Subject and Course Guides: Art and Art History: Images and Video

Image Databases - Library

Artstor
Over 2.5 million high-definition arts, architecture, humanities, and social sciences images, rights-cleared for educational use, from a wide variety of contributors around the world.
Bridgeman Art Library
The Bridgeman Archive contains about 67,000 images from museum, art gallery and artist collections throughout the world, all copyright cleared for educational use. Includes design, maps, architecture, furniture, glass, ceramics, anthropological artifacts and more. (Access through Credo Reference).
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Guide with tips to improve your image searches:
https://www.bridgemaneducation.com/documents/how-to-guide.pdf
Oxford Art Online
Over 6,000 searchable images from institutions such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art, as well as 40,000 editorially selected image links to museums and galleries.
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Oxford Art Online (formerly Grove Dictionary of Art Online)
Plans of Ancient & Medieval Buildings (Artstor)
Almost 8,000 plans, sections and elevation drawings of ancient and medieval buildings and archaeological sites.
Saskia Art Images (CARLI)
30,000 images shot on-site at major European museums and archaeological sites in Greece, Italy, Turkey and Egypt, corresponding to subjects frequently covered in art history textbooks.
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NOTE: For off-campus access, use AnyConnect VPN. To install, go to Cisco AnyConnect VPN and make sure you select the Library-Resources group.

freely accessible Image Databases

ARCHNET
Over 135,000 images, publications and videos representing more than 10,000 sites, names, or collections. Many sites in the Middle East, including ancient sites.
Artsy
One of the largest online collections of contemporary art. A growing collection of over 100,000 artworks by 18,000+ artists from leading art fairs, galleries, museums, and art institutions.
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Downloadable images may be used free of charge without restriction, including for commercial use, subject to any applicable laws and third party rights or conditions. See https://artsy.net/terms
Asian Historical Architecture
Over 33,000 images from many different contributors covering 1,288 sites in twenty-three countries, with background information and virtual tours.
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Recently added images are listed on main page.
Digital Public Library of America
Single access point for millions of items from libraries, archives, and museums around the United States. Browse and search collections by timeline, map, and faceted search; explore digital exhibitions and more.
Europeana
Over 54 million artworks, artifacts, books, videos and sounds from across Europe.
Flickr - Internet Archive Book Images
Freely available collection of over 5 million images from books scanned by the Internet Archive. The images range in date from 1500 to around 1923.
Getty Search Gateway
Over 100,000 images from the Getty Museum’s collection that are free to use, modify, and publish for any purpose. These images are made available through Getty's Open Content Program.
Google Arts & Culture
Artworks by more than 6,000 artists, with more than 45,000 objects viewable in ultra high resolution.
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Google Arts & Culture images may be used for class projects. Check the site's Education link for ideas. You cannot print the images, only the educational material provided.
Mapping Gothic France
Comprehensive catalog of original photographs and historic plans and drawings of Gothic architecture. Many of these images are plotted directly onto floorplans of these churches and cathedrals. The site also offers some pedagogical tools, such as building comparisons and animated maps.
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All the content on Mapping Gothic is freely available to all users. The login button on the main page of the web site is for editing purposes only.
Mother of All Art and Art History Pages
University of Michigan site with links to many resources for art and art history. Includes art museums and online image collections.
OpenGLAM
(GLAM=Galleries, Libraries, Archives & Museums) keeps track of online open image collections, and provides links to these. Includes public domain collections and those licensed under an open Creative Commons license.
Pharos Consortium
International consortium of fourteen European and North American art historical photo archives
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Project is still in a growth and development stage.
VADS
Access to 140,000 images from over 300 art and design collections across the UK, for non-commercial educational use. Managed by the Library at the University for the Creative Arts (UCA).
Wikimedia Commons
Contains over 41 million media files made available for reuse via Creative Commons licenses.
Wikipedia: Public Domain image resources
Links to a number of sites with images that are free of copyright and available for use.

Videos and Podcasts

Art and Architecture in Video
Art and Architecture in Video delivers over 500 hours of documentaries and interviews illustrating the theory and practice of a variety of art forms and providing the context necessary for critical analysis. Ideal for both undergraduate and graduate courses, the works within this collection offer a dynamic tool to enhance understanding of visual media. Includes captions and transcripts.
Kanopy
Kanopy is an on-demand streaming video service for educational institutions that provides students and faculty access to more than 26,000 films. Kanopy provides students access to one of the largest collections of films in the world – including award-winning documentaries, training films and theatrical releases – on every topic imaginable. If you are a faculty member who needs a film activated for a class, please use the request form in Kanopy. Please include the class name and number, and the date the film is needed.

Art Institute of Chicago YouTube Channel
Variety of videos related to AIC collections and exhibitions.
National Gallery of Art Video and Audio
Listen to podcasts and watch online video about artists in the NGA collection, and NGA exhibitions. The archive of programs dates back to 1941 and includes authors, filmmakers, musicians, and historians.
Artforum Videos
Searchable database of videos on art and artists.
Frieze Magazine Videos
Videos on art exhibitions, art fairs, artists, and more from this London-based publication.

Architecture book images from library collections

Page images from historical digitized books from the University of Heidelberg Library

Le Antichità Romane
Full text of Piranesi's 1784 book, including engravings. Entire book may be downloaded as PDF, or individual image pages may be downloaded as projection-sized JPEGs.
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From the University of Heidelberg Library.
Entwurff Einer Historischen Architektur
Full text of 1725 book by Fischer von Erlach. Contains many full-page engravings of buildings and architectural monuments.
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Entire book may be downloaded as PDF, or individual image pages may be downloaded as projection-sized JPEGs. From the University of Heidelberg Library.

University of Illinois Chicago

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Art and Art History

Image Databases - Library

freely accessible Image Databases

Videos and Podcasts

Architecture book images from library collections

Richard J. Daley Library

Library of the Health Sciences, Chicago

Library of the Health Sciences, Peoria

Crawford Library of the Health Sciences, Rockford

UIC Law Library