SVA Library Research Guides: Art History 1: Finding Images

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Artstor

Artstor on JSTOR This link opens in a new window
Documents artistic traditions across many time periods and cultures including architecture, painting, sculpture, photography, decorative arts, and design. Digital images come from museums, archaeological teams, photo archives, slide collections, and art reference publishers. The collection is over 2+ million images and continues to grow.

Download high resolution overviews, or create and download details without losing quality.
The Artstor platform will be discontinued in August 2024 and all content will be available in JSTOR.

ARTstor - Getting Started
Helpful links, tutorials and information on how to navigate ARTstor.

Von Werl Altarpiece
Von Werl Altarpiece (detail)

SVA Image Library

SVA Image Library This link opens in a new window
Login with your SVA credentials. From Artstor's homepage, navigate to the SVA Image Library in Institutional Collections at the bottom right, or from the dropdown menu under Browse. The SVA Image Library allows users to search, retrieve, organize and teach with digital images and image data. All material in this collection is protected by copyright. Duplication and/or sale of all or any part of the collection is strictly prohibited. Material may be used for personal research use or educational purposes in electronic or print form.

SVA Image Library (MDID) - Getting Started
Some useful information, links and tutorials on how to create and manage your own personal image collections in SVA Image Library (MDID), how to build presentations (slideshows) using the database and how to convert those slideshows to PowerPoints.

A Giant, by Goya

Other Hi-Res and Ultra Hi-Res Image Sites

Louvre Database This link opens in a new window

Metropolitan Museum of Art, Collections
406,000 images of public-domain artworks from The Met collection available for free and unrestricted use.
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Frequently Asked Questions: Image and Data Resources: https://www.metmuseum.org/about-the-met/policies-and-documents/image-resources/frequently-asked-questions
Haltadeninizione
Collection of images in gigapixel format including many Renaissance pieces.
Art Institure of Chicago
Explore thousands of artworks in the museum’s wide-ranging collection—from our world-renowned icons to lesser-known gems from every corner of the globe—as well as our books, writings, reference materials, and other resources.
Google Cultural Institute
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Article about the Google Art Camera: https://lynceans.org/all-posts/stunning-ultra-high-resolution-images-from-the-google-art-camera/
Viewing Vermeer on the WWW
Digital images of artworks, which have all but replaced traditional color slides, are essential for scholarly study and teaching, but they are likewise economically valuable. Many museums offer only thumbnail images, watermark their images, prohibit downloading, or simply keep their collections offline. A few pioneering institutions have adopted an open access policy offering free of charge and free of copyright high-quality digital images of their works of art.
Closer to Van Eyck
An in-depth site about the recent restoration of The Ghent Alterpiece. Includes the following:
A 100-billion-pixel image of The Ghent Altarpiece that allows viewers to zoom in extremely close and see details including individual brushstrokes and tiny cracks in the paint.
Before/during/after images of the restoration in macrophotography, Infrared macrophotography, Infrared reflectography, and X-radiography
Also includes similar images of many other Van Eyck paintings in macrophotography, Infrared macrophotography, Infrared reflectography, and X-radiography
An article about the restoration and the Closer to Van Eyck website:
https://blogs.getty.edu/iris/the-ghent-altarpiece-in-100-billion-pixels/
High-resolution images of works by Vermeer
A 44.8 Gigapixel image of Rembrandt’s The Night Watch
An article by Will Compertz about this image: https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-52657164

ONLINE DIGITAL IMAGE RESOURCES

Copyright & Fair Use

Below are a few research guides on Copyright Basics:

The following are some great Use Assessment Tools pertaining to copyright, fair use guidelines and best practices:

Digital Image Rights Computator (DIRC)
Program that assists users in assessing the intellectual property status of a specific image.
The Copyright Genie
Helps users figure out if a work is covered by U.S. copyright and at what level; additionally, it collects and publishes the results as a PDF document for users to save for their records.
Digital Copyright Slider
A tool to help users determine whether a work is still copyrighted or whether it is now in public domain.
Fair Use Evaluator
Gives users a better understanding of how to determine if the use of a protected work is "fair." It also helps users organize and documents their collected information that may be needed to support a fair use claim, providing a time-stamped PDF document for the user's records.

Click here to visit Colgate University's helpful examples of how to create correct image citations in papers and presentations, using MLA, Chicago and APA writing styles. Another great option is the Research Guide for Citing Images provided by UC Libraries.