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online image resources
There is a quickly growing number of digital image sources
available online, which are useful for research, digital teaching, and
student assignments. They range from highly controlled and standardized
(e.g. museum websites) to some-guy-with-a-scanner, but high quality images
can be found in most of them. There are also some image search tools that
will do title, subject, artist, or collection based searching. Some of
these require user license agreements, such as those set up by UC and/or
the California Digital Library (CDL). In all cases it is imperative to
read the site's copyright information, especially before downloading the
image in any way. This is a very organic list - check in often for additions
and changes.
Note: all links will open in a new browser window.
A good imaging resource: Slides.com - they'll convert your digital images to 35mm slides - inexpensive, fast service.
museum websites with collections online (a small sampling)
Museum Computer Network's list of links to over 1,700 museums worldwide
North America
Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco - this digitizing project, with over 82,000 images, employs "Zoom" technology, allowing for incredible detail
The Norton Simon Museum - the online digital collection is growing, and offers a zoom-in feature
LACMA - nearly 60,000 works now online
Digital Resources at The Getty
Metropolitan Museum, NY - view highlights or search the collection
The Chicago Art Institute - growing selection of the AIC collection - large image available when copyright allows
The George Eastman House - International Museum of Film and Photography
The Canadian Museum of Civilization - extensive exhibition pages; also explore the storage areas of the mainly anthropological collections
The Smithsonian Institute's main site
Europe
The Vatican - view collections or works individually, or take an online tour.
The Courtauld Institute - now has more than 40,000 high quality images
The Tate - now has an online database of 12,000 images
The Louvre - highlights of the collection
Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam - go to English - Collection
Reunion des Musées Nationaux - portal to the 33 national museums of France (highlights of exhibitions)
The Photo Agency for the National Museums of France - access to a large number of collections; allows you to store a search
The British Museum - use the Compass feature for high quality images
Musée Marmottan - good Impressionist holdings, especially Monet
Museum Search Tools and Other Museum Sites
Musée Online - an exhaustive listing of museums worldwide, large and small
The Hermitage Museum - digital collection with search feature
library and government collections
Virtual Catalogue for Art History - a European specialized meta catalogue allowing the integrated retrieval of bibliographic records (not images) - access to over 5 million records
The National Library of Medicine - a list of exhibitions organized by the NLM - the more recent ones have excellent digital image collections.
Images from the History of Medicine (IHM) - over 60,000 digital images. [Note: a pop-up will ask if you want to install the Chinese language feature - you don't need to - just close this window.]
National Archives and Records Adminstration Research Room - includes a finding aid for searching digital images and historical documents online
The Prints and Photographs Reading Room - the Library of Congress - access to high resolution images, many in the public domain
American Memory - Historical Collections for the National Digital Library, Library of Congress
The New York Public Library Picture Collection - historic/archival collections - large images and text records.
Bibliotheque Nationale de France - virtual exhibitions, digital library, etc.
"Edward S. Curtis's The North American Indian: Photographic Images" - Library of Congress and Northwestern University Library
The Chicago Public Library Digital Collections The Empire That Was Russia - photos of Russia commissioned by the Tsar, photographed by Prokudin-Gorskii - with details on how the original negatives were colourized.
Turning the Pages - 10 treasures from the British Library - these are for online use only, but are a fantastic resource (try the magnifying glass feature!)
Collect Britain - Varied digital collections from the British Library
other university collections and databases
UCSB Library - Art & Architecture Resources
LUCI - the Library of UC Images
CATENA - over 1,000 images of historic gardens and landscapes, from the Bard Graduate Center (uses the LUNA Insight web or Java clients)
California Museum of Photography at UC Riverside
WorldArt Web Kiosk - Western and Non-Western survey images, compiled by San Jose State U. (click on image in results for large version)
The Digital Library for the Decorative Arts and Material Culture - University of Wisconsin - Madison (currently contains Mark Catesby's Natural History of Carolina, Florida, and the Bahama Islands Volumes I & II [London, 1754], with excellent digital images in several sizes; there are plans to add more texts)
SPIRO - the searchable database of the Architecture Visual Resources Library at UC Berkeley
Digital Archive of American Architecture - compiled by Jeffrey Howe at Boston College
The Emergence of Advertising in America: 1850-1920 - from Duke University - over 9,000 images
Art Images for College Teaching (AICT) - a "royalty-free image exchange" (Updated Aug/2004 - now over 1,100 images)
"A Summons to Comradeship" - a database of WWI and WWII posters at the University of Minnesota
search engines and portals
University of Arizona's Clearinghouse of Image Databases
Artcyclopedia - search a vast number of collections by artist or title keyword
Art History Resources on the Web - images and websites compiled by subject or time period
licensed archives
Note: some are only accessible via UCSB computers, while some provide proxy access
California Digital Library - The CDL Image Demonstrator allows UC affiliates to search and view art and architecture images drawn from museum and art collections using Luna Insight®. You can link to each collection via the web version, or do cross-collection searching using the Java client (currently UCSB domains only). To read more about the collections and access them through either viewer, go to the CDL Image Service page. Some of the bigger collections include:
AMICA - nearly 120,000 works from museums through North America and Europe
Saskia/Library of UC Images - nearly 28,000 high quality images of core art historical subjects
Museums and the Online Archive of California (MOAC) - nearly 78,000 images from UC collections
Hartill - nearly 17,000 images, primarily architectural
The David Rumsey historical map collection - more than 11,000 very high quality images of maps and cartography instruments
Grove Dictionary of Art - more text than images, but a very good resource. Includes The Bridgeman Art Library, which has a searchable image database with more than 30,000 images.
Accunet/AP Photo Archive - for current events photos
The following photo archives require registration, and have strict use policies, but searches and viewing of both thumbnails and higher res images are free (and both offer a "lightbox" feature):
map collections
The David Rumsey Map Collection - viewable with LUNA Insight software - choose "View Collection With Browser", and be amazed!
Rare Map Collection - The Hargrett Rare Book and Manuscript Library at the University of Georgia
Map Collections 1500-2002 - at the Library of Congress
Contemporary and Historic maps, Perry-Castañeda Library, University of Texas at Austin
Map History - gateway to numerous map links
mainly architecture
Structurae: International Database and Gallery of Structures - comprehensive site for architecture and engineering
The Skyscraper Page - over 4,400 illustrations of tall buildings, as well as comparative data
Built in America - Historic American Buildings at the Library of Congresss American Memory Project (1933-present) - large TIFF images available
The Great Buildings Collection - contains photos of buildings, models, documentation, and more
Digital Imaging Project - from Bluffton College - large and growing archive of architecture and archaeological sites
ArchNet Digital Library - large holdings of Islamic architecture
Images of Medieval Art & Architecture - from Alison Stones at the University of Pittsburgh. The Chartres images in particular are very large and high quality.
Bildarchiv der Kunst und Architektur (in German)
Canadian Centre for Architecture - over 150,000 records of historic architecture-related material (NOTE: text data only, no images yet)
asian resources
Asian Art Net - The Online journal for the study and exhibition of the arts of Asia
Freer and Sackler Galleries - links to past and present exhibitions and gallery guides
Asia Society - a portal to many Asian art resources
Artworld - a UK world art teaching site with a digital image archive, timelines, and much more
ArtServe - Art & Architecture mainly from the Mediterranean Basin, Japan, India & Cambodia - be sure to scroll down the page
China
The Golden Age of Chinese Archaeology - Exhibition at the National Gallery of Art
The National Palace Museum, Taiwan - has extensive digital image archives
Chinese ArtNet - links to various exhibitions, and with good archives of Chinese works
China the Beautiful - Classical Chinese Art, Calligraphy, Poetry, History, Literature, Painting & Philosophy
India and South Asia
The Digitial South Asia Library - The AIIS (American Institute of Indian Studies) collection based in Gurgaon, Haryana, India, has over 125,000 photographs in the collection. The images fall into the broad categories of architecture, sculpture, terracotta, painting and numismatics.
Harappa - The Indus Valley and the Raj in India and Pakistan (historic photos and engravings)
TempleNet - "The ultimate source of information on Indian temples "
Southeast Asian Monuments - 100 images of Hindu and Buddhist monuments in Mainland Southeast Asia
Japan
Ukiyo-e Prints - from the Sweet Briar Collection
Connecticut College - Ukiyo-e prints
Ukiyo-e Caricatures - growing database of images from the Institut für Ostasienwissenschaften der Universität Wien
Hiroshige's "One Hundred Famous Views of Edo", at the Brooklyn Museum - a magnifying glass tool allows you to zoom in to great detail online
Japanese Gardens - part of the San Jose State University's "Asian Gateways" website
Japanese Art at LACMA - click on "collections online" for image archives
The Woodblock Prints of Ando Hiroshige
Japanese Art & Culture - another portal to numerous Japanese art images and resources
Gods of Japan - A-to-Z Photo Dictionary of Japanese Buddhist and Shinto Deities
african art resources
National Museum of African Art (Smithsonian) - explore images in context, or try the Advanced Search
African Art on the Internet - a portal to dozens of websites and resources
Africa: The Art of a Continent - exhibition at the Guggenheim Museum
Art and Life in Africa Online - a vast resource from University of Iowa
Artworld - a UK world art teaching site with a digital image archive, timelines, maps, and much more
middle eastern and islamic art and architecture resources
Islamic Art at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY
The Freer and Sackler Galleries - links to exhibitions on arts of the Islamic world and the Ancient Near East
ArtServe - Art & Architecture mainly from the Mediterranean Basin, Japan, India & Cambodia - be sure to scroll down the page
ArchNet Digital Library - large holdings of Islamic architecture
IslamiCity - a portal to various Islamic art and architecture resources
Islamic Art Network - contains a searchable archive of over 5,000 images of Islamic architecture in Cairo
miscellaneous (in no particular order)
caveat: these sites vary widely in quality and content
Web Gallery of Art - virtual museum of European art ca. 1100 to 1850
Mark Harden's Artchive - links by artist or movement, good high-quality images
CGFA - another site with a great selection of images (but a rather annoying website)
Olga's Gallery - and yet another
Mother of All Art History Pages - portal to vast resources
French Public Collections - searchable database of art resources from all periods and cultures
The Online Picasso Project - contains 7,044 catalogued works (excellent search tool and comprehensive contents, but images are only "vignette" size)
THAIS.IT - Italian Sculpture and much more - try the link to "Specials"
Resource list from UCLA Arts Library - a useful list of links to digital image archives (some overlap with this list, but new things too)
Victorian Magic Lantern - scanned lantern slides, showing scenes of Paris, Egypt, etc.
Connecticut College Wetmore Print Collection - Durer, Rembrandt, American prints and Japanese woodcuts
Images of American Political History - large, high-quality images, in the public domain.
Vincent van Gogh - a collection of very large, high quality images - in Italian
John Singer Sargent - high-quality scans of major paintings
Database of Contemporary Russian Artists - Comprehensive list of biographies and CVs, and links to image samples
Photo Marburg - includes Manuscripta Mediaevalia and other resources (use Sitemap to navigate)
Bildarchiv der Kunst und Architektur (in German)
Timelines from the Met - useful timelines and summaries of eras, dynasties, etc.
Hellenic Culture - a guide to the museums and culture of the Greek world, with links to images of archaeological sites
Mosaic Art Source - a site for mosaic enthusiasts, with links to large digital files of several mosaics
The Art Renewal Project - a collection of over 12,000 high quality digital images - primarily 19th century, but also 15th-18th centuries.
the-artists.org - an A-Z list of contemporary artists
Artists with Aids - go to Virtual Collection (also uses LUNA Insight)
'Photo Archive' - field photographs of archaeological sites, mainly in Italy
The Visual Arts Data Service (VADS) - contains, among other resources, the Design Council Slide Collection (Britain) - over 6,000 design records, with enlarged images
The Athenaeum - site devoted to "building online tools for the humanities" - a little tricky to navigate, but some great, huge scans
The George Ortiz Collection - mainly archaeological/ancient, but all areas
BGMA - Varied artists' works in digital form (very select list of artists, very good scans)
Orazio Centaro's Art Images on the Web - organized alphabetically, by artist
AsrtNet - has links to artists and galleries - mainly contemporary
Orientalist Art - badly organized, but good scans (and music, too!)
Webshots Community - not very well organized, but contains high-quality images - search by title or artist
Finally, Art Lex - not an image site, but a good source for the right term or description!
Please send additions or corrections to Jackie Spafford: spafford@arthistory.ucsb.edu
