Slides from:
Seminar at Trinity College Dublin, Ireland
Department of History of Art and Architecture
BA | Two Subject Moderatorship History of Art (TSM) 2014/2015
HA1010: Introduction to the History of European Art and Architecture I
Introduction to digital art historical resources
Introduction to digital art-historical resources 2014/2015
1. Department of History of Art and Architecture
School of Histories and Humanities
Introduction
to digital Art Historical resources
Karolina Badzmierowska
2. Department of History of Art and Architecture
School of Histories and Humanities
triarc
The Department’s Irish Art Research Centre
http://www.librarything.com/catalog/TRIARC
3. Department of History of Art and Architecture
School of Histories and Humanities
TARA
Trinity’s Access to Research Archive
http://www.tara.tcd.ie/
4. Department of History of Art and Architecture
School of Histories and Humanities
Trinity College Library
https://www.tcd.ie/Library/
Digital Collections
http://digitalcollections.tcd.ie/
5. Department of History of Art and Architecture
School of Histories and Humanities
Wikipedia is not a reliable resource.
6. Department of History of Art and Architecture
School of Histories and Humanities
Example:
Wikipedia entry for “Vincent van Gogh”
7. Department of History of Art and Architecture
School of Histories and Humanities
8456 revisions since 2001 by 2698 editors
8. Department of History of Art and Architecture
School of Histories and Humanities
Images: source, licensing / copyright
information and quality vary!
9. Department of History of Art and Architecture
School of Histories and Humanities
Google as digital Art Historical resource?
10. Department of History of Art and Architecture
School of Histories and Humanities
Google Advanced Search
http://www.google.com/advanced_search
11. Department of History of Art and Architecture
School of Histories and Humanities
Google Images
http://images.google.ie/
12. Department of History of Art and Architecture
School of Histories and Humanities
Google Images
http://images.google.ie/
13. Department of History of Art and Architecture
School of Histories and Humanities
Google Images
http://images.google.ie/
Visually similar images
The same image but
different sizes and
sources
15. Department of History of Art and Architecture
School of Histories and Humanities
Google Books
http://books.google.ie/
16. Department of History of Art and Architecture
School of Histories and Humanities
Google Books
http://books.google.ie/
17. Department of History of Art and Architecture
School of Histories and Humanities
Google Scholar
http://scholar.google.com/
18. Department of History of Art and Architecture
School of Histories and Humanities
Google Scholar
http://scholar.google.com/
19. Department of History of Art and Architecture
School of Histories and Humanities
Google Maps
https://www.google.ie/maps/
20. Department of History of Art and Architecture
School of Histories and Humanities
Street view
Florence
Piazza del Duomo
Panoramic view
Florence
Santa Maria Novella
21. Department of History of Art and Architecture
School of Histories and Humanities
Google Maps:
Earth View
22. Department of History of Art and Architecture
School of Histories and Humanities
Google Earth
https://www.google.com/earth/
23. Department of History of Art and Architecture
School of Histories and Humanities
Google Art Project
https://www.google.com/culturalinstitute
24. Department of History of Art and Architecture
School of Histories and Humanities
Google Art Project
https://www.google.com/culturalinstitute
25. Department of History of Art and Architecture
School of Histories and Humanities
Collections
Exhibitions
Research
Learning
Library
Archive
Publications
Museum Websites – what to look for?
26. Department of History of Art and Architecture
School of Histories and Humanities
British Museum http://www.britishmuseum.org/
The National Gallery (UK) http://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/
Metropolitan Museum of Art http://www.metmuseum.org/
MOMA http://www.moma.org/
TATE http://www.tate.org.uk/
National Gallery of Art (US) http://www.nga.gov/
The Rijksmuseum https://www.rijksmuseum.nl
27. Department of History of Art and Architecture
School of Histories and Humanities
JSTOR
http://www.jstor.org/
Academic Journals
Primary sources, Books
Login
Login via an institution
Trinity College Dublin
29. Department of History of Art and Architecture
School of Histories and Humanities
ARTSTOR
http://library.artstor.org/
Digital Images Library
30. Department of History of Art and Architecture
School of Histories and Humanities
PROJECT GUTENBERG
http://www.gutenberg.org/
Ebooks
31. Department of History of Art and Architecture
School of Histories and Humanities
QUESTIONS?
32. Department of History of Art and Architecture
School of Histories and Humanities
BREAK
33. Department of History of Art and Architecture
School of Histories and Humanities
Primary sources
Vitruvius
The Ten Books on Architecture
Jacobus de Voragine
Golden Legend
Giorgio Vasari
Lives of the Most Eminent Painters, Sculptors & Architects
34. Department of History of Art and Architecture
School of Histories and Humanities
Vitruvius The Ten Books on Architecture
Roman architect and engineer | 1st century BC
3 principles of good architecture
Firmitas / solid
Utilitas / useful
Venustas / beautiful
Human body as a source
of architectural proportion
Leonardo da Vinci | Vitruvian Man | 1492
Pen, ink, watercolour and metalpoint on paper
343 x 245 mm
Gallerie dell'Accademia, Venice
35. Department of History of Art and Architecture
School of Histories and Humanities
Jacobus de Voragine Golden Legend
Italian chronicler and archbishop of Genoa | 13th century
A collection of factual and fictional
stories from the saints' lives
• The most widely read book, after the
Bible, during the late Middle Ages
• The most important source and “a guide’
to saints’ attributes and iconography
Artist Unknown | St. Patrick (Detail) | Late 13th c.
Jacobus de Voragine Golden Legend
Illuminated manuscript
The Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical
Gardens, San Marino, California
36. Department of History of Art and Architecture
School of Histories and Humanities
Giorgio Vasari Lives of the Artists
Italian painter, architect and writer | 16th century
A compendium of biographies of the
artists from the late Middle Ages to
Vasari’s time
• one of the principal resources for study
of the art and artists of the Italian
Renaissance
• the first art history book
Title page of Giorgio Vasari’s ‘The Lives of the
Most Excellent Italian Architects,
Painters and Sculptors’
1st Edition, Florence, 1550
Library, National Gallery of Art, Washington
37. Department of History of Art and Architecture
School of Histories and Humanities
EXERCISE 1
Using the online resources listed in the presentation, please
find one copy of each of the three books and save it on your
desktop as a file or as a bookmark in your Internet browser:
Vitruvius
The Ten Books on Architecture
Jacobus de Voragine
Golden Legend
Giorgio Vasari
Lives of the Most Eminent Painters, Sculptors & Architects
38. Department of History of Art and Architecture
School of Histories and Humanities
EXERCISE 1
Feedback
Was it easy / difficult?
If you found a few digital editions of the same book what
made you to decide which one is the best to keep?
Any other comments?
39. Department of History of Art and Architecture
School of Histories and Humanities
EXERCISE 2
Visit and explore the following online resources and
discuss in pairs (groups) your thoughts on each as art
historical resource.
In pairs (groups) come up with the following (with
examples):
3-5 characteristics of a reliable online resource
3-5 characteristics of not a reliable resource
40. Department of History of Art and Architecture
School of Histories and Humanities
EXERCISE 2
Online
resources:
Ancient Egypt Online
http://www.ancientegyptonline.co.uk/
Skenographia Project
http://www.skenographia.cch.kcl.ac.uk/
Digital Karnak
http://dlib.etc.ucla.edu/projects/Karnak/
The Corpus of Medieval Narrative Art
http://www.medievalart.org.uk/
The Bayeux Tapestry Digital Edition
http://www.sd-editions.com/bayeux/
Gothic Past
http://www.gothicpast.com/
41. Department of History of Art and Architecture
School of Histories and Humanities
EXERCISE 2
Feedback
Was it easy / difficult?
What resource would you rate on the top and why?
Any other comments?
42. Department of History of Art and Architecture
School of Histories and Humanities
EXERCISE 3
Using the resources from the
presentation, search for information
about Folio 32v, Book of Kells:
‘Christ enthroned’ and find:
• 2 articles
• 2 books
• the best reproduction
• 3 different looking reproductions
• 1 map
43. Department of History of Art and Architecture
School of Histories and Humanities
EXERCISE 3
Feedback
Was it easy / difficult?
Which resource did you find the most challenging to use?
Any other comments?
44. Department of History of Art and Architecture
School of Histories and Humanities
DISCUSSION
45. Department of History of Art and Architecture
School of Histories and Humanities
CONCLUSIONS
Your priorities:
reading list, recommended online resources
and consultations with the librarian
Information (digital) literacy:
finding, assessing, evaluating, using and
referencing information
Be critical about online resources.
46. Department of History of Art and Architecture
School of Histories and Humanities
badzmiek@tcd.ie
http://www.tcd.ie/History_of_Art/
Department of History of Art and Architecture,
Trinity College Dublin
@TCDArtHist
Karolina Badzmierowska
Hinweis der Redaktion
Introduction to digital Art Historical resources
Karolina Badzmierowska
TCD Resources – TRIARC
The Irish Art Research Centre was established in 2003. It is located in the Provost's House Stables to provide facilities for education and research, including the visual archive and a collection of texts on aspects of Irish art. Online catalogue.
TCD Resources – TARA. Digital Image Collections.
TCD Resources – Library and Digital Collections.
Why Wikipedia is not a reliable resource?
Wikipedia can’t be used as a source: Wikipedia’s General Disclaimer states:
“Wikipedia makes no guarantee of validity.”
It can be useful for finding other, more reputable sources for a topic by using the References, Further Reading, and External Links at the end of the articles.
Example:
Wikipedia entry for “Vincent van Gogh”
By clicking on the ‘View History” we can view the list of all the edits on this entry as well as many interesting statistics. For example: Revision History Statistics.
8456 revisions since 2001 by 2698 editors. No formal peer review. Anyone with Internet access can edit an entry at any time.
When you click on an image you can view previously uploaded versions - source, licensing / copyright information and quality vary!
Google is a very efficient search tool. It allows to search for words, phrases, articles, websites and so on.
By using the Advanced Search option we can significantly narrow our search. Search for PDFs for example will give you not websites to visit, but PDF documents on the web. Most of the scholarly articles are published online in PDF format, so there are higher chances to find reliable sources this way.
Google Images is a powerful search tool. It allows to search online for images by typing in keywords and selecting a variety of search tools provided by Google, i.e. size of the file, colour, date, etc.
Example:
Frans Hals
Portrait of a man holding a skull
c. 1611
Barber Institute of Fine Arts Birmingham
You can also search for images using a drag & drop option.
The page with results will give you a number of options. You can search further for the same images but in different size and on different websites or you can search for visually similar images. The latter can be hit and miss, but it definitely gives interesting results! Google analyzes the image, creating a mathematical model based on shapes, lines, proportions, colors and other elements. It then matches the model against images already in Google’s index (http://insidesearch.blogspot.ie/2011/06/search-by-text-voice-or-image.html).
The search results: the same image but different sizes and sources on the top and visually similar images on the bottom.
Google Books offers similar search options so you can search for the books by typing in keywords, title, author as well as adding more narrow criteria in the search tools, i.e. date, country, available preview, etc.
Example:
Vasari “Lives of the artists”
The search results will give you different editions. When you click on the one you want to view you will be given additional information about the book, a preview in different ways (if available) along with many other options: add to your Google Books Library (you must be logged into Google / Chrome), search through text, buy, etc.
Google Scholar is a simple search engine for scholarly literature, i.e. articles, theses, books, abstracts. It has a few helpful tools like My library, My Citations and Alerts. For example you can set up an alert for your topic and when a new resource comes up in the Google index, you will be notified by email.
Similarly to the other Google search tools, you can narrow down your search using different criteria on the menu. The results also give you information about the format of the resource, i.e. book, PDF, etc.
Google Maps has even more interesting options to explore. The best way is to try the options yourselves. I will just show you what kind of information you can get by searching for ‘Florence’ and applying different search tools.
Street view allows you to virtually explore the cities. Each street view will give you additional images, panoramic views, videos, virtual tours, etc.
If you click Earth View you will see the satellite images of the map.
Google Earth, which is an application that you can run on your desktop. It takes the Google Maps Earth View to the next level with it’s 3D Buildings layer.
Google Art Project is a collaboration between the Google Cultural Institute and cultural institutions across the world. Over 40 countries have contributed more than 40,000 high-resolution images of works ranging from oil on canvas to sculpture and furniture. One of the features is virtual tour.
Some paintings are available in ‘gigapixel’ format, allowing you to zoom in at brushstroke level to examine incredible detail. You can compare images and build your own collections.
Museums’ websites today provide a huge amount of information and resources. What to look for?
Examples of some of the best museum websites to visit.
JSTOR is your number one online resource for articles published in academic journals. You can access JSTOR by login using your Trinity credentials (both on and off campus).
Advanced search is highly recommended to narrow down your search. Example: Search for a term “gothic architecture” gives back 22052 results! These items are books, articles, book reviews, citations, etc. You can read the articles online or download (save as) PDF. JSTOR also gives you options to copy, email, export, track and save citations.
The Artstor Digital Library is a nonprofit resource that provides over 1.8 million digital images in the arts, architecture, humanities, and sciences with an accessible suite of software tools for teaching and research.
In Artstor you can create your image collections, collaborate with others, add notes and comments to images, etc.
Project Gutenberg is different to Google Books – it is word-based, not scan based. That means every single publication in the Project Gutenberg is much easier to search. I searched for Vasari work again and I was given a number of different formats – HTML to read online, versions with or without images.
Before the exercise, I would like to introduce you to three of the most important texts in art history:
Vitruvius
The Ten Books on Architecture
Jacobus de Voragine
Golden Legend
Giorgio Vasari
Lives of the Most Eminent Painters, Sculptors & Architects
The only architectural treatise to survive from antiquity
Rediscovered in the 15th century
Profoundly influenced Renaissance architecture, especially the architects: Brunelleschi, Alberti, and Palladio
3 principles of good architecture
Firmitas / solid
Utilitas / useful
Venustas / beautiful
Human body as a source
of architectural proportion
A collection of factual and fictional stories from the saints' lives
The most widely read book, after the Bible, during the late Middle Ages
The most important source and “a guide’ to saints’ attributes and iconography
A compendium of biographies of the artists from the late Middle Ages to Vasari’s time
one of the principal resources for study of the art and artists of the Italian Renaissance
the first art history book
Exercise. Find these books online (in pairs or groups of 3 if not everyone has a laptop). All students will have handouts with the links to the resources mentioned during the presentation.
I will introduce a number of digital art history projects and ask the students to discuss them in pairs/groups in the context of what they have learned today. I will ask to list 3-5 characteristics of reliable and not reliable online resource based on the examples. The goal is a basic but critical review of a resource and discussion.
Online resources:
Ancient Egypt Online
http://www.ancientegyptonline.co.uk/
Skenographia Project
http://www.skenographia.cch.kcl.ac.uk/
Digital Karnak
http://dlib.etc.ucla.edu/projects/Karnak/
The Corpus of Medieval Narrative Art
http://www.medievalart.org.uk/
The Bayeux Tapestry Digital Edition
http://www.sd-editions.com/bayeux/
Gothic Past
http://www.gothicpast.com/
EXERCISE 2
Feedback
Was it easy / difficult?
What resource would you rate on the top and why?
Any other comments?
I will ask students in pairs (groups of 3) to do a search of one art work: folio 32v from the Book of Kells and use the resources introduced in the presentation.
EXERCISE 3
Using the resources from the presentation, search for information about Folio 32v, Book of Kells: ‘Christ enthroned’ and find:
2 articles
2 books
the best reproduction
3 different looking reproductions
1 map
EXERCISE 3
Feedback
Was it easy / difficult?
Which resource did you find the most challenging to use?
Any other comments?
Discussion
Conclusions:
Your priorities:
reading list, recommended online resources and consultations with the librarian
Information (digital) literacy:
finding, assessing, evaluating, using and referencing information
Be critical about online resources.