All the resources on this page are additional rather than essential components of our courses and they are offered as suggestions for extending your study of art history.
OU Library resources for Art History
This lets you search for relevant material in ejournals, ebooks, databases and websites. OU students and staff can access these resources with their Open University Username (OUCU) and Password.
Hosted by the Art History Department, the Open Arts Archive gives you direct access to a wealth of artistic and cultural resources, including:
Our department blog is our way of reflecting on art and heritage today, whether it is something in the news, caught on the media or experienced. Sometimes we make our own news, so when we launch a new course you might read about an insider’s view here, or celebrate our colleagues’ research achievements: www.open.ac.uk/blogs/ahh/
Internet version of the multi-volume encyclopaedia, the Grove Dictionary of Art. Searchable database and web links to images from museums, galleries and art collections from around the world. All Open University students and staff can access this resource (you will need to be logged in using your OU computer user name and password). Accessed from within Oxford Art Online, Grove content alone may be searched by choosing Advanced options and selecting Grove Art Online. Online help is available.
The Art Newspaper has art news, interviews with artists, writers, curators, etc., information on the art market, conversation issues, etc.
The College Art Association site has information on forthcoming conferences, excellent annotated links to on-line magazines and journals and very good reviews of recent publications in art history.
Tate Modern and OU Study Days online Recordings of these study days are available from the Open Arts Archive.
The Artlex Online Dictionary of Visual Art Terms has definitions of more than 3,600 terms, together with images, quotations and further links.
The Web Gallery of Art has over 29,000 digital reproductions of European painting and sculpture created between 1000 and 1850.
The Artchive has an impressive range of images and offers virtual tours of, for example, the first Impressionist Exhibition of 1874. There is also a section on theory and criticism, with discussion of the work of well-known artists by noted art historians.
Other large collections of images are to be found at:
Culture24 includes a museum finder, resources and magazine articles
The following sites offer further links for exploring art on the web:
Timeline of Art History. This extensive resource from the Metropolitan Museum of Art ranges from 20,000 B.C. to the present. It covers many cultures and features brief well-illustrated essays, accompanied in some cases by video clips.
Art in Context is particularly good for twentieth-century and contemporary art
Art on the Web: Links by Jeffery Howe at Boston College
Chris Witcome's Art History on the Web
You might also pick and choose from things the Open University Library has in its ROUTES database by browsing Dewey Decimal Classification 700
The Association of Art Historians
Information about the AAH, conferences etc. and also reduced membership rates open to all students.
Most art history courses have their own ROUTES web pages (collections of relevant links selected by the course teams and Library staff). Follow this link for full details.