LibGuides: Art &amp; Art History: Getting Started

Beginnings - Reference Sources

WHY BOTHER DOING ART RESEARCH RIGHT? (No, seriously) Four quick videos

Archived Videos

Art Encyclopedias & Combined-Searching Sources

A&AeP (Art & Architecture Portal) Key-word searchable of art books from Yale, Harvard Art Gallery, MIT, Chicago Art Institute. A very good bet.

Oxford Art Online This link opens in a new window
The principal scholarly online encyclopedia for the arts and visual studies. Use this first to scope out (get the basic overview) of any art topic. Articles are signed by scholars and can be cited in your projects.
Also included in this is BENEZIT ARTISTS BIOGRAPHICAL INDEX - all artists of all times and all countries.
Oxford Reference This link opens in a new window
Dictionaries, language reference, and subject encyclopedias--including art--published by Oxford University Press. Basically short definitions.

Getty Research Portal - Getty Research Institute's collection of digitized art history texts.
Humanities Commons (art history section) scholarly open-source materials for the humanities
Encyclopedia of World Art - (hardcopy) - older, but longer essays on art topics and issue, half of every volume is plates, may in color
Pelican History of Art series, Lilly Reference Room, N5300.P38 - the standard English-language history of art. Good beginning source, bibliography for more information
Encyclopedia of Aesthetics - Scholarly online source for overview of esthetic concepts and histories

Artists' Dictionaries (biographies of Artists)

Benezit Dictionary of Artists - All artists of all places and times
Allgemeines Künstlerlexikon: die bildenden Künstler aller Zeiten und Völker. - In German and in print, but the most comprehensive biographical dictionary of artists. Lilly Reference N40 .A63 1992