Art History 550: Portraiture
Background Information
Encyclopaedia Britannica. 2002. 32 vols.
Provides a general introduction for many subjects.
Ref. [q.] AE 5 .E363 and on the Web
Encyclopedia of Visual Art. 10 vols. 1983
Brief entries, some nice plates. The arrangement is topical, so you will need to use the index in the last volume to find particular artists, media, or concepts.
Ref. N25 q.E53 1983
Dictionary of Art. 34 vols. 1996
A standard for the study of art and art history.
Ref. N31 .D5 1996
Encyclopedia of World Art. 15 vols. and supplement. 1968
Broad themes in world art. Use the index. Plates are included separately in each volume.
Ref. N31 .E533
McGraw-Hill Dictionary of Art. 5 vols. 1969
More brief coverage of people, places and themes.
Ref N 33 .M23
The Oxford Companion to Art. 1970.
A mixture of short, one-paragraph entries with longer articles that may be several pages in length on a wide variety of topics. The longer articles reference a bibliography in the back of the volume.
Ref. N33 .O9
The Oxford Dictionary of Art.
Includes brief entries, thoroughly cross-referenced. A quicker introduction to concepts and people than the Oxford Companion to Art, it includes some technical terms that the companion omits.
Ref. N33 .O93 1988
Artwords: A Glossary of Contemporary Art Theory.
Provides a way into the current discourse on art.
Ref. N71 .P32 1997
A Short Guide to Writing About Art.
Primarily relates to academic writing, but the advice included would be helpful to those composing an artist's statement as well.
Ref. N 7476 .B37 2000
Encyclopedia of Comparative Iconography: Themes Depicted in Works of Art. 2 vols.
Discusses a wide variety of themes, lists artworks related to them, an provides a list of further readings.
Ref. [q.] N7560 .E53 1998
Dictionary of American Portraits.
"4045 Pictures of Important Americans from Earliest Times to the Beginning of the Twentieth Century."
Ref. [q.] N7593 .C53
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Finding Books
To find items owned by the library, search LUCIA. Try a Subject begins with search, for example, portraits or portrait painting. LUCIA will list other subject headings (and subheadings) which may be of interest. For advanced research you should consult the Library of Congress Subject Headings, or LCSH, a guide to the terms commonly used in catalogs like ours. The LCSH can be found on the shelves behind the Reference Desk on the first floor of the library. To find materials published during a specific time period, limit by date.
To combine terms for a different kind of search, try Keyword Anywhere. LUCIA will look for the terms you specify anywhere in the important areas of the cataloging records, and display a list of those records. Try a search like portraits and catalogs. In any keyword search you can use the asterisk [*] to search for multiple endings of words. For example, a search for portrait* and photograph* tells LUCIA to search for records containing all variations of words starting with portrait* (portrait, portraits, portraiture, etc.) and for records containing all variations of words starting with photograph (photograph, photographs, photography, photographers, and so on) and then show any records where all variations of both words appear in the same record. You might want to try keyword searching for some of the terms you find in the LCSH. You can target your search even more effectively by telling LUCIA to look for the terms in the subject area of the records; compare the Keyword Anywhere search with the Subject Keyword search.
Books are arranged on the library's shelves by Library of Congress Classification. This is a system that organizes materials by general subjects. Once you have a call number from searching LUCIA, see this guide to call number locations at Mudd and the library floor maps to find out where a book might be on the shelves.
Search LUCIA for materials in our library; try WorldCat to find materials beyond the Mudd. Make sure you've thoroughly searched our library before going to WorldCat. See a reference librarian if you need help.
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Finding Articles
The best index to use will depend on your topic. Be sure to check the Electronic Resources page for other options. Two of our resources, JSTOR and Project MUSE provide complete full text. Our Art History indexes include:
Art Abstracts. 1929-
Basic index to art periodicals.
Reference Indexes as Art Index and online from 1984 on as Art Abstracts
Bibliography of the History of Art.
"Covers visual arts in all media including traditional fine arts (painting, sculpture, drawing, prints, architecture); decorative and applied arts; material culture; photography and contemporary new media; visual arts aspects of performing arts."
Other indexes of interest:
Academic OneFile
A one-stop source for news and periodical articles on a wide range of topics. Includes full-text articles, many with images. 1980 - present; updated daily.
EBSCOhost.
Follow the link for EBSCOhost Web. EBSCOhost provides a single Web source for multiple databases; you might want to select the Academic Search Elite. Contains broad and specialized coverage of academic and general periodicals.
Once you have a citation for an article on your topic, try the 
button to see if that particular article is available. If you don't find it, look in LUCIA for the title of the journal or newspaper to see if the library owns it. You could also search
BESS, an
automated search of the library's full text databases, for electronic copies of articles.
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Web Resources
Library Internet Resources for Art and Art History
The library's list of internet resources for art history. Includes a link to the Lawrence Art Department home page.
Art History Resources
on the Web
A very nice, chronologically-arranged list of links to resources.
Conducting Research on Art and Art History
From the Getty Institute.
National Portrait Gallery
The Smithsonian Institution's collection of portraiture. The Portrait Search and Mathew Brady's National Portrait Gallery may be of particular interest.
Portraiture in the U.S. Capitol
Shown by location using a map of the capitol building.
WebMuseum Artist Index
The WebMuseum is an excellent resource for online art; this link points
directly to a list of the artists represented in the Museum's "collection."
Of course, there are many more web resources available that might be useful in your research. You might want to try looking at sources that select the best of the Web, like these:
Of course, there are many more web resources available that might be useful in your research. You might want to try looking at sources that select the best of the Web, like these:
It's important to think carefully about any information you find in any format, and to evaluate resources for their accuracy, applicability, and so forth. Evaluation of web resources is especially important. You may want to consult this guide to Evaluating Internet Resources. The library's Web Wise Guide to Searching give some helpful inside tips. You can often learn a lot about a page (and a site) by parsing the URL.
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Style Manuals
Academic Citation and Writing
Style manuals of the humanities, physical sciences, and the social sciences in the Seeley G. Mudd Library.
The Chicago Manual of Style.
A standard source for bibliographic format.
RRef. LB2369 .U69 2003
Citing Electronic Documents
This page provides guidance on citing electronic documents and links to other guides, some on specific styles of documentation.
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About Research in Art History
Material related to the topic of this course will be drawn from many fields besides just art history; be prepared to look at materials from art, history, and cultural studies, just to name a few. In addition to consulting catalogs and indexes, be sure to look at bibliographies supplied at the end of relevant articles, chapters, and books, and to search library catalogs for book-length bibliographies.
Your sources must be fully documented in any written work you produce. It may help to look at the information on style before you start your research, so that you will have all the required documentation at hand when you need it. Then as you write, go back to the resources on style for details on the exact format of your citations.
The sources listed here were chosen for the broad coverage they provide. Direct links are provided to Internet resources and searchable databases, as well as links to LUCIA, the library's online catalog. Be sure to check the library's Electronic Resources page regularly to see new databases and indexes; some of these will only be available to users on the Lawrence campus. Also, you may want to take a look at guides on related topics from the Library Research Guides page.
Evaluating the resources you find is an essential part of the research process. See this guide to hints on evaluation of books and articles and this guide to evaluating Internet resources.
As always, if you have any questions be sure to ask a Reference Librarian.
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Definitions of terms and abbreviations:
Ref. = Reference collection, first floor
RRef.= Ready reference, shelves behind the reference desk
Periodicals = Level A
GovDoc = U.S. Government Documents, second floor
Reference Indexes = Alphabetically arranged at the end of the reference collection
Microform Area = Reading room east of the reference desk, near microform drawers
q. = Oversized books: interfiled in reference and in scores; at end of classes in other collections
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