The Metropolitan Museum of Art
There is much quality material for art students, educators, and enthusiasts at the The Metropolitan Museum of Art web site. Start with the Metropolitan Museum of Art Timeline of Art History, a chronological, geographical, and thematic exploration of the history of art from around the world. Each timeline page includes representative art from the Museum's collection, a chart of time periods, a map of the region, an overview, and a list of key events. The timelines - accompanied by world, regional, and sub-regional maps — provide a linear outline of art history, and allow visitors to compare and contrast art from around the globe at any time in history. There is plenty more here apart from the Timeline: "Just for Fun" has interactive activities for kids, "A Closer Look" examines the "hows and whys" behind Met objects (such as George Washington Crossing the Delaware), "Artist" enables visitors to access biographical materials on a selection of artists as well as general information about their work, and "Themes and Cultures" presents past and present cultures with special features on the Met's collections and exhibitions. (Many of these individual exhibitions are listed below.)
Art History Resources on the Web
Professor Chris Witcombe of the Art department at Sweet Briar College has perhaps the best organized gateway to art history sites on the Web. His directory is chock-full of useful and regularly updated links and is divided into the following categories: Prehistoric Art, Ancient Near East, Ancient Egypt, Ancient Greece, Ancient Rome, Art in Early Europe, 15th-Century Renaissance Art, 16th-Century Renaissance Art, 17th-Century Baroque Art, Baroque Art, 18th-Century Art, 19th-Century Art, 20th-Century Art, 21st-Century Art and Prints & Photography. He also includes a list of museums and galleries and research resources. Professor Witcombe has also produced an exhibition exploring the perception of Art and the identity of the artist through history an in contemporary society, entitled What is Art .... ?.... What is an Artist?
Artcyclopedia: The Guide to Museum-Quality Art on the Internet
The Artcyclopedia editors have compiled a comprehensive index of every artist represented at hundreds of museum sites, image archives, and other online resources. Artcyclopedia only provides references to sites on the World Wide Web where artists' works can be viewed online and the vast majority of the artists in their database specialize in painting and sculpture. They have a searchable index of over 1200 arts sites, and offer more than 32,000 links to an estimated 100,000 works by 7,500 renowned artists. A great resource for researching particular artists.
World Art Treasures (historical art)
The "Jacques-Eduard Berger Fondation Art and Civilisation" offers World Art Treasures, an impressive site for learning about art and artists through the ages. The site offers lectures and itineraries of the cultural tours, an Artists Slide Library, slides by Country, Region, and City, a Periods Slide Library, Essays, an Audio Section to listen to the different lectures, a Zoom function, and "Puzzle," a chance to click on a piece of a master work and drag to correct place. Lectures and itineraries include Tell el Amarna, Capital of the Disk, Roman Portraits from Egypt, The enchanted gardens of the Renaissance, Sandro Botticelli, Caravaggio: The Night Prince, Johannes Vermeer, and more. There is also an interactive timeline.
The Getty Museum
The J. Paul Getty Trust focus on the visual arts serves both general audiences and specialized professionals, and it offers an impressive array of services. For instance, the Getty Research Institute provides access to a range of online research tools. The Research Library is accessible to both on-site and remote users and provides access to the Library Catalog, a myriad of collections and other services. The Explore Art section allows you to browse many of the works of art on display at the Getty by name, object, theme, or topic. You can also view current or past exhibitions. Among the best are Jean-Antoine Houdon (1741-1828): Sculptor of the Enlightenment and Raphael at the Gallery. There are also lesson plans and ideas for discussion on many aspects of art and art history. (See the Lesson Plans & Activities section below.)
Voice of the Shuttle: Art & Art History
VoS is an extensive humanities database with many useful links to art history resources. Among their many art history categories are General Art Resources, Artists & Works By Chronology, Museums, Institutes, & Centers, Galleries & Exhibitions, Journals & Zines (Art & Art History), Depts. & Programs (Art & Art History), and Course Syllabi & Teaching Resources (Art & Art History).
Art History Research Center
The Art History Research Center from Concordia University, Canada, is a tool for art historical research. It provides access to newsgroups, mailing lists, library catalogs, article indexes, online collections, art history & arts web servers, and links. There is also a short essay entitled "The Internet as a Research Medium for Art Historians."
About: Art History
This About.com comprehensive gateway to Art History resources is managed by Shelley Esaak, who is a portrait artist, a freelance illustrator and graphic designer, a writer, and an educator. There are plenty of helpful annotated links in multiple categories: Articles & Resources, Famous Names in Art, Timelines of Art History, Movements and Schools, Different Types of Art, Art by Country or Region, Art by Culture or Group, Images / Picture Galleries, Contemporary Art, Find Museums / Galleries, Art Appreciation, Help / Advice for Students, Educator / Parent Resources, Reference and Reading, 60-Second Artist Profiles, Leonardo's Last Supper, Art History Glossary, The Art History Forum, and more. A broad and helpful site, though obtrusive ads are annoying.
WWWVL: History of Art
The History of Art Virtual Library is a gateway of links relating to Art History 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 have an interest in art history and would like to find images online or to learn more about particular artists, the sites they list be of use to you.
Smithsonian American Art Museum
The Smithsonian American Art Museum (SAAM) is America's first federal art collection, dedicated to the art and artists of the United States. More than 7,000 American artists are represented, including major artists such as John Singleton Copley, John Singer Sargent, Georgia O'Keeffe, and others. The featured themes and topics of the collection include Colonial portraiture, nineteenth-century landscape, American impressionism, twentieth-century realism and abstraction, New Deal projects, sculpture, photography, prints and drawings, contemporary crafts, African American art, Latino art, and folk art. Today the collection consists of more than 40,000 artworks in all media, spanning more than 300 years of artistic achievement. The Smithsonian Online Exhibitions feature prize holdings from different eras in American history. The online version of American Art, the academic journal of the Smithsonian American Art Museum, has articles of interest to art historians.
Library of Congress: The American Memory
The American Memory Collection from the Library of Congress contains primary source materials relating to the history and culture of the United States. The site offers more than 7 million digital items from more than 100 historical collections. Included are multimedia collections of photographs, recorded sound, moving pictures, and digitized text. Select collections to search, search for items across all collections, and explore teaching and learning ideas with American Memory.
Artchive
Mark Harden's Artchive offers over 2,000 high quality scans of artwork for educational purposes. The museum is divided into several galleries: The Artchive, Glyphs Art Reviews, The Galleries, Theory and Criticism, Juxtapositions, Art CD-ROM Reviews, and Art Links. The Artchive offers browser access in HTML format to the archive for all of the fine art scans. The Galleries is the entry point to the online exhibitions currently showing.
WorldArt Web Kiosk
The WorldArt image database allows you to search over 35,000 images from throughout the world. Portfolios of art, architecture and sculpture arranged by geographic area or time period. Faculty, staff, and students of the California State University System created this database. Categories: American Paintings and Sculpture; Ancient Near Eastern Art; Arts of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas; Asian Art; European Paintings; European Sculpture and Decorative Arts; Egyptian Art; Greek and Roman Art; and Islamic Art.
Art History Network
The Art History Network is a resource for Art History, Archaeology, and Architecture resources on the Web. Topics include Artist, Civilizations, Links: Journals & Magazines, Images & Virtual Tours, and General Resources. There are also links to discussion groups, chats, and a bookstore.
Art Images for College Teaching
AICT is a free-use image resource for the educational community by art historian and visual resources curator Allan T. Kohl. AICT is intended primarily to disseminate images of art and architectural works in the public domain on a free-access, free-use basis to all levels of the educational community, as well as to the public at large.
The Incredible Art Department
This popular site is managed by two K-12 art teachers and offers plenty of links to curriculum resources, art education sites, art teacher listservs, art teacher web sites, and more and features a "site of the month." You'll find many helpful lessons and ideas, including Art History games.
Reunion des Musees Nationaux (RMN), France
The Photo Agency of the Reunion des musees nationaux (RMN), French National Organisation of Art Museums, houses more than 100,000 colour transparencies and 500,000 black-and-white negatives relating to works of art in France's national museums: paintings, sculptures, decorative arts, drawings and photographs. For the less French inclined, this site also has an English Version.
Nineteenth-Century Art Worldwide
Nineteenth-Century Art Worldwide is the world’s first scholarly, refereed e-journal devoted to the study of nineteenth-century painting, sculpture, graphic arts, photography, architecture, and decorative arts across the globe. The chronological scope of the journal is the "long" nineteenth century, stretching from the American and French Revolutions, at one end, to the outbreak of World War I, at the other.
Mother of all Art and Art History Links Page
The Mother of all Art and Art History Links Page is available courtesy of the School of Art & Design at the University of Michigan. It offers a gateway to Art History Departments, Research Resources, and Online Exhibitions.
Art Guide: The Art Lovers Guide to Britain and Ireland
An extensive index to the art collections of Great Britain and Ireland. Art Guide is organized by artist, by museum, and geographically. The database currently contains more than 1,900 named artists, more than 650 museums, more than 4,500 individual listings, and comprehensive exhibitions listings. For each artist there is a list of their works and where they can be found and for each museum a list of outstanding works in the collection, and other information.
Site Officiel du Musée du Louvre
At the official web site of the Louvre there are virtual tours of many of the galleries and exhibitions. The site presents a selection of the works of art from each of the seven departments of the museum. There is also an English Version.
Spartacus: Encyclopedia of British Art, 1600-1950
This Spartacus Educational UK resource offers brief essays and information on Art Institutions, Artists 1600-1750, Artists 1750-1900, Artists 1900-1950, and Architects.
AskArt.com
AskArt offers extensive information on over 52,000 American artists. Artists searchable by name.
Hunt for Art History
Part of HuntFor.com, Hunt for Art History provides a wealth of information about the arts. Selected periods and artists are profiled and there are artists’ resources, lessons, and tutorials. This portal website was developed and maintained by computer and graphic art professionals.
Yahoo: Art History
Annotated links in multiple categories.
Select Topics in Art History
Egyptian Art in the Age of the Pyramids
The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s "Egyptian Art in the Age of the Pyramids" is a comprehensive exhibition of Old Kingdom art. It includes approximately 250 objects from more than thirty museums in Egypt, Europe, and North America and forty-one are presented at this site. You can learn about the Old Kingdom in the introduction or explore the individual works by selecting one of the following themes: Pyramid complexes, tombs of officials, Images of Royalty, Images of Officials and their Families, Portraiture, Images of Artisans and Occupations, Objects, and Daily Life.
Art of the First Cities: The Third Millennium B.C. from the Mediterranean to the Indus
The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Art of the First Cities: The Third Millennium B.C. from the Mediterranean to the Indus explores through art the emergence of the world’s first city-states and empires in Syria and Mesopotamia during the third millennium B.C. The site also relates these developments to artistic and cultural developments from the eastern Aegean to the Indus valley and Central Asia. Famous sites of the ancient world covered include the Royal Graves of Ur, the palace and temples of Mari, the citadel of Troy, and the great cities of the Indus Valley civilization. The exhibition includes approximately 400 works of extraordinary sculpture, jewelry, seals, relief carving, metalwork, and cuneiform tablets. There is a special, in-depth feature designed to complement the exhibition, an essay from the exhibition catalogue, and samples from the accompanying Audio Guide.
The New Greek Galleries
The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s The New Greek Galleries is an extensive collection of Greek art. You can explore the galleries online by following four interconnected paths: a timeline illustrated with signal works of art, a menu of eighteen art objects selected for this online preview and accompanied by explanatory text, a geographical map of the Mediterranean area where the works of art were produced, and a gallery map coupled with descriptions of the newly designed spaces and a selection of art objects.
Ancient Near East and the Ancient Mediterranean World
The University of Chicago Library preserves deteriorated research materials relating to the history, art, and archaeology of the Ancient Near East and the ancient Mediterranean world. The project focuses on materials published between 1850 - 1950, drawn from two of the Library's complimentary collections: the Ancient Near East and Classics Collections.
The Legacy of Genghis Khan: Courtly Art and Culture in Western Asia, 1256–1353
The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s The Legacy of Genghis Khan: Courtly Art and Culture in Western Asia, 1256–1353 features images, audio, and essays related to the exhibition. This exhibition displays more than 200 outstanding examples of illustrated manuscripts, the decorative arts, and architectural decoration. Accompanied by a catalogue.
Oriental Institute Virtual Museum
The Oriental Institute Museum is a showcase of the history, art and archaeology of the ancient Near East. The Museum exhibits major collections of antiquities from Egypt, Mesopotamia, Iran, Syria, Palestine, and Anatolia. The Oriental Institute Virtual Museum makes use of a series of Apple QuickTime VR panoramic movies to take you on a tour of each of the Museum's galleries, accompanied by descriptions of each alcove and their artifacts. Where appropriate, links to related materials, such as the Museum's Highlights From The Collections, the Photographic Archives, and relevant Oriental Institute Archaeology and Philology projects elaborate on the most significant objects in greater detail.
Genesis: Ideas of Origin in African Sculpture
The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Genesis: Ideas of Origin in African Sculpture explores the following questions: How did the world begin? What is our ancestry? What is the source of agriculture and of kingship, and other societal institutions? The exhibition explores how artists in distinct African cultures have interpreted these ideas and sought to answer these questions, with a focus on classical sculptural form, the ci wara antelope headdress of the Bamana people. You can see videos illustrating headdress performances and read the transcript of a lecture presented in conjunction with this exhibition.
Art and Oracle: A Scholarly Resource of African Art and Rituals of Divination
The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Art and Oracle: A Scholarly Resource of African Art and Rituals of Divination features objects with color photographs, basic information, and explanatory text. There are fifty works — grouped into eight categories — from the "Art and Oracle" exhibition catalogue, an exhibition list sorted by African cultures, a group of divination objects in South African collections, a selection of related works from other parts of the world in the Met's collection, a map of sub-Saharan Africa, four essays on different aspects of divination in Africa, a glossary of principal terms, and a bibliography of sources on African divination.
In the Footsteps of Marco Polo: A Journey through the Met to the Land of the Great Khan
The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s In the Footsteps of Marco Polo offers an interactive map, audio clips, activities and reading suggestions. Use the online Image Explorer to review the works of art you've seen on this journey through art from Venice to China.
The Glory of Byzantium
The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s The Glory of Byzantium includes many images from the MMA's collection and can be accessed in a number of ways. You can explore Byzantine works of art, investigate a theme in Byzantine art, and probe the history of Byzantium. You can also view the works of art in a visual timeline. There is a glossary as well as a special resource area for teachers.
Treasures from the Royal Tombs of Ur
A presentation by the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, this is an exhibition from the School of Art and Design at San Jose State University featuring 157 Sumerian objects that were excavated by the British archaeologist Sir Leonard Woolley, director of the joint excavations of the British Museum and the University of Pennsylvania Museum at ancient Ur in the 1920s and 1930s.
Web Gallery of Art
The Web Gallery of Art is a virtual museum and searchable database of European painting and sculpture of the Gothic, Renaissance, and Baroque periods (1100-1850), currently containing over 15,400 reproductions. Biographies, commentaries, and guided tours are available. Furthermore, a search engine allows you to find pictures in the collection using various search criteria. The guided tours make it easier to visit the Gallery and to understand the artistic and historical relationship between the artwork and artists included in the collection.
Cleopatra: A Multimedia Guide to the Ancient World
Cleopatra is an interactive guide to the Ancient Art collection of the Art Institute of Chicago. "Stories" accompany the objects, and there are lesson plans for grades 4-12.
Huntington Photographic Archive of Buddhist and Related Art
The John C. and Susan L. Huntington Photographic Archive of Buddhist and Related Art of the College of the Arts, Ohio State University contains nearly 300,000 original color slides and black and white and color photographs of art and architecture throughout Asia. Countries covered in the collection include India, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nepal, China, Japan, Thailand, Indonesia, and Myanmar (Burma). Works range from approximately 2500 B.C.E. to the present, and documentation includes contemporary religious activities in various parts of Asia. The Archive documents the art and architecture of these countries in situ, as well as works of art found in most major Asian, European, and American museums. This broad, yet detailed collection contains predominantly Buddhist material, but also includes Hindu, Jain, Islamic, and other works.
This is just a few