ART 160/CLAS 260: Introduction to Art History I: From Prehistory to the Medieval Period
Research guide to complement the course ART 160/CLAS 260 Art of the West I
Arts & Humanities and Special Collections Librarian
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Books and eBooks
Byzantine Art and Italian Panel Painting: The Virgin and Child Hodegetria and the Art of Chrysography
(held by the University of MN)
Writing about Art
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A Short Guide to Writing about Art
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This text guides art students through the writing process. Students are shown how to analyze pictures (drawings, paintings, photographs), sculptures and architecture. The text includes: coverage of essential writing assignments including formal analysis, comparison, research paper, review of an exhibition, essay examination; clear step-by-step writing instructions guiding students though the research and writing processes; sample essays, with analytic comments by the author, demonstrating the virtues of effective writing.
Call Number: eBook, and MAC Lower Level - Art Collection N7476 .B37 2015ISBN: 9780205886999Publication Date: 2014-01-15 -
Writing about Art
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This straightforward guide prepares students to describe, interpret, and write about works of art in meaningful and lasting terms. Designed as a supplement to Art History survey and period texts, this efficient book features a step-by-step approach to writing--from choosing a work to write about, to essay organization, to research techniques, to footnote form, to preparing the final essay. For beginners as well as more advanced students [Publisher description]
Call Number: eBook, and MAC Lower Level - Art Collection N7476 .S29 2009ISBN: 9780205645787Publication Date: 2008-07-10
Starting Your Research
Art history, not surprisingly, is an interesting intersection of both visual art and cultural history and experience. Often, the resources you draw from fit into an intersection of both.
Write down key words, phrases, names, and dates that might relate to your topic.- Consider variant spellings of names, particularly those transliterated from non-Roman alphabets like Hebrew, Arabic, or Chinese.
- Often, you have to think more broadly than your specific artist, artwork, or architectural example in order to find relevant sources. Think more about the type of work or the sort of artist you are engaging with rather than the exact example. It is unlikely that there are many (any?) articles written about the specific figure to the right, but it is very likely that there are articles about Chinese burial objects, or how horses and other animals were depicted in ancient art.
Bear in mind that in the case of what we now regard as ancient or medieval art, the people creating it did not consider it to be art per se, but something created with another purpose in mind, such as ensuring a safe transition to the next world, or communicating a theology to a public audience.
Unknown Artist. Horse and Rider. Earthenware with traces of pigment. 31-1/2 x 29-3/4 x 11-1/2 in. (80.0 x 75.6 x 29.2 cm). Minneapolis Institute of Art. Minneapolis, Minnesota. https://collections.artsmia.org/art/59514/horse-and-rider-china. Accessed 6 Oct. 2023.
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Art Full Text
The main database for research in art and art history. Includes both popular and academic titles.
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A&AePortal
The A&AePortal is an authoritative eBook resource that features important works of scholarship in the history of art, architecture, decorative arts, photography, and design.
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Historical Abstracts
Index covering world history (excluding the United States and Canada). It includes hundreds of history journals and books, plus useful features such as the ability to search by time period.
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Index IslamicusIndexes worldwide literature in European languages on Islam, the Middle East and the Muslim world. Covers Muslim life including history, beliefs, societies, cultures, languages and literatures. Includes journals, conference proceedings, monographs and book reviews. Journals and books indexed at the article and chapter level.
Use keywords like "ancient" or "early history" to help narrow the results. -
International Medieval BibliographyComprehensive and up-to-date interdisciplinary bibliography of the Middle Ages covering Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa during the period 400-1500.
Does NOT integrate with MacLinks so you'll need to take the extra step of checking for full text access. The easiest ways to do that is to search for journal articles in Google Scholar and look for the Check MacLinks option behind the << symbol OR search for books or book chapters in the library catalog. Please reach out to the subject librarian for Art History with any questions about this. -
ATLA Religion Database with ATLASerials PLUSAccess to journal articles, book reviews, and collections of essays in all scholarly fields of religion.
Many of the works you might consider often have connections to religious practices, and this database can be helpful to expand your background in those areas. This database handles discussions of Christianity and Judaism well, and is less robust for other religious traditions.
Primary Sources
By searching relevant topics in the library catalog and adding the keyword <<sources>> to your search, you can find materials that contain primary sources. Hint: you can further limit your search by language by selecting languages in the left-hand navigation of your search results.
Below are some other places to find primary sources online.
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World Digital Library Significant primary materials from all countries and cultures in multilingual format. This is a project of the U.S. Library of Congress, carried out with the support of the United Nations Educational, Cultural and Scientific Organization (UNESCO), and in cooperation with libraries, archives, museums, educational institutions, and international organizations from around the world.
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Explora Library An easy to use interface that searches many sources at once. These include; Academic Search Premier, Business Source Premier, MasterFILE Premier, Consumer Health Complete, Health Source – Consumer Edition, and Science Reference Center databases. These databases contain the full text of popular magazine and scholarly journal articles covering all subject areas including multimedia, primary source documents, and reference books.
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Annee Philologique A comprehensive index to scholarly work in in the Greek and Roman areas of Classical Studies, as well as on ancient Greek and Latin linguistics and language. Concerns the time period from the second millennium B.C. to roughly 500-800 A.D. Includes coverage of research collections and conferences.
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Perseus Digital Library Digital library of source materials for the study of the ancient world and beyond from the Tufts University Department of Classics.
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Digital Library of the Middle East The Digital Library of the Middle East brings together 127,443 digital records of materials held in museums, libraries, and archives worldwide. The DLME aggregates digital records of published materials, documents, maps, artifacts, audiovisual recordings, and more from the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. It also provides an array of applications, tools, and descriptions that enrich the content and facilitate browsing, search, and interpretation.
Reference Sources
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The Oxford Dictionary of the Middle Ages
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"The Oxford Dictionary of the Middle Ages is an essential new reference work covering all key aspects of European history, society, and culture from 500 to 1500 A.D., as well as the Byzantine Empire, Islamic dynasties, and Asiatic peoples of the era. It is designed both for medievalists, who need a detailed and reliable reference tool, and for students and general readers seeking an accessible guide to the period. Over 800 scholars have assembled thousands of comprehensive entries, lavishly supplemented by hundreds of illustrations and dozens of maps."--Publisher description.
ISBN: 9780199574834Publication Date: 2010 -
Ancient Europe 8000 B.C. – A.D. 1000
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Examines the diverse peoples of early European civilization through a series of 212 essays, presented in chronological order. Coverage includes prehistoric origins through the early Middle Ages (8000 B.C. to A.D. 1000). Includes maps, photos, and chronologies. For the general reader.
ISBN: 0684314215Publication Date: 2004-02-01 -
Women in the Medieval Islamic World
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Women often seem invisible in what is widely perceived as the male-oriented society of Islam. Women in the Medieval Islamic World seeks to redress this misperception with a series of original essays on women in the pre-modern phase of Islamic history. The reader will encounter here a colorful portrait gallery of rulers, politicians, poets, and patrons, as well as some larger-than-life fictitious females from the pages of Arabic, Persian, and Turkish literature. No less authentic are the accounts of the quiet or troubled lives of ordinary women preserved in the court records of Mamluk Egypt and Ottoman Turkey, reminders that historical research can resuscitate the lives of subaltern as well as elite women from the past.
ISBN: 0312210574Publication Date: 1998-02-15 -
The Palgrave Dictionary of Medieval Anglo-Jewish History
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Published to celebrate the 120th anniversary of the foundation of the Jewish Historical Society of England, this is no conventional dictionary. For two centuries an extensive Jewish community played an important role in English medieval history. The book opens up a society for which we have sources 'many hundreds of times richer than those for France' (Robert Chazan). Nearly 30 self-governing communities extended across the country, from York to Exeter, Hereford to Canterbury. Vestiges of the medieval Jewry remain in street names; sites of Jewish houses, synagogues and cemeteries; and archaeological sites and artefacts. The 42 illustrations include 14 town plans. 30 biographic entries examine leading members of communities; eight include family trees, in six cases extending over at least five generations. A wide range of entries of general interest provide details on matters as diverse as Synagogues, Ritual child murder, Women, Libraries and Books, Mikva'ot, Usury, Herb gardens, Bezant, Community, Treasure and Laving stone.
ISBN: 9781137308153Publication Date: 2013-08-15 -
The Grove Encyclopedia of Medieval Art and Architecture
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ISBN: 9780195395365Publication Date: 2012-11-09 -
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An Archaeology of Prehistoric Bodies and Embodied Identities in the Eastern Mediterranean
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ISBN: 9781785702921Publication Date: 2016 -
Interpreting Ancient Figurines: Context, Comparison, and Prehistoric Art
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ISBN: 9780511992919Publication Date: 2011
Search for Images
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British MuseumMuseum of world history and culture in London
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EuropeanaDiscover inspiring cultural heritage from European museums, galleries, libraries and archives.
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Metropolitan Museum of ArtComprehensive art museum in New York City
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MIA: Minneapolis Institute of ArtA comprehensive art museum located in Minneapolis, founded in 1883. The collection includes more than 89,000 objects, many with extensive metadata included online. Holdings span from about 20,000 BCE and represent diverse cultures across six continents. The museum has seven curatorial areas: Arts of Africa & the Americas; Contemporary Art; Decorative Arts, Textiles & Sculpture; Asian Art; Paintings; Photography and New Media; and Prints and Drawings.
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Museum of Fine Arts (Boston): CollectionsThe MFA is one of the most comprehensive art museums in the world; the collection encompasses nearly 500,000 works of art. --Website
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Musée du LouvreThe Louvre has eight departments. The Egyptian Antiquities, the Near Eastern Antiquities; the Greek, Etruscan and Roman Antiquities which are presented beside more modern collections as departments of Paintings and of Sculptures, the Decorative Arts, the Prints and Drawings and the department of Islamic Arts. Overall, 38,000 artworks are presented including universally-admired works such as The Victory of Samothrace, The Seated Scribe, The Winged human-headed bull from Khorsabad, The Mona Lisa, The Slaves of Michelangelo or the Napoleon III apartments.
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Oriental Institute: CollectionsThe Oriental Institute Museum at the University of Chicago was opened to the public in 1931. The majority of the collections of the Oriental Institute came from its expeditions in the Middle East during the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s. --Website
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Penn Museum: CollectionsThe Penn Museum is the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology.
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World Digital LibrarySignificant primary materials from all countries and cultures in multilingual format. This is a project of the U.S. Library of Congress, carried out with the support of the United Nations Educational, Cultural and Scientific Organization (UNESCO), and in cooperation with libraries, archives, museums, educational institutions, and international organizations from around the world.
Selected Web Resources
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Mapping GothicGothic and romanesque architecture of Western Europe
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Ian Mladjov's ResourcesA good source for historical maps - from ancient to medieval
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ETANASearch engine for Ancient Near East
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NestorSearch engine for Aegean art and archaeology