Print Page

Visual Resources Center


The Visual Resources Center is an essential part of the Art & Art History Department, and the College, assisting both faculty and students with visual literacy issues and information for teaching and studying. The collection includes over 200,000 mounted slides and over 80,000 digital image records spanning the History of Art and Architecture from prehistoric times to the present. The Visual Resources Center, based in Weiss Center for the Arts Room 222, offers services for digitizing images, reference instruction, presentations, and writing, editing, and researching within the discourse.

Also, the VRC has a studying area for individual and group work, besides providing four iMACs with the most current software, such as Microsoft Suite, Adobe Creative Suite, Adobe Reader, Quicktime, RealPlayer and ARTstor's Offline Image Viewer for presentations and other visual literacy projects.

The slideshow below exemplifies the new renovations and design of the Visual Resources Center and the Art and Art History Study Hallway via Pixorial.

 




Art related online resources that might be useful for papers and projects are:

 
 Digital Image Collections:
 
 

  • Access Ceramics: A site that has a growing collection of digital images of contemporary ceramic works. Thus far the contributing 300+ artists encompasses a broad and varied scope of ceramists in the World. Per each image there is a License--click on the hyperlink to review what the artist will allow you to do with that image.
  • ARTstor (tutorial) : You must be affiliated with Dickinson College or another institution that subscribes to ARTstor. Contains over 1+ million digital images in humanities, social sciences, art, anthropology, amongst other discourses. The image database also contains QuickTime Virtual Reality architectural based views.
  • Dickinson College's Visual Resources Collection: still in process, but continuing to grow. You must be affiliated with Dickinson College and be on-campus to use this service.
  • Ideas Project Collection: Collection regarding Asian based images. For instance, the collections are Japanese Religion, Beijing 1988, Religious Sites of Maharashtra, Singapore Streets, ASIANetwork Luce Asian Art Undergraduate Project, Hugh Dean East Asian Pamphlet Collection pertaining to Chinese pamphlets from the 1930's-1950's.
  • National Gallery of Art (Washington DC): NGAs Image Collection contains approximately 20,000 images for Fair Use downloading. The download for presentation purposes will be 1200 pixels, while there are images available for publication at 3000 pixels. Not all images within their collection will be available for online use. If you utilize one of these images please credit the image. If you need further assistance regarding please contact me at the information below.
  • National Portrait Gallery (London, England): Approximately 87,000 images from The National Portrait Gallery Collection are accessible for academic and non-commercial purposes. The licensing will vary by image. Click on the image, then underneath the image there will be Use this ImageIf you click on that link there will be more information on the licensing of that image. The academic, "low resolution" image should suffice for many purposes at 2400 pixels per side and 300dpi. If you would prefer a high resolution image, please let me know and I'll acquire one for the VRC.
  • SPIRO: Slide Photographs and Image Retrieval Online Image database brought by UC Berkeley that specializes in architecture based images. Please be sure to check the copyright information for each image. For further information please contact me at the information below.  
  • The Walters Museum of Art: 20,000+ images on Creative Commons Licensing in Wikimedia Commons. The museums permanent collection consists of Ancient, Ancient Americas, Asian, Islamic, Medieval, Renaissance and Baroque, Eighteenth and Nineteenth Century Art Collections. Please review the Creative Commons hyperlink above for appropriate citation with this collection.
  • Web Gallery of Art: Image Database that holds approximately 26,000 digital images based on European Paintings from circa 1000-1900.
  • WorldImages: Approximately 80,000+ images are held in this image database brought by San Jose State University. Please check the conditions of use for each image that is utilized in your project. For further inquiries please contact me at the information below.
  • Yale Digital Collections: Approximately 500,000 images thus far from various collections, such as, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, AdHoc Image and Text on the History of Christianity, Arabic and Middle Eastern Library, Arts of the Book, Lewis Walpole Library, Medical Digital Library, Divinity Digital Library, Manuscripts and Archives, Ross Archive of African Images, Yale University Art Gallery, and more. Please take note to use IE or Mozilla/Firefox as your web browser and that some collections will not be obtainable, unless you're part of the Yale community. These collections are: Birren Collection of Books on Color, Music Theory Treatises, and the Visual Resources Collection.
  •  
     

    When obtaining images from the web please be aware of the image copyright issues regarding each site.  For instance, it is advisable to review the terms of use statement, how you are allowed to use the images you've obtained, and if you are allowed to use the images for educational purposes.  Ie. Are the images you want from a Commons Copyright site?  What does Commons Copyright mean? Can the images be utilized for educational use?  Do you need to contact someone to use the image in a paper or project?  If you have further questions please contact me at the e-mail below for assistance.

     
     
     
    Ready Reference (the first reference to assist you with your project):
     
  • Oxford Art Online: Grove Art Online, Oxford Companion to Western Art, Encyclopedia of Aesthetics, Concise Oxford Dictionary of Art Terms
  • OED (Oxford English Dictionary)
  •  
     
     Databases:
     
      Video, QuickTime Virtual Reality, and Zoomify Resources:
     
  • ArtBabble : A consortia that provides videos regarding various sources and perspectives. The organizations in the video consortia are Art Institute of Chicago, Art21, Asian Art Museum, Chipstone, Corning Museum of Glass, Detroit Institute of Arts, Hammer, High Museum, Indianapolis Museum of Art, KQED Gallery Crawl, LACMA, Museum of Contemporary Art | San Diego, MoMA, Museo Tamayo, Museum Boijmans Van Beunigen, MAD, NGA, NPG, Norman Rockwell Museum, Rubin Museum, SFMoMA, San Jose Museum of Art, SmartHistory, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Frick, J. Paul Getty Museum, Jewish Museum, MMA, NYPL, Guggenheim, Van Gogh Museum, and Yerba Buena Center for the Arts.
  • ARA PACIS : site that holds a in-depth collection of images and correlating text that will help with ARA PACIS research. The images included on this site are interiors, exteriors, maps, diagrams, and various views and close-ups of the Altar, besides other ARA PACIS related images. Please review the fair use standards and image rights information of this site.
  • ARTstor : (tutorial) : You must be affiliated with Dickinson College or another institution that subscribes to ARTstor. Contains over 1.8+ million digital images in humanities, social sciences, art, anthropology, amongst other discourses. The image database also contains QuickTime Virtual Reality architectural based views.
  • Art21 : Videos based on artists producing work predominantly in the Twenty First century. Some artists included are, Louise Bourgeois, Cai Guo-Qiang, Vija Celmins, Ann Hamilton, Jenny Holzer, William Kentridge, Maya Lin, Gabriel Orozco, Yinka Shonibare MBE, and Kara Walker.
  • Arounder : QuickTime Virtual Reality images that encompass cities and areas within cities. For instance, Athens, Hangzhou, and the Vatican are just a few of the cities exemplified in the site.
  • Ghent Altarpiece: This site allows the viewer to review the Altarpiece open and closed, with close-ups and X-Radiography and much more. When you initially open the site, it will take a long time to load, as it is one hundred billion pixels--Yes, that's right: one hundred billion!
  • Google Art Project: 155 Museums around the World are presenting 32,000+ images in this collection. If you have a Google account, you can share, and produce your own Gallery. You can filter by Collection, Artist, or by work title (in the search box, on the upper right).
  • National Gallery of Art (Washington, DC) video podcast 
  • Vatican QTVR: have you ever wondered what the Sistine Chapel looks like close-up? Wait no longer....review this site as a QuickTime Virtual Reality and move along with panoramic shots of the entire room.
  • Vimeo
  • YouTube
  •  
     
     
     Editing and Sharing Video:
     
  •  Masher  
  • Pixorial
  •  
     Other Art related resources that might help:
     
  • AAA (Archives of American Art) 
  • NYPL (New York Public Library)
  • NYPL Digital Gallery
  • Library of Congress Digital Collections
  • Museums and Galleries Provenance Information
  • NYARC (New York Arts Resources Consortium)
  • The Frick Collection (Frick Art Reference Library and FRESCO)
  • Metropolitan Museum (WATSONLINE)
  • Museum of Modern Art (Dadabase)
  • The Brooklyn Museum (Collections)
  •  
     
     

     

    For more information please view the Dickinson College's library catalog, the Art and Art History based resource website, and Dickinson College's Library and Information Services database search page. For further assistance contact me at the following information below: