Art & Art History: Images & Web Resources

At Smarthistory, the Center for Public Art History, we believe art has the power to transform lives and to build understanding across cultures. We believe that the brilliant histories of art belong to everyone, no matter their background.

With 503 contributors from 201 colleges, universities, museums, and research centers, Smarthistory is the most-visited art history resource in the world.

The Thomas J. Watson Library, the central library of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, acquires, provides access to, and preserves research materials concerning the history of art and related disciplines. The primary mission of the library is to support the research activities of the Museum staff; in addition, it serves an international community of researchers. Watson Library's collection of books and periodicals relating to the history of art is one of the most comprehensive in the world.

Chronological, geographical, and thematic timeline of the history of world art that is illustrated mostly with images of the holdings in the Metropolitan Museum.

The Uffizi Galleries first brought together three extraordinary museum complexes in 2014. Together, these three structures contain the core of the collections of art, precious artisan-made objects, books, and plants belonging to the Medici, Habsburg-Lorraine and Savoy families. It is a stunning collection of treasures dating from Antiquity to the 20th century, and over the years, it has contributed to the fame of the Uffizi, Pitti Palace and Boboli Gardens. Since the Renaissance, these three museum sites have been connected to one another by an ingenious construction, the Vasari Corridor, and together they form one of the most important, most visited culture hubs in the world.

he Galleria dell’Accademia – or Accademia Gallery – in Florence, Italy, is without a doubt most famous for its sculptures by the great Renaissance artist, Michelangelo. His Prisoners (or Slaves), his St. Matthew and, above all, the magnificent statue of David within the Tribune are what first draw most of the hundreds of thousands of visitors the museum welcomes every year.

NYARC Discovery is a research tool from the New York Art Resources Consortium libraries of the Brooklyn Museum, The Frick Collection, and The Museum of Modern Art. It is a gateway to a trove of rich and varied materials, much of it unique, on art and cultural history spanning the spectrum from ancient Egypt to contemporary art. Find books, exhibition catalogs, auction sale catalogs, artists' books, images, archives, web archives, photoarchives, and more.

The National Prado Museum, since it was inaugurated in 1819 and throughout its centuries-old history, has fulfilled the high mission of preserving, exhibiting and enriching the set of collections and works of art that, closely linked to the history of Spain , constitute one of the highest manifestations of artistic expression of recognized universal value.

This site provides high-definition images of the National Treasures and Important Cultural Properties owned by the Tokyo National Museum, Kyoto National Museum, Nara National Museum, Kyushu National Museum and the Nara National Research Institute for Cultural Properties aligned under the National Institutes for Cultural Heritage, together with their descriptions in multiple languages (Japanese, English, Chinese and Korean).

The National Museum of China (NMC) is China's supreme establishment that collects, researches, displays and interprets China's fine traditional culture, revolutionary culture and advanced socialist culture. NMC is the top palace of history and art and a cultural parlor for China. Led by General Secretary Xi Jinping, all members of the Standing Committee of the 18th CPC Central Committee Political Bureau visited NMC’s permanent exhibition “The Road of Rejuvenation” on November 29, 2012. During that visit, General Secretary Xi Jinping called for realizing the Chinese Dream of the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation, ushering in the new era of socialism with Chinese characteristics.

Partnership of academic & research libraries' digitized rare books.

The Archives of American Art is the world’s preeminent and most widely used research center dedicated to collecting, preserving, and providing access to primary sources that document the history of the visual arts in America.