Research on your chosen work/object to answer an analytical question (why and how) instead of a mere fact-finding question (what, who, when, etc.). Here are some steps you can take.

I. Start with a Work of Art, an Artist, etc.

II. Relate Your Work of Art/Artist to Their Stylistic Types/Themes

III. Explore the Historical Context Surrounding Your Topic

IV. Situate Your Question within the Current Scholarship -- Look at your Object/Artist from Particular Perspectives

I. Start with an artwork, an artist, an event, or a case study -- “a tangible and specific topic”

Note people, events, concepts and so on that you want to further pursue when looking up the basic background information about your object.

Check the bibliographies in the sources.

Note authors and journals in the biliographies that you will follow up with for more current scholarship.

**Museum web sites have multimedia sources such as video, podcast about their collections nowadays, e.g., MFA, Boston and Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum.

You don't often find book-length studies of a singular work/object, so start your search on the artists in the Library Catalog.

Sample searches:

Bellini, Giovanni (subject browse)

"Carlo Crivelli" (keyword search)

Giorgione

Palladio, Andrea

Sansovino Iacopo

Tintoretto

Titian

Veronese

Bartolomeo Vivarini

 

[Search WorldCat beyond Tufts collections]

You are likely to find the following kinds of books when searching on an artist (mouse over terms for definitions):
Monographs, Thematic Studies (essays), Primary sources and Museum/Exhibition Catalogues.

Exhibition and museum catalogues are uniquely valuable sources, which include:

*Fundamental data on each work of art;

*Official images of the artworks;

*Curatorial statements/essays;

*essays by art critics/historians;

*list of scholarly publications on the art,

*sometimes, artists’ interviews,

*and more.

*Museums have this information in multimedia format now:

-- MFA, Boston and Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum.

Catalogue raisonné presents the complete works of an artist, often accompanied by a comprehensive bibliography.

II. Relate your artist/artwork to their Stylistic Type/Theme – the art historical significance of your artwork

In a stylistic analysis, focus on how the work of art reflects or affects the time in which they were made. How does it fit in with the larger historical trends and forces in the culture that influenced the development of art.

In examining the initial search results on an artist, note the subject headings in the Catalog listings. They are important clues, which lead to broader/related contexts.

For example, follow the Subject Heading of a previous finding in this example to explore the broader contexts (including the stylistic/thematic) of Veronese's artwork:

Author	Cocke, Richard
Title	Paolo Veronese: Piety and Display in an Age of Religious Reform
Publisher	Aldershot, Hants, England; Burlington, Vt.: Ashgate, c2001.
Subject	Veronese, 1528-1588 -- Criticism and interpretation.
	Bible -- Illustrations.
	Painting, Italian -- Italy -- Venice -- 16th century.
	Painting, Renaissance -- Italy -- Venice.
	Church decoration and ornament -- Italy -- Venice.

More Searches on stylistic al/thematic al contexts:

paint* and venice and renaissance

architect* and venice and renaissance

sculpt* and venice and renaissance

III. Explore the Historical Context Surrounding Your Topic -- Social, Religious and Political Contexts:

All the previous searches cover the aspect of historical context; here are two more searches that focus on even broader contexts:

Art, Italian -- Italy -- Venice

Art and society -- Italy -- Venice

IV. Situate Your Question within a Current Scholarship -- Look at the Artist/Artwork from Particular Perspectives

renaissance and (italy or italian) and gender

art and patronage and venice and renaissance

(Levant or east* or orient*) and Venice and (art or architecture)

Find current scholarship on topics in scholarly journal articles.

*What are the primary themes/central debates on your work of art/topic?

*What are the dominant assumptions?

*What evidence are examined; what are left out or less emphasized?

*Are the analysis done from a particular perspective, multiple perspectives?

e.g. How is your work of art discussed in relation to issues about gender, class, artistic creation, culture, or politics associated with that time?

There are many possible "right answers" to an analytical question, which leads to discussions and debates. You can develop your own argument or your position on why one argument is more reasonable/logical than another.

Sample findings about the broader context -- clothing culture of the time and in Italian paintings:

Clothing Culture, 1350-1650 / edited by Catherine Richardson.

Renaissance Dress in Italy 1400-1500 / Jacqueline Herald.

The Clothing of the Renaissance World: Europe, Asia, Africa, the Americas: Cesare Vecellio’s Habiti Antichi et Moderni
[essay and translation by] Margaret F. Rosenthal and Ann Rosalind Jones.

A Well-Fashioned Image: Clothing and Costume in European Art, 1500-1850
edited by Elizabeth Rodini and Elissa B. Weaver ; with contributions by Kristen Ina Grimes … [et al.].

Merchants, Princes and Painters: Silk Fabrics in Italian and Northern Paintings, 1300-1550 / Lisa Monnas.

Next, try out the subject databases to find more specific discussions of the artist, his works and your specific focus:

Benedict Nicolson. Caravaggio and the Caravaggesques: Some Recent Research The Burlington Magazine,
Vol. 116, No. 859, Special Issue Devoted to Caravaggio and the Caravaggesques  (Oct., 1974), pp. 565+602-616+622.

Janis C. Bell. Some Seventeenth-Century Appraisals of Caravaggio’s Coloring  Artibus et Historiae, Vol. 14, No. 27  (1993), pp. 103-129

A. Search for Review Articles:

Review of books and other types of review articles in some major journals in a discipline summarize current state of research on a topic. Here are some samples:

Examples of review of Books:

Frank, Mary E. "Building Renaissance Venice: Patrons, Architects and Builders c. 1430-1500 (review)". Renaissance Quaterley, 60:2 ( Summer 2007), 551-552.

Johnson, Eugene J. "Palladio's Venice: Architecture and Society in a Renaissance Republic (review)". Renaissance Quaterley, 60:1 ( Spring 2007), 177-178.

 

 

B. More Articles like this "perfect" one

How:

Search, in Arts and Humanities Citation Index, for the article you have read.

Note:

1. Not every single article is cited;
2. More recent publications take time to be cited.

For example:

Radke, Gary M. "Nuns and their art: The case of San-Zaccaria in Renaissance Venice (15th-century Benedictine art and architecture)" Renaissance Quarterly 54: 2 (Sum 2001), 430-459.
References: 53 Times Cited: 6

You can, then, look up, in the record, the 53 references that Gary Radke. cited for his article and, in turn, 6 articles that cited his. The assumption is that these articles address related issues.

C. Exhibition Reviews in Popular Press

Exhibition reviews in popular press are likely opinion pieces. Ask yourself if these reviews are seeking to promote the artist, to criticize him/her, to judge his/her work, or simply to inform. Have the reviews changed over time? Why? How would you use these "public receptions" with other scholarly criticism?

Two sample reviews:

Tuchman, Phyllis. "Review: Rothko Rising." Art Journal 58, no. 1 (Spring, 1999): pp. 110-112.

Johnson, Ken. "ART IN REVIEW; Mark Rothko -- 'A Painter's Progress : The Year 1949'." The New York Times, February 6, 2004, sec. E; Part 2; Leisure/Weekend Desk.

Source of the two samples: Barnet, Sylvan, A Short Guide to Writing About Art (Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Pearson/Prentice Hall, 2011), p169.

Appendix I. Finding Full Texts

1. Click on the button in your search results screen to a window of three sequential options:

a. link to the digital full text when available;

b. link to a Library Catalog search for the print journal;

c. link to ILliad for requesting the article when the above two options are negative.

2. Search for a journal directly here:

a. Tufts Library Catalog (including e-journals)

b. Electronic journals list

c. Use ILliad to request your article, if Tufts does not have your journal.

Appendix II. Digital Images

ARTstor

Oxford Art Online (Tufts subscription)

Art Museums

Image Quest (over two million rights-cleared images from some 40 image collections.)

Art Project (museums from around the world by Google)

Creative Commons Search Engine
Search for access to the freely licensed content available from many of the world's top content providers.
Be sure to verify that the work is actually under a Creative Commons license by following the link.

Finding Images on the Web: Public Domain (Boston University)

Flickr

Appendix III. Sound

Wikimedia Commons (a database of 7,412,862 freely usable media files to which anyone can contribute.)

Wikimedia Commons: Sound

Free Sound Effects

FindSounds

GarageBand
If you have a Mac, you can use music you've created in your digital storytelling projects - no need to pay royalties or request permission to use - you're the composer!

RoyaltyFreeMusic.com

Creative Commons Search engine

Recording Voiceovers (Knight Media Center, Berkeley)

Appendix IV. Writing

Writing the Art History paper (Dartmouth Writing Program)

 

Scripts and Storyboard:

Writing Short Scripts. PN1996 .P58 1999

The Art of the Storyboard: a Filmmaker's Introduction. PN1995.9 .P7 H42 2008

Filmmaking: Narrative & Structural Techniques. PN1995.9.P7 F63 1992

How to Shoot a Movie and Video Story: the Technique of Pictorial Continuity. Oversize: TR850 .G367 1985