7 Good Resources for Art Teachers and Students

I was recently contacted by a reader who wanted to know what I had in my archives for art lessons and digital art galleries that students can access. While this isn't every visual art resource in my archive, these are seven of my personal favorites.

The Art Project powered by Google features interior tours of seventeen world famous art museums. Select a museum from the list on the homepage and you can virtually tour it using the same interface style you experience in Google Maps Streetview. Inside the museum just double click to zoom to a location. You can also open a floor plan overview and click on a room to navigate to that part of the museum. The best part of the Art Project powered by Google is the option to create your own artwork collection while visiting each museum. As you're touring a museum click on the "+" symbol on any work of art see it in greater detail, to add it to your collection, and to open background information about that work of art. To create a collection you must be signed into your Google account.

Smarthistory is a free online alternative to expensive art history textbooks. Smarthistory was developed by art history professors Dr. Beth Harris and Dr. Steven Zucker. Smarthistory features more than just images of notable works of art. Videos lessons, VoiceThread lessons, and audio lessons about eras and themes in art history are what make Smarthistory a valuable resource. Students can browse all of the resources of Smarthistory by artist name, style of work, theme, or time period. Smarthistory is now partnered with Khan Academy to deliver lessons.

Picturing America is a project of the National Endowment for the Humanities and the American Library Association. Picturing America is an interactive gallery of artwork related to events, people, and themes in American history. You can browse the gallery chronologically or by theme. Click on any image in the gallery to learn about the artist and the artwork itself. Along with the background information for each image, Picturing America provides links to additional resources for learning about the artwork and artists.

The World Digital Library hosts nearly 5,000 primary documents and images from collections around the world. Sponsored by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, the mission of the World Digital Library is to promote the study and understanding of cultures. The WDL can be searched by date, era, country, continent, topic, and type of resource. In my search of the WDL I noticed that roughly half of the resources are historical maps and images. The WDL aims to be accessible to as many people as possible by providing search tools and content descriptions in seven languages. The WDL can also be searched by clicking through the map on the homepage.

The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art has a great collection of multimedia, interactive features about art and artists. In these features you can learn about styles of art, specific works, and the artists. There is a mix of videos and slideshows contained in the interactive archive. The archive contains features about Picasso and Pollock as well as artists whose works aren't quite as famous.

Art Babble is a video website designed and maintained by the Indianapolis Museum of Art. The purpose of Art Babble is to provide a place for people to learn about the creation of art, artists, and collections through quality video productions. Visitors to Art Babble will find videos related to many forms of and formats for art. Browse the video channels and you'll find videos covering a wide array of topics including abstract art, European Art and Design, African Art, graphic design, glass, sculpture, surrealism, and much more.

MOOM, the Museum of Online Museums, is a list of museums that offer online exhibitions. In some cases the museums include virtual tours and in other cases the museums online exhibits are simple photo galleries. Some of the notable museums featured in the Museum of Online Museums include the Smithsonian, the Art Institute of Chicago, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Interactive Lessons About Art and Artists

The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art has a great collection of multimedia, interactive features about art and artists. In these features you can learn about styles of art, specific works, and the artists. There is a mix of videos and slideshows contained in the interactive archive. The archive contains features about Picasso and Pollock as well as artists whose works aren't quite as famous.

Applications for Education
Art Think is a SFMOMA feature designed to introduce visitors to basics of art. Art Think contains a glossary terms and an introduction to basic uses of shapes, lines, and colors. Art Think also contains an index of dozens of lesson plans that teachers can use in the instruction of art appreciation. The lessons incorporate materials that are featured on the SFMOMA website.

The Arts and History - Part 2

Cover scan of ''The Americans''
1969 2nd printing
from Wikipedia

Robert Frank is one of my favorite photographers - I discovered The Americans in a History of Photography class as an undergrad, and it has resonated with me ever since. Back in the Fall semester of 2009 I was able to take a group of students to the Metropolitan Museum of Art to see the collected photographs of The Americans on display. Here is a story NPR produced about that show, and here is another. This one is from The New Yorker. You get the idea.

When this show was on display, the creators of Selected Shorts aired a program comprised of short stories written by authors who were inspired by a particular photograph from the Frank show. You can download the podcast of the stories being read and have students listen to the readings as part of an examination of the photographs. They could choose their own photograph to be the inspiration for their own creative writing or research or select work from a different photographer or genre all together to inspire their writing. Lots of possibilities!

In a history or American Studies class, these (or any) photographs can be used to identify important moments in US history and the array of perspectives from which the event can be understood. My students used photographs as the starting point for researching and writing historical fiction; working in groups, they shared the historical event which was the focus of their stories, but each author developed a narrator with a unique perspective on that particular event in history.


Here is the outline of the exercise that I presented to the students. Once they selected their groups, identified their event and their narrator perspectives, they had to research to find the authentic answers to these questions about their fictional narrator’s experiences. The students were required to submit an annotated bibliography before submitting their responses to their questions so I could check the sources they were using for depth and accuracy. For citations I usually recommend they use a resource like BibMe, but they prefer EasyBib. When they were ready to began crafting their short story, I provided them this rubric (according to which their final story collections were assessed) and links to several online writing assistants and resources like writing advice from Barry Lane, literacy education online, and the Roane State OWL.
By writing historical fiction students develop research skills, critical reading and writing skills, become intimately familiar with a period of time in history and engage in authentic inquiry. 


About the Guest Blogger, Jacquelyn Whiting:
This is my fourth year as a member of the humanities department at Joel Barlow High School in rural Redding, CT. I have been teaching social studies since 1993 during which time I have taught all different levels of US History including AP, as well as American Government, Art History, Women in American History, Psychology, Environmental Studies and integrated US History and English. My work with my classes is archived on my website: http://jackiewhiting.net as is my contact information. I also write a blog about incorporating digital resources into the study of the humanities, http://www.thedigitalhumanities.com/. I am currently the chair of the professional development committee for my school and offer workshops each year focused on exploring and integrating into the curriculum web resources that enhance our teaching and our students learning. Outlines of and resources for these workshops are also available on my website.

The Arts and History - Part 1

The Topic: Is it Art?
Many lesson series or units can begin with this question and push students at any grade level and in many different disciplines to consider the purpose of art. In some manner we always consider this question at the beginning of the semester in my Art History class, but it also emerges in my US History class as well.

Depending on the grade level and experiences of the students they can consider a host of examples of what is considered art by some critics or audiences but not others, like Marcel Duchamp’s Fountain:

Or art that is valued monetarily and aesthetically today but was criticized and dismissed when it was created:

“The Parliament in London,” Musée d’Orsay, Paris.

The Yorck Project, public domain Wikimedia Commons

This question, what is art?, has even been explored in pop culture outside of the fine arts world. A Murphy Brown episode (“Is it Art?”) was once dedicated to exploring this question as was an episode of The Simpsons (“Mom and Pop Art”). I have used excerpts from both of these shows to stimulate conversation among my high school art history students.

The Method:
Duchamp and Monet have an established place in the art world and art history. To help students explore this question, what is art?, in a way that engages them in their place and time, a debate over the merits and value of street art or graffiti art works well. When asking students to consider these images we begin with this set of questions:

Why do artists make art?
Why do audiences consider it?
Is the role or purpose of the artist to inform? entertain? amuse? enlighten? satisfy?

Wrestling with these questions in the context of selected images helps students gain the vocabulary, insight and vision that allows them to consider What is Art? in an informed way.

Online Resources:

The Brooklyn Museum has an extensive, entirely interactive exhibition about Jean Michel Basquiat. He began as a street artist under the name SAMO and evolved into a member of Andy Warhol’s cohort at The Factory.

Unurth is a site dedicated to displaying street art from around the world. It is built in part by the site owner and in part through submission by site visitors. By clicking on a city, viewers can see a selection of street art from that location. There is a section dedicated to the work of Banksy.

KQED EdSpace in their “Do Now” section pose the question “Is Graffiti Art?” They acknowledge that it is a controversial form of self-expression that is viewed as destructive on one hand and valuable on the other. To inform this discussion KQED offers both a still image and a video based around San Francisco street art.


Curricular Applications:
The examination of graffiti can be an integral part of an art history unit. Or, considering such work - and the ways in which it is exalted and diminished - can be an interesting component in a study of free speech perhaps comparing sanctioned political murals with political graffiti. Or, students could evaluate a work of art or an artist for potential grant funding or write a legal brief for or against the protection of a street art display. Similarly, the issues raised by street art (censorship, isolation, youth and rebellion, social and political commentary) resonate through many selections of literature from the 20th Century. A consideration of street art could be a springboard into or companion to a literary exploration. 


About the Guest Blogger, Jacquelyn Whiting:
This is my fourth year as a member of the humanities department at Joel Barlow High School in rural Redding, CT. I have been teaching social studies since 1993 during which time I have taught all different levels of US History including AP, as well as American Government, Art History, Women in American History, Psychology, Environmental Studies and integrated US History and English. My work with my classes is archived on my website: http://jackiewhiting.net as is my contact information. I also write a blog about incorporating digital resources into the study of the humanities, http://www.thedigitalhumanities.com/. I am currently the chair of the professional development committee for my school and offer workshops each year focused on exploring and integrating into the curriculum web resources that enhance our teaching and our students learning. Outlines of and resources for these workshops are also available on my website.