Definition
ART
A visual object or experience consciously created through an expression of skill or imagination. The term art encompasses diverse media such as painting, sculpture, printmaking, drawing, decorative arts, photography, and installation. The various visual arts exist within a continuum that ranges from purely aesthetic purposes at one end to purely utilitarian purposes at the other. This should by no means be taken as a rigid scheme, however, particularly in cultures in which everyday objects are painstakingly constructed and imbued with meaning. Particularly in the 20th century, debates arose over the definition of art. Figures such as Dada artist Marcel Duchamp implied that it is enough for an artist to deem something “art” and put it in a publicly accepted venue. Such intellectual experimentation continued throughout the 20th century in movements such as conceptual art and Minimalism. By the turn of the 21st century, a variety of new media (e.g., video art) further challenged traditional definitions of art. See: aesthetics; art conservation and restoration; drawing; painting; printmaking; sculpture; photography; decorative arts.
Art. (2014). In Encyclopaedia Britannica, Britannica Concise Encyclopedia. Chicago, IL: Encyclopedia Britannica.
Terms to search
Architecture, Arts and crafts, Asemic writing, Animation, Cartoon, Ceramic art, Collage, Comics, Conceptual art, Decollage, Decorative art, Drawing, Film, Found art, Graffiti, Illustration, Installation art, Land art, Mail art, Mixed Media, Painting, Photography, Printmaking, Etching, Lithography, Screen-printing, Sculpture, Typography, Video art.
Recommended Databases
- Academic Search Complete This link opens in a new window Access to over 13,000 multi-disciplinary periodicals (more than 8,500 in full-text), including monographs, conference proceedings, reports, etc.
- Credo Reference This link opens in a new window An eBook collection of 600+ high quality, constantly updated reference books, dictionaries, encyclopedias and atlases.
- eBooks by EBSCOhost This link opens in a new window Provides access to over 20,000 eBooks on a wide variety of topics.
- Points of View This link opens in a new window Access to full-text essays on more than 250 topics including an overview, point, and counterpoint.
eBooks
These are a sampling of eBooks available from the library.
Art History by
Art History: The Basics is a concise and accessible introduction for the undergraduate approaching the history of art for the first time at college or university, and for anyone else interested in the subject. It will give you answers to questions like: What is art and art history? What are the main methodologies used to understand art? How have ideas about form, sex and gender shaped representation? What connects art with psychoanalysis, semiotics and Marxism? and, How are globalization and postmodernism changing art and art history? Each chapter introduces key ideas, issues and debates in art history, including information on relevant websites and image archives. Fully illustrated with an international range of artistic examples, Art History: The Basics also includes helpful subject summaries, further ideas for reading in each chapter, and a useful glossary for easy reference.
Call Number: eBooks by EBSCOHostISBN: 9780415373098Publication Date: 2007-12-19
Art Without Borders by
People all over the world make art and take pleasure in it, and they have done so for millennia. But acknowledging that art is a universal part of human experience leads us to some big questions: Why does it exist? Why do we enjoy it? And how do the world’s different art traditions relate to art and to each other? Art Without Borders is an extraordinary exploration of those questions, a profound and personal meditation on the human hunger for art and a dazzling synthesis of the whole range of inquiry into its significance. Esteemed thinker Ben-Ami Scharfstein’s encyclopedic erudition is here brought to bear on the full breadth of the world of art. He draws on neuroscience and psychology to understand the way we both perceive and conceive of art, including its resistance to verbal exposition. Through examples of work by Indian, Chinese, European, African, and Australianartists, Art Without Borders probes the distinction between accepting a tradition and defying it through innovation, which leads to a consideration of the notion of artistic genius. Continuing in this comparative vein, Scharfstein examines the mutual influence of European and non-European artists. Then, through a comprehensive evaluation of the world’s major art cultures, he shows how all of these individual traditions are gradually, but haltingly, conjoining into a single current of universal art. Finally, he concludes by looking at the ways empathy and intuition can allow members of one culture to appreciate the art of another. Lucid, learned, and incomparably rich in thought and detail, Art Without Borders is a monumental accomplishment, on par with the artistic achievements Scharfstein writes about so lovingly in its pages.
Call Number: eBooks by EBSCOHostISBN: 9780226736099Publication Date: 2009-04-15
Contemporary Art by
Contemporary art is supposed to be a realm of freedom where artists shock, break taboos, and switch between confronting viewers with works of emotional profundity and jaw-dropping triviality. But away from shock tactics in the gallery, there are many unanswered questions. Who is really running the art world? What effect has America's growing political and cultural dominance had on art? Stallabrass takes us inside the art world to answer these and other controversial questions, and to argue that behind contemporary art's variety and apparent unpredictability lies a grim uniformity.
Call Number: eBooks by EBSCOHostISBN: 9780192806468Publication Date: 2006-05-25
The Social Impact of the Arts by
An intellectual history of contrasting ideas around the power of the arts to bring about personal and societal change - for better and worse. A fascinating account of the value and functions of the arts in society, in both the private sphere of individual emotions and self-development and public sphere of politics and social distinction.
Call Number: eBooks by EBSCOHostISBN: 9780230572553Publication Date: 2008-09-16
A World Art History and Its Objects by
Is writing a world art history possible? Does the history of art as such even exist outside the Western tradition? Is it possible to consider the history of art in a way that is not fundamentally Eurocentric? In this highly readable and provocative book, David Carrier, a philosopher and art historian, does not attempt to write a world art history himself. Rather, he asks the question of how an art history of all cultures could be written—or whether it is even possible to do so. He also engages the political and moral issues raised by the idea of a multicultural art history. Focusing on a consideration of intersecting artistic traditions, Carrier negotiates the way meaning and understanding shift or are altered when a visual object from one culture, for example, is inserted into the visual tradition of another culture. A World Art History and Its Objects proposes the use of temporal narrative as a way to begin to understand a multicultural art history.
Call Number: eBooks by EBSCOHostISBN: 9780271034140Publication Date: 2008-12-03
eJournals
- Architronic Architronic is a scholarly refereed journal, exploring the new ranges of architectural communication available through digital media. It is a platform for both presenting and reviewing research as a journal, and a forum for stimulating dialogue on emerging ideas.
- The Art Newspaper The Art Newspaper breaks news across all sectors of the visual arts, from museums and heritage, creation, publishing, conservation and the art market. It also covers developments in law, tax and the political and economic spheres of cultural policy. The Art Newspaper is an investigative paper that looks behind the smooth and bright face of the art world.
- Journal of Art Historiography The Journal of Art Historiography, an open-access peer-reviewed e-journal, is dedicated to the self-critical exploration of art history as a methodological practice. The journal’s commitment to inclusivity results in remarkable breadth of coverage, with each issue collating commissioned articles, conference papers, book reviews, and primary research materials (including translations of influential texts.
- Living Collection Catalogue Each volume of the Living Collections Catalogue includes media-rich essays on broader themes as well as in-depth investigations of specific works of art. Featured works link to records in the Walker’s collections database, where additional information about the artists and artworks is available. Implicit in the concept of a “living catalogue” is the dynamic nature of an online volume about the Walker’s collections.
- NCAW Nineteenth-Century Art Worldwide Founded in 2002, Nineteenth-Century Art Worldwide is a scholarly, refereed e-journal devoted to the study of nineteenth-century painting, sculpture, graphic arts, photography, architecture, and decorative arts across the globe.
Other Resources
- Credo Reference This link opens in a new window An eBook collection of 600+ high-quality, constantly updated reference books, dictionaries, encyclopedias and atlases.
- RefWorks This link opens in a new window A comprehensive reference management service for preparing bibliographies in APA and other citation styles. Use RefWorks to import and create citations, build lists of references, and integrate citations into your papers using the Write-n-Cite app.
Recommended Websites
- ArtBabble ArtBabble is a website that showcases high quality art-related video content from more than 50 cultural institutions from around the world. ArtBabble is an energetic place to learn for everybody who loves and has an interest in art and particularly for educators who can use it as a way to support their classroom activities.
- ArtSource Welcome to ArtSource, a gathering point for networked resources on Art and Architecture. The content is diverse and includes pointers to resources around the net as well as original materials submitted by librarians, artists, and art historians, etc. This site is intended to be selective, rather than comprehensive. For help in locating specific art related information the *BEST* source of information is your local art librarian....keep in mind that while there is a tremendous amount of information available here, not everything is available via the Web!
- Europeana Collections Whether you came here for inspiration, to work on your research, looking for your next coffee mug design or just to snoop around, we hope you will find what you need somewhere among the millions of objects we host here.
- Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History The Timeline presents a chronological, geographical, and thematic exploration of global art history through The Met’s collection. It is a reference, research, and teaching tool conceived for students and scholars of art history. It is authored by The Met’s experts, and comprises 300 chronologies and close to 1,000 essays and more than 7,000 works of art. It is regularly updated and enriched to provide new scholarship and insights on the collection.
- Voice of Shuttle Art and art history he Voice of the Shuttle began in late 1994 as an introduction to the Web for humanists at the University of California, Santa Barbara. VoS became publicly accessible on March 21, 1995, when the Humanitas server on which it resided opened to global Web access. From its origin to October, 1999, VoS stayed at the same address on the Humanitas server. It grew in that period to over 70 pages of links to humanities and humanities-related resources on the Internet. Its mission has been to provide a structured and briefly annotated guide to online resources that at once respects the established humanities disciplines in their professional organization and points toward the transformation of those disciplines as they interact with the sciences and social sciences and with new digital media.
Organizations and Associations
- American Institute of Graphic Arts (AIGA) As the profession’s oldest and largest professional membership organization for design—with 70 chapters and more than 25,000 members—we advance design as a professional craft, strategic advantage, and vital cultural force. From content that defines the global practice to events that connect and catalyze, we work to enhance the value and deepen the impact of design across all disciplines on business, society, and our collective future.
- Art Libraries Society of North America (ARLIS/NA) The Art Libraries Society of North America was founded in 1972 at the initiative of Judith Hoffberg by a group of art librarians attending the American Library Association conference.
- Association for Art History he AAH is a UK-based membership organisation for those with a professional commitment to and interest in art history and visual culture. The AAH plays a key role at national levels in helping shape and secure the future of the discipline.
- Computers and History of Art (CHArt) HArt was established in 1985 by art and design historians who happened also to be computer enthusiasts. Initially a forum for the exchange of ideas between people who were using computers in their research, the largely academic membership was soon augmented by members from museums and art galleries, as well as individuals involved in the management of the visual and textual archives and libraries relevant to the subject. CHArt is a society open to all who have an interest in the application of computers to the study of art and design. We hold an annual conference and publish the conference proceedings, run an email discussion list and keep in contact with our members through a newsletter. You will find further details of all our publications and activities on this website.
- International Center of Medieval Art FOUNDED IN 1953 IN FRANCE AS THE CENTRE INTERNATIONAL D'ÉTUDES ROMANES AND RE-ESTABLISHED IN 1956 IN NEW YORK, THE ICMA HAS MEMBERS IN TWENTY COUNTRIES WORLDWIDE. ITS INTERNATIONAL MEMBERSHIP OF ACADEMICS, MUSEUM PROFESSIONALS, COLLECTORS, AND ENTHUSIASTS OF THE ART OF THE MIDDLE AGES IS VITAL TO ITS MISSION.
- Society of Architectural Historians (SAH) The Society of Architectural Historians (SAH) promotes the study, interpretation, and conservation of architecture, design, landscapes, and urbanism worldwide for the benefit of all. SAH serves a network of local, national, and international institutions and individuals who, by vocation or avocation, focus on the built environment and its role in shaping contemporary life.
- Visual Resources Association (VRA) VRA is a multidisciplinary organization dedicated to furthering research and education in the field of image management within the educational, cultural heritage, and commercial environments.
- Women's Caucus for Art The mission of the Women’s Caucus for Art is to create community through art, education, and social activism. WCA is committed to recognizing the contribution of women in the arts; providing women with leadership opportunities and professional development; expanding networking and exhibition opportunities for women; supporting local, national and global art activism; and advocating for equity in the arts for all.
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