Art  Tags: art image images artists artist tammy ravas tammy_ravas  

Welcome to the Art Resources Page!

Here you can find various resources in visual art by clicking on the tabs above.

This is a work in progress, so please feel free to comment or contact me directly; my contact information is on the right hand side of the page.  

Five Nations Five Works Research Assignment

Argentina, Australia, Finland, Italy, and Mexico

1. Getting Started:

If you are unfamiliar with the art, history, and past politics of the country you're researching, the following sources and strategies may help.   Please keep in mind that your research in these topics will likely require going outside of the art-specific resources you may be used to using for previous assignments.  Resource links listed under the heading "Specialized Resources" will give you access to these multidisciplinary resources.

A. Macy, Laura, Ed. Grove Art Online. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press. 1998-present.
Available online.
Caveat- Grove Art Online only allows 3 simultaneous users.  If you get an error message, try accessing the resource at a later time.
Hints- Start by typing in the country you're researching.  Read the article thoroughly to pick up keywords that you'll use in searching other resources such as the Catalog and literature databases.  You can sometimes discover more information on a topic within the article on a country by typing in the topic into Grove Art Online's search box as well.  One example is searching by artists' names from that country. 

B. Catalog
Hints- Remember, in the catalog, you can find books and media about a particular topic.  If you're looking for journal articles, you'll need to use our databases and that's the next step. 

i. Start by collecting your possible keywords you discovered in searching Grove Art Online.  Write down synonyms as well.
ii. Next try an advanced search and put in your country's keywords in the first box and then an aspect about that country (art, artists, politics, geography, etc.) in the second box.
iii. If you find a book or other item that is relevant to what you're looking for, then click on the item in the results list.  Then, click on the "long view" option on the right side of the description.  You'll see "Subjects" in the description with linked phrases.  Try clicking on one of the phrases that best fits your topic to view similar items.
iv. Please keep in mind that there are other strategies to try with the catalog's advanced search.

2. Specialized Resources:

Listed below are links to library guides and database lists for specific subject areas that will assist you in your research.  Please keep in mind that the search strategies you may have tried with searching the catalog also apply to databases.  Another search strategy to try as you narrow down your topic is to write out your main research question (or thesis statement), select the main words or topics, come up with synonyms, and use those as potential keywords. 

A. Art:
Databases

B. History

i. Library Guide
ii. Databases

C. Political Science:

i. Library Guide
ii. Databases

D. Ethnic Studies:

i. Library Guide
ii. Databases

E. Maps and Atlases:

Library Guide

F. Sociology:

i. Library Guide
ii. Databases

3. Citing your sources

Please refer to our general guide on citation to more accurately cite your sources.

Art 203/Fall 2009-- Sources for researching the Venice Biennale

Catalog:

Click here to access the catalog.

From here you can search for items about this year's Venice Biennale or those from past years.

When looking up information on people associated with the Biennale, keep in mind that you might want to look for books about contemporary artists in general rather than specific names. There may be some good essay collections, exhibition catalogs, or interview collections which may prove helpful.

*Hint: When looking for information about the Biennale, try the Italian phrase, Biennale di Venezia or "La Biennale."

Online Databases:

Click here to access art-related databases.

We have access to the following art-specific resources which would prove helpful for your assignment:

ArtBibliographies Modern
- Helpful for locating scholarly articles on contemporary art. If you need to locate books about an artist, look in this database and then click on the "catalog" tab when you get your results. Then, type in the title of the book in the online catalog or WorldCat.

Art Full Text
- Useful for locating recent periodical articles on art and will sometimes provide links to full-text articles.

Art Retrospective
- Similar to Art Full Text, but you will need to click on 'link to article" links in order to access articles either in print or online from a different database.

You will find the following interdisciplinary resources very helpful for locating information on contemporary artists:

Biography Resource Center
- This can be helpful to locate authoritative information on artists and critics who may not be well-represented in other art-specific databases.

LexisNexis Academic
- This is a very powerful tool allowing you to locate information in newspapers from 1980-present.

WorldCat
- This resource is also quite powerful in that it will help you locate books and other resources from libraries all across the world.

*Hint: When looking for information about the Biennale, try the Italian phrase, Biennale di Venezia or "La Biennale."

Reference Resources:

*Benezit, Emmanuel. Dictionary of Artists English ed. Paris: Gruend, 2006.
709.2 B4658 2005

This dictionary is only available in print for now. Contains 14 volumes of extensive information on artists from the past and present. Also gives information on auction sale prices for some of the artists listed in the dictionary.

*Chilvers, Ian. Oxford Dictionary of Art 3rd ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 2004.

This resource is available in print (Call Number 703 .O982 2004) or online. This is a helpful site to use for looking up terms or biographical information on contemporary artists or art critics.

* Macy, Laura, Ed. Grove Art Online. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press. 1998-present.
Available online.
Note- Grove Art Online only allows 3 simultaneous users.  If you get an error message, try accessing the resource at a later time.

Like Oxford Dictionary of Art, this resource is helpful for locating biographical information or definitions of terms.
HINT!!- If you're having difficulty finding a particular topic or name then be sure to use the full-text search function of Grove Art Online rather than the entry search. The full-text search function is located under "Advanced Search" options on the left hand side of the screen.

Web resources:

* Venice Biennale official web site: http://www.labiennale.org/en/biennale/index.html

* New York Times articles on the 2009 Biennale: http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/v/venice_biennale/index.html

* Boston Globe article on the opening of the 2009 Biennale with amazing photos of artworks: http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2009/07/the_2009_venice_biennale.html

* Cleveland Institute of Art Contemporary Artists Index: http://gate3.cia.edu/cia/index.php?mode=search
This web site was created to assist you in locating books and catalogs about contemporary artists. Click on the link above and type in your artist's name. In the results page, you can get the titles of exhibition catalogs or other books and look them up in either our Online Catalog or WorldCat.

* Free Art Resources on the Web. Art Libraries of North America (ARLIS/NA) http://www.arlisna.org/resources/onlinepubs/freeart.html
Created by art librarians of ARLIS/NA, this is an authoritative meta site of free art resources available online.

* "Research a Contemporary Artist" from the University of Colorado- Boulder Library: http://ucblibraries.colorado.edu/how/artist_contemporary.htm
Created by the Art Librarian at the University of Colorado at Boulder, this is a helpful list of steps to take in researching contemporary artists.

Citing your sources

Please refer to our general guide on citation to more accurately cite your sources.

United States Government Printing Office, The More Women At Work, The Sooner We Win, 1943, Library of Congress

Here are some tips and tricks to locating images of propaganda and political posters and artwork.

UM Catalog (advanced search):

Try the following search strategy posted below:

When browsing through the results, look in the descriptions to see if the book is an exhibition catalog of similar items or if there are illustrations (often, the abbreviation "ill." is used in the description field). Be sure to look at the "long view" of an item for the entire description.

Also try "political posters" as a subject keyword search.

Searching Google for images:

Google Advanced Image Search

1. In the box, "related to all of the words", try the words "propaganda" or "political".
2. Next, type in the terms "art" and "poster in the box entitled, "related to any of the words". 
3. Lastly, try typing in ".gov", ".edu", or ".org" in the "Domain" box.  The domain, .gov, will retrieve results from entities such as the Library of Congress or the National Archives.  The domain, .edu, will most likely retrieve results from colleges and universities.  Using the .org domain often retrieves results from museums or other non-profit institutions. 

Searching ArtSTOR for images:

1. Click on the above link to get to the database.  If you are connecting from off-campus, the OneStop page will appear and you will be asked for your NetID and password.

2. Next, click on the orange box "Go" on the upper right hand corner of the page. 

3. Then, click on the link for "advanced search" in orange letters on the left middle side of the page. 

4. Type in relevant search terms in the text boxes such as "propaganda", "political", as well as "poster", or "art". 

5. When you find an image you would like to look at, you can get further information on it by double-clicking the image, then clicking on the "i" on the lower bottom of the window.  You can discover the source of the poster, artist, museum or other institution that holds it, as well as the year it was created in most cases.

6. ArtSTOR has a great deal of these posters in their database-- happy hunting! 

Need more help?

Please feel free to e-mail me, call me or stop by my office in the Mansfield Library.  My contact info is below my picture.