Art – Painting & Painters

Fun fact: 'Le Bateau' by Henri Matisse hung upside-down for 47 days in the Museum of Modern Art in New York until a patron realised the mistake.

 

The art of painting goes back thousands and thousands of years which is why this topic area is so vast.

Your first step is to have a look at what your question is asking for. Once you have figured out what the question is asking you about painting you will be able to put together some search terms. See below for some suggestions you could start with.

If you are being asked about painting mediums you could try words such as watercolour, oil, spray paint and acrylic. If the question is about syles of painting you should consider keywords like surrealism, impressionism and abstract.

You could also be asked about the history of painting or painters of a specific region or country. For that kind of question I would recommend using keyword combinations like ‘Painting Africa’ (you could also add in the word ‘history’).

If you are looking for information on a specific painter/artist I would recommend searching using their name, an example would be ‘Leonardo da Vinci’. If you want to know about a specific painting again I would recommend starting by using the name of the art like ‘Mona Lisa’. Also consider that there might me alternative terms you could use, for example whilst ‘Mona Lisa’ is the most commonly used spelling for this artwork you might also find some information under the spelling ‘Monna Lisa’.

Try some of the above terms in the library online catalogue; we have some great information on art, particularly in our reference section.

If you go to the Information desk online webpage on the Library website you will see that you have access to encyclopaedias like World Book and Britannica. These resources will be great for collection information.

The library’s Reference Databases webpage has some great databases you could search in too. A good one for finding information on artists is Biography in Context.

Some websites you might find useful

Encyclopedia  of Art 
This website has some really interesting and extensive information that could be useful to you.  

The History of Painting

This page is part of the scholastic website which is great and has a lot of information on the history of painting going back to cave paintings in a number of cultures.  

The Artwolf

This is an online magazine that has some amazing information on artists and pieces of art as well as art history.