Art and Art History

To fully research your work of art explore in depth the tools and resources in all these areas:

A. Biographical information

• Use the strategies and resources on the Biographical Information page of this guide.
• Search in some of the art reference sources.

B. Artistic movement

• Search for the movement in one or more art reference books.
• Look in the Grove Art Online source. (This is a major reference work for art and art history topics.)
• Use Knox Primo to find books about specific artistic movements.
• Use one or more article databases to find journal articles. Databases are listed on the Find Articles page of this guide.

C. Historical time period (culture, events, movements)

Note: It will be more productive to examine these general history sources after completing your search for biographical information and information about the movement the artist was associated with.

• General overviews of a time period can be found in timelines. See these timelines for United States history:  Timeline from the Smithsonian American Art Museum and U.S. History Primary Source Timeline from the Library of Congress.
• Use Knox Primo to find books in Seymour Library about art in specific countries. For example search Knox Primo for "art Japan" (no quotes). 
• Use these online historical encyclopedias:

• Arts & Humanities Through the Eras 
• The Encyclopedia of World History Ancient, Medieval, and Modern
• Andromeda Encyclopedic Dictionary of World History
• Hutchinson Chronology of World History