I have always made the arts a priority in my life, so I was really excited to find out that my role at Lakeside would include being the Librarian liaison to the art department. As someone who studied Studio Art and Art History in high school and college, I was surprised that Lakeside did not offer any art history courses. However, after some investigating and speaking with our faculty, I learned that art history is heavily incorporated into the studio arts classes.
When I was approached by our painting and drawing teacher to help her find information and works by contemporary artists- I jumped at the challenge. It turns out, she had a few “go-to” sites, but was confused about where to start.
Art databases are VERY expensive and while there’s a lot of really great ones out there, they are often designed for more higher level research. We have many art books in our collection available to students, but they need to have an idea of what they are looking for. When it came to searching on the Internet, we wanted to avoid art sites that wanted you go “buy posters” or that were watermarked. The students would need high-quality digital images for reference from reputable sources.
For something like searching for visual images, browsing works best. Marcia Bates’ Berry Picking Theory of Information Retrieval suggests that when looking for information, you collect bits and pieces along the way. When looking for inspiration for artwork, this “cascade of interactions” benefits the user because they are able to take a more interactive approach to searching rather than searching using text and specific artists’ names.
I looked for resources that allowed students to easily search using keywords and also discover new works as they go. A Google Image search was really helpful for this kind of searching. We used different advanced search options (which I will show in more detail in a later post) but many of the pages we were sent to did not have high quality images, were watermarked, or the sites lacked authority.
Here is a list of the high quality resources I was able to find:
Google Art Project: Explore collections from around the world with thousands of artworks photographed in extremely high resolution.
I couldn’t believe what an amazing resource was right under our noses. Museums work in collaboration with Google to provide high-resolution works in this database. You can search by collection, artists, discover “like-works” by using the artworks. Users can also create “galleries” of images for ex: “Mathematics and Art”
Smart History: Smarthistory.org is a free, not-for-profit, multi-media web-book designed as a dynamic enhancement (or even substitute) for the traditional art history textbook.
Search by time, style, artist, or themes.
Art 21: Art in the 21st Century is a PBS series, educational resource, archive, and history of contemporary art. It premiered in 2001, and is now broadcast in over 50 countries worldwide.
In addition to the video content, this site contains bios, work, and interviews with contemporary artists.
Art Babble: Art-Bab-ble [ahrt-bab-uhl] noun; verb (used without object) -bled, -bling 1. free flowing conversation, about art, for anyone. 2. a place where everyone is invited to join an open, ongoing discussion – no art degree required.
This site is great for checking out the process behind how art is made. The videos included in this collection cover a wide array of different styles, cultures, and eras.
Kahn Academy- Art History: Spontaneous conversations about works of art where the speakers are not afraid to disagree with each other or art history orthodoxy. Videos are made by Dr. Beth Harris and Dr. Steven Zucker along with other contributors and maintained at smarthistory.khanacademy.org.
Really neat collection from the Kahn Academy- great resource for teachers and students!
National Gallery of Art Classroom: Online interactive lesson units for Teachers and Students.
Includes lesson plans, guided activities and lots of high quality bios and resources.
Picturing America: is an interactive gallery of artwork related to events, people, and themes in American history. You can browse the gallery chronologically or by theme. Click on any image in the gallery to learn about the artist and the artwork itself. Along with the background information for each image, Picturing America provides links to additional resources for learning about the artwork and artists.
MOOM The Museum of Online Museums: is a list of museums that offer online exhibitions. In some cases the museums include virtual tours and in other cases the museums online exhibits are simple photo galleries.