Skip to Main Content

ARHS 4399 Research and Methods in Art History: Known Artist/Creator

Researching works with a known artist/creator

No one search will give you all the resources you need for your paper. You can also look at other works by your artist to understand how the work you are analyzing fits within their oeuvre.

Below is an example search I might conduct to help me contextualize a work of art by Berthe Morisot. She was a nineteenth century French artist and many of her subject matter dealt with women engaging in domestic and leisure activities.

I used AND between my search terms to clarify I want search results that include all of these terms - not just results that talk abou leisure and women, but French women engaged in leisure activities in the nineteenth century.

 

I may also want to know about the Impressionist art market in France so I would try this search. I could also substitute "nineteenth century" with impressionism.

The quotes are a way to reduce the number of search results. They indicate I want my search results to address the art market as a phrase, not have results that contain art, but not market or vice versa. If I didn't include the quotes I would get 103, 953 results rather than 3,254 results with the quotes.