made tour or learning session for any group of between 10 and 25 adults.

Provenance 

Provenance - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Provenance, from the French provenir, "to come from", means the origin, or the source, of something, or the history of the ownership or location of an object,[1] The term was originally mostly used of works of art.

The provenance of works of fine art, antiques and antiquities often assumes great importance. Documented evidence of provenance for an object can help to establish that it has not been altered and is not a forgery, reproduction, stolen or looted art. Knowledge of provenance can help to assign the work to a known artist and a documented history can be of use in helping to prove ownership.

The quality of provenance of an important work of art can make a considerable difference to its selling price in the market; this is affected by the degree of certainty of the provenance, the status of past owners as collectors, and in many cases by the strength of evidence that an object has not been illegally excavated or exported from another country. The provenance of a work of art may be recorded in various forms depending on context or the amount that is known, from a single name to an entry in a full scholarly catalogue several thousand words long.

Harvard University - Provenance

"Provenance" is a list of the previous owners of a work of art, tracing it from its present location and owner back to the hand of the artist. Provenance has many uses: It can help to determine the authenticity of a work, to establish the historical importance of a work by suggesting other artists who might have seen and been influenced by it, and to determine the legitimacy of current ownership.

Provenance Research - Princeton Art Museum

Research on provenance, or the history of ownership of a work of art, is a traditional part of museum practice.

Recently, however, particular attention is being paid to provenance research in keeping with the principles and guidelines issued in 1998 by the Association of Art Museum Directors (AAMD) and in 1999 by the American Association of Museums (AAM), according to which museums should, to the best of their ability, determine and disclose the provenance for works of art in their collections that changed hands during the World War II era (1933-1945).

Art Provenance - Fake or Real? Identification Tips and Pointers

Numerous works of art are offered for sale with fake or questionable signatures or attributions at online auction sites like eBay. Problem art can also be found at fixed-price "gallery" websites and bricks-and-mortar establishments, but nowhere is it more pervasive than at online auctions. In order to fool novice buyers, unscrupulous sellers often claim to have "provenance" or documented ownership histories that confirm the authenticity of their art.

Art Libraries 

artlibraries.net VIRTUAL CATALOGUE FOR ART HISTORY

artlibraries.net ? Virtual Catalogue for Art History (http://www.artlibraries.net/), formerly the VKK, is a European specialized meta catalogue allowing the integrated retrieval of bibliographic records and, should the occasion arise, other objects of distinctive art historical databases.
Currently, artlibraries.net gives access to more than 8 million records (as of June 2008), including a high percentage of records for articles in periodicals, conference papers, festschriften, exhibition catalogues and exhibition books, etc., and an increasing percentage of records for archival and photographic materials as well as for online resources.

Art History: Approaches to studying the history of art 

Cambridge Pre-U Certificate in Art History - Teacher Guide

Course outline and guidance for teachers

Humanities C1121 - Fine Arts F1121 Syllabus

Department of Art History and Archaeology
Columbia University
Humanities C1121 - Fine Arts F1121
SYLLABUS
Masterpieces of Western art (also known as Art Humanities) has been an integral part of the core curriculum of Columbia College since 1947. Structured along the lines of Humanities C1001

smarthistory

mARThistory.org is a free multi-media web-book designed as a dynamic enhancement (or even substitute) for the traditional and static art history textbook. Dr. Beth Harris and Dr. Steven Zucker began smARThistory in 2005 by creating a blog featuring free audio guides in the form of podcasts for use in The Museum of Modern Art and the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Soon after, we embedded the audio files in our online survey courses. The response from our students was so positive that we decided to create a multi-media survey of art history web-book. We created audios and videos about works of art found in standard art history survey texts, organized the files stylistically and chronologically, and added text and still images.

600 B.C.E. - 400 C.E.Antiquity
400 -1300Medieval Era
1300 - 1400 Proto-Renaissance
1400 - 1500Renaissance in Italy & the North
1500 - 1600End of the Renaissance and the Reformation
1600 - 1700The Baroqu

How to write about art history 

What you will NOT find here - customised essay writing services!

The Writing Center, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill: Art History

What this handout is about

This handout discusses several common types of art history assigments, and talks about various strategies and resources that will help you write your art history papers.

Dartmouth College: Materials for Students: Writing in the Humanities: Writing the Art History paper

What distinguishes Art History papers from the papers you might be asked to write in other courses?

Perhaps the biggest difference creates the biggest challenge: in Art History papers, you must be able to create an argument about what you see. In short, you have to translate the visual into the verbal. To do this you must first understand the "language" of the discipline - that is, you need to familiarize yourself with the terms and concepts necessary to describe a work of art.

Second you need to learn not only to describe what you see, but to craft your description so that it delivers some argument or point of view.

In short, you must master the art of simultaneously analyzing and describing the work of art you have chosen to discuss.

Written by Karen Gocsik / Last modified: Tuesday, 12-Jul-2005 11:30:03 EDT / Copyright © 2004 Dartmouth College

A Guide to Writing About Art

A Guide to Writing about Art
"When you analyze, you are seeking to account for your experience of the work."
"An unanswered question is an essay topic in disguise."
We write about art to clarify and to account for our responses to works that interest, excite, or frustrate us

The information in this handout is excerpted from A Short Guide to Writing about Art (8th ed.), by Sylvan Barnet.

Art Theory and Criticism: Writing about Art

Sources for writing about art: criticism, methodology, etc., located at the WWU Libraries.

Making A Mark on the History of Art 

blog post from Making A Mark about art history and th history of art

MUST READ: The world's most influential painters

Have you ever felt that you needed to learn more about the history of art and painting but didn't know quite where to start? If you have then I very much doubt if you're alone. One of the problems with the history of art is it's just so BIG!

However recently I came across a book which is extremely helpful to anybody else who is on a similar journey.

Art History Fans and their websites and blogs 

Haber Arts

Reviews by John Haber of New York City art galleries and museums