Research Guides: ART 104: Prehistory to Renaissance: Find Books & Ebooks

Books in Collection

Finding Books

The NECC Libraries have over 35,000 books and films. If you want to see what the other libraries in our network own, change the scope to All HELM or View Entire Collection. You can request books and movies using your NECC Library card and PIN number.

Remember, if you can't find any material on your topic, ask an NECC librarian for assistance.

Resources

This course is an introduction to the history of painting, sculpture, and architecture in the Western world and other world cultures. The periods to be covered range from Prehistoric times to the year 1500 and include the Stone Age, ancient Egypt, Greece and Rome, the Byzantine and Medieval worlds and early Renaissance.

Most art history books are not dedicated to a single work. When researching art remember to look for additional information about:

artist
location such as city or country
style i.e. Mannerist or Deco
period i.e Renaissance or Roman
movement i.e. Dada, Bauhaus, or Secession
material or technique

Searching tips:

If you know the name of the artist, use keyword or subject searching in the library catalog for books under these names. Once you have a book in hand, refer to its index or table of contents to determine whether or not your artwork is mentioned.

If the artist is unknown, try searching under time period, style, location, or movement.

Utilize resources such as Wikipedia and reference resources like the Credo database to create a list of keywords. Even though you may not be able to use these resources in your project or paper, they will help you find other sources.

Ebook Central This link opens in a new window
Includes thousands of electronic books across the academic spectrum specifically chosen for the community college curriculum.
eBook Community College Collection This link opens in a new window
This multidisciplinary collection contains more than 64,000 e-books covering key subject areas including humanities, social sciences, business, science, technology and literary criticism.
Credo Reference This link opens in a new window
A collection of full-text reference titles covering all major subject areas.

The Art of Art History by Donald Preziosi
ISBN: 9780191552021
Publication Date: 2009-02-01
This anthology is a guide to understanding art history through critical reading of the field's most innovative and influential texts, focusing on the past two centuries.Each section focuses on a key issue: art as history; aesthetics; form, content, and style; anthropology; meaning and interpretation; authorship and identity; and the phenomenon of globalization.
A Companion to Ancient near Eastern Art by Ann C. Gunter (Editor)
ISBN: 9781118336731
Publication Date: 2018-09-07
Provides a broad view of the history and current state of scholarship on the art of the ancient Near East. This book covers the aesthetic traditions of Mesopotamia, Iran, Anatolia, and the Levant, from Neolithic times to the end of the Achaemenid Persian Empire around 330 BCE.
A Companion to Greek Art by Tyler Jo Smith (Editor); Dimitris Plantzos (Editor)
ISBN: 9781118273319
Publication Date: 2012-04-02
An invaluable resource for scholars dealing with the art, material culture and history of the post-classical world Includes voices from such diverse fields as art history, classical studies, and archaeology and offers a diversity of views to the topic.
Art in Rome
ISBN: 9781527537521
This volume covers the major artistic and architectural masterpieces produced in Rome from Antiquity up to the present day. It particularly considers art in ancient Rome, the Early Christian period, the Middle Ages, and the Renaissance and Baroque periods, as well as more recent artistic productions.
Materials, Methods, and Masterpieces of Medieval Art by Janetta Rebold Benton
ISBN: 9781567206555
Publication Date: 2009-08-27
Materials, Methods, and Masterpieces of Medieval Art provides a comprehensive and detailed analysis of the work done by artists in western Europe during the Middle Ages. Art historian Janetta Rebold Benton uses examples such as the Book of Kells, Bury Saint Edmunds Cross, and the Bayeux Tapestry, and the work of artists such as Jan van Eyck and Giotto to explore the various media available to medieval artists and the ways in which those media were used to create a stunning array of masterworks.
Art of India by Vincent Arthur Smith
ISBN: 9781780428802
Publication Date: 2012-05-08
India, with its extensive and colourful history, has produced an artistic tradition in many forms: architecture, painting, sculpture, calligraphy, mosaics, and artisan products all display the country's cultural, religious and philosophical richness. From Hinduism, with its pantheon of imagery of gods, goddesses, animals and many other figures, to Islam, with its astounding architecture and intricate calligraphy, the many facets of India have given rise to a fascinating and beautiful collection of artworks.
Chinese Art by Stephen W. Bushell
ISBN: 9781780429243
Publication Date: 2012-05-08
Dealing not only with architecture, sculpture, and painting, but also with bronze and ceramics, this text offers a complete panorama of Chinese arts and civilisation. In his text, the author Bushell stresses the importance of knowing the society to understand the arts.
African Art by Maurice Delafosse
ISBN: 9781844848973
Publication Date: 2012-04-30
The power of Sub-Saharan African art lies within its visual diversity, demonstrating the creativity of the artists who are continuing to conceptualize new stylistic forms. From Mauritania to South Africa and from the Ivory Coast to Somalia, statues, masks, jewelry, pottery and tapestries compose a variety of daily and ritual objects springing from these richly varied societies.

The Met
The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, colloquially "the Met", is the largest art museum in the Americas and the most-visited museum in the United States. Its permanent collection contains over two million works, divided among 17 curatorial departments. Under the Art tab at the top, you can either browse by curatorial area or browse the entire collection.
The British Museum
The British Museum is a public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture. Its permanent collection of eight million works is among the largest and most comprehensive in existence. It has selected objects available to view online as well as a blog with entries on various objects and areas of study.
The Getty Museum
The Museum at the Getty Center is home to pre-20th-century European paintings, drawings, illuminated manuscripts, and decorative arts; a photographs collection that dates from the medium’s inception to the present, collected worldwide; and European and American sculpture from the
late 12th century to the present day. The Museum at the Getty Villa is home to Greek, Etruscan, and Roman antiquities.
Ashmolean Museum Oxford
The Ashmolean is the University of Oxford’s museum of art and archaeology, founded in 1683. Their collections range from Egyptian mummies to contemporary art, telling human stories across cultures and across time. Their websites features online collections that can be browsed by time period.
MFA Boston
The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston contains 8,161 paintings and more than 450,000 works of art, making it one of the most comprehensive collections in the Americas.
The Victoria & Albert Museum
The Victoria and Albert Museum (often abbreviated as the V&A) in London is the world's largest museum of applied arts, decorative arts and design, housing a permanent collection of over 2.27 million objects. Its collection spans 5,000 years of art, from ancient times to the present day, from the cultures of Europe, North America, Asia and North Africa.