R&R's Aesthetic Tool Kit: Art History
R&R's Aesthetic Tool Kit: Art History
Our Guide to Essential Resources for Cultural Explorers!
Welcome to the first in a brand-new series — R&R’s Aesthetic Tool Kits! People are always asking us how we do what we do, and this series is our way of pulling back the curtain and sharing some of the resources we use to continue our never-ending cultural quest of lifelong learning. Hence, Aesthetic Tool Kits! We hope these resources can be enjoyed by everyone, from the beginner to the student to the connoisseur to the expert. Because there’s always more to discover . . .
And we’re starting with Art History, a subject we suspect most people are inclined to love (who doesn’t love looking at beautiful art?), but which many might naturally find quite intimidating (who can actually understand contemporary “art-speak”?). Maybe you just need a curated tool kit of accessible (and deeply compelling!) resources to take that deep-dive your creative soul has been waiting for . . .
If you want to jump directly to what most interests you, here’s what you can find below:
Top 5 Immersive Art History Resources:
All five of these sites are (free!) user-friendly, online places to immerse yourself in the wonders of beautiful art and fascinating art history. An embarrassment of riches! You could literally spend hours engaging with any one of the following sites and just scratch the surface. And yet they are also perfect for taking just 5 or 10 minutes out of your busy day to enjoy a moment of beauty.
Best One-Stop Introduction to Art History . . .
SmartHistory
SmartHistory is at the top of this list for a reason. Curated by a collaborative team of over eight hundred scholars, curators and artists, SmartHistory utilizes a perfect combination of thematic clusters, high-quality images, thoughtful essays and insightful videos to teach countless facets of art history to anyone from the novice to the professional. Some great features include:
Reframing Art History - A free, multimedia world art history textbook!
World Art History Syllabus - “This one-semester world art history course looks at art across time and across continents, with a focus on works of art that tell stories of cross-cultural exchange.”
Not Your Grandfather’s Art History: A BIPOC Reader - “a digital reader of art history essays authored largely by scholars who identify as BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and People of Color).”
Seeing America - “Created with 25 leading museums and cultural organizations, this series examines the long history of the United States from before European settlers to the modern era.”
ARCHES (At-Risk Cultural Heritage Series) - “This thematic series explores endangered cultural heritage around the world.”
Smarthistory Books - Free PDFs! Read online or print out!
Best Site to Launch an Art History Deep-Dive . . .
Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History
A brilliant resource, the Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History is the ideal jumping-off point for your next art history deep-dive. The sheer amount of information here is staggering, yet the site is also very user-friendly, with three key ways to navigate:
Chronology - Pick a time and a place. Anywhere in the world. From 8,000 BCE to the present. And take a dive! How about Japan, 1000–1400? Or Mesopotamia, 2000–1000 BCE? Or France, 1800–1900?
Works of Art - Over 8,000 works of art from around the globe!
Essays - Interested in Ancient Egyptian Amulets? Andean Textiles? Ottoman Wedding Dresses? The Met has over 1,000 essays by experts.
Best Site to Explore & Play in the World of Art . . .
Google Arts & Culture
If you just want a tremendously fun cultural playground to enjoy over your morning coffee, look no further than Google Arts & Culture. Since this treasure trove of online gems is updated daily, we guarantee you’ll find something that will pique your curiosity each time you visit or open the app! Yesterday (10/13/24), for example, a few of the many choices included: Cubism: A Brief Intro, Discover Indian Miniatures (a virtual gallery tour), Latinas in Los Angeles (photography from the Condé Nast Archive), The Gallery of the Four Elements, and spotlights on artists from Artemisia Gentileschi to Lee Krasner to Zanele Muholi! In addition to the daily landing page, here are some other major resources to discover:
Color Explorer - What’s your favorite color? An endless stream of color-coded paintings awaits!
Museum Explorer - Explore the online collections of over 3,000 museums and archives!
Explore by topic: Artists, Mediums and Art Movements
Zoom Views & 3D Objects - Choose a work of art and get up close!
Virtual Museum Day Out - Step inside 3D immersive exhibitions and virtual tours from around the world!
Nearby - Find museums, art galleries & exhibitions near you!
Best Site to Learn More About Women Artists . . .
AWARE: Archives of Women Artists, Research & Exhibitions
Written by a team of over 500 feminist scholars, curators and activists from around the globe, AWARE hosts a database which “brings together women and non-binary artists born between 1664 and 1974 working in the visual arts, with no limitations on medium or country,” as well as research articles, artist interviews, focuses on major art history themes, podcasts, and even animated videos for children and educators! There’s also an amazing resources page with bibliographies and useful links.
Best Site for Old School, Back-to-Basics Art History . . .
The Art Story
If you’re interested in no-frills, “just the facts” without too many distractions, then The Art Story might be the site for you. As simple to navigate as Wikipedia but curated entirely by actual scholars and art historians, The Art Story allows you to search for artists, art movements, timelines, and art ideas & concepts. “Each page is written to get you the information you need quickly. We focus on what is important about each topic, and what makes it interesting, striving to present you with the perfect summary.”
4 Great Online Image Repositories!
If you’re looking for images of artwork, including many images that are either in the public domain or available via a Creative Commons license, here are four wonderful databases to start:
Web Gallery of Art - “The Web Gallery of Art is a virtual museum and searchable database of European fine arts, decorative arts and architecture (3rd-19th centuries), currently containing over 52,800 reproductions.” [Source]
WikiArt - “WikiArt already features some 250,000 artworks by 3,000 artists, localized in 8 languages. These artworks are in museums, universities, town halls, and other civic buildings of more than 100 countries. Most of this art is not on public view.” [Source]
Artvee - “In the last few years, several major museums and libraries around the globe have instituted an open access policy by designating most or all of the public domain art in their collections with a creative commons license making them freely available for use for any purpose, including commercial. We sort through and aggregate the best of these images in one location to make them easy to discover and download.” [Source]
Wikimedia Commons - Now with over 109 million files! [Source]
Top 5 Museum Websites:
Museum websites in general are great places to explore art history, and now places ranging from the world’s most venerable art institutions to the tiniest, off-the-beaten-path local curiosities have now placed their collections online. The following five museum websites offer gorgeous images and an engaging multimedia experience, no matter where you live:
The Met
“The Met's online collection currently contains more than 450,000 digitized records—and is growing in number with each passing week. Here, visitors to our website can find information about the Museum's artworks, download high-resolution images, share artwork pages on social media, listen to Audio Guide stops, and explore related content.” [Source]
Smithsonian Open Access
“Welcome to Smithsonian Open Access, where you can download, share, and reuse millions of the Smithsonian’s images—right now, without asking. With new platforms and tools, you have easier access to more than 4.9 million 2D and 3D digital items from our collections—with many more to come. This includes images and data from across the Smithsonian’s 21 museums, nine research centers, libraries, archives, and the National Zoo.” [Source]
Rijks Studio
“The Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam has made 709,000 images of legendary artwork available for free in an online database. Thousands of high-res images are available for download so that people can get creative with integrating their favorite art into their everyday lives. Among the available online works are paintings and sketches by Vermeer, Van Dyck, and Rembrandt.” [Source]
Art Institute of Chicago
“Explore thousands of artworks in the museum’s collection—from our renowned icons to lesser-known works from every corner of the globe—as well as our books, writings, reference materials, and other resources.” [Source]
Art UK
“Art UK is the online home for every public art collection in the United Kingdom. ... Our website brings together art from over 3,400 British institutions in one of the UK's biggest ever arts partnerships. It shows over 300,000 works by over 50,000 artists and is growing all the time.” [Source]
Top 5 Youtube Channels for Art History:
Learn From Masters & Masterpiece Masters
These two channels offer high-quality video slideshows of paintings accompanied by classical music. Sit back, relax, and let the paintings wash over you. (They’re also nice to have playing in the background when you’re doing household chores.)
Great Art Explained in 15 Minutes
Curator James Payne creates short yet compelling videos examining a single work of art “using clear and concise language free of ‘art-speak’.”
Perspective & Art Documentaries
Two wonderful channels hosting hundreds of full-length, professional art history documentaries on a wide range of topics.
10 Art History Books We Recommend:
Best Art History Textbook:
The History of Art: A Global View — Prehistory to the Present by Jean Robertson & Deborah Hutton
A recent newcomer (first published in 2023) to the field of introductory art history textbooks, we’ve chosen The History of Art: A Global View — Prehistory to the Present over its more widely-known Eurocentric competitors due to its genuinely inclusive focus on the art of the entire globe, as well as the refreshing decision to include many works of art beyond the traditional categories of painting, sculpture and architecture.
2 Must-Read Books About Women Artists:
The Guerrilla Girls' Bedside Companion to the History of Western Art by The Guerrilla Girls
“Welcome to Art Herstory 101! This book is an irreverent romp through art history. We tell the stories of the many courageous women artists through the ages who prevailed against the forces of misogyny and the sexism of art historians.” [Source]
The Story of Art Without Men by Katy Hessel
“How many women artists do you know? Who makes art history? Did women even work as artists before the twentieth century? … Guided by Katy Hessel, art historian and founder of @thegreatwomenartists, discover the glittering paintings by Sofonisba Anguissola of the Renaissance, the radical work of Harriet Powers in the nineteenth-century United States and the artist who really invented the ‘readymade.’ … From the Cornish coast to Manhattan, Nigeria to Japan, this is the history of art as it’s never been told before.” [Source]
2 Insightful Books on How To Look at Art:
Ways of Seeing by John Berger
“John Berger's Ways of Seeing is one of the most stimulating and the most influential books on art in any language. First published in 1972, it was based on the BBC television series about which the Sunday Times critic commented: ‘This is an eye-opener in more ways than one: by concentrating on how we look at paintings . . . he will almost certainly change the way you look at pictures.’ By now he has.” [Source]
See What You're Missing: New Ways of Looking at the World Through Art by Will Gompertz
“In his inimitable engaging style, Will Gompertz takes us into the minds of artists--from contemporary stars to old masters, the well-known to the lesser-so, and from around the world--to show us how to look and experience the world with their heightened awareness. . . . See What You're Missing is at once entertaining and enlightening art history while delivering empowering new insights to its reader.” [Source]
A Book That Reimagines the Very Concept of Art History:
Stories of Art by James Elkins
“A thoughtful, engaging, and intimate history of art that offers a critical analysis of the assumptions on which the entire discipline of art history depends. Concise and original, this accessible second edition continues to act as an antidote to the behemoth art history textbooks of the past. … Stories of Art is an interactive, iconoclastic text, encouraging readers to imagine how they would present art history in an age of multiple narratives.” [Source]
4 Books to Diversify Your Art History Bookshelf:
Black Art: A Cultural History by Richard J. Powell
“Renowned art historian Richard J. Powell presents Black art drawn from across the African diaspora, with examples from the Americas, the Caribbean, and Europe. Black Art features artworks executed in a broad range of media, including film, photography, performance art, conceptual art, advertising, and sculpture.” [Source]
Asian American Art: A History, 1850-1970 by Gordon H. Chang, Mark Johnson & Paul Karlstrom
“This pioneering work recovers the extraordinarily impressive artistic production of numerous Asian Americans, and offers richly informed interpretations of a long-neglected art history. To unravel the complexity of Asian American art expression and its vital place in American art, the texts consider aesthetics, the social structures of art production and criticism, and national and international historical contexts.” [Source]
Latin American Art Since 1900 by Edward Lucie-Smith
“In this classic survey, now updated with full-color images throughout, Edward Lucie-Smith introduces the art of Latin America from 1900 to the present day. … Featured in this book are the artists who have searched for indigenous roots and local tradition; explored abstraction, expressionism, and new media; entered into dialogue with European and North American movements, while insisting on reaching a wide, popular audience for their work; and created an energetic, innovative, and varied art scene across the South American continent.” [Source]
Art & Queer Culture by Catherine Lord & Richard Meyer
“Beautifully illustrated and clearly written, this special edition has been updated to include the art and visual culture that has emerged since the publication of its acclaimed first edition in 2013. A group of new contributors – themselves gay, lesbian, queer and trans – join the primary authors in emphasizing the global sweep of queer contemporary art and the newfound visibility of gender non-conforming artists. In a compact, reader-friendly format, this revised volume packs over 130 years of queer art history.” [Source]
3 Publishers of Beautiful Art Books:
The following three publishers each have a giant catalog filled with a beautiful art book for every coffee table and every nightstand. Take a look at their offerings to find the perfect gift for yourself or a friend.
Taschen
“Taschen is a leading art-book publisher known for its dazzling and audacious world of eye-catching coffee table books spanning architecture, aphrodisia, art, design, fashion, photography, pop culture, style, and travel.” [Source]
Check out their Gifts for Art Lovers, Gifts For Design Aficionados, and their affordable Basic Art Series. Click here for their entire arts catalog!
Thames & Hudson
“Thames & Hudson is one of the world’s leading publishers of illustrated books with over 2,000 titles in print. We publish high-quality books across all areas of visual creativity: the arts (fine, applied, decorative, performing), architecture, design, photography, fashion, film and music, and also archaeology, history and popular culture.” [Source]
Check out two of their most popular series: World of Art and Art Essentials. Click here for their entire arts catalog!
Phaidon
“Phaidon is the premier global publisher of the creative arts. We work with the world's most influential authors to produce innovative books on art, photography, design, architecture, fashion, food, and travel, and illustrated books for children. Phaidon has a long and distinguished history as an art-book publisher with over 1,500 titles in print.” [Source]
Check out their wonderful History of Art collection, as well as their Contemporary Art collection. Click here for their entire arts catalog!
Hundreds of Free (Legal!) PDFs of Art Books:
And if all those art books above are out of your budget range, have a look at these two sites to see how many art books you can legally get for free!
Metropolitan Museum of Art Now Offers Over 1,600 Free Art Books Online
Getty Publications Virtual Library - More than 300 Art Books to Read and Download for Free
And that’s all for now! Every resource listed above is a veritable treasure trove of beauty, inspiration and joy. Hopefully you will find this Aesthetic Tool Kit of art history resources as useful as we do!