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ART H 112: Renaissance to the Present

Welcome to the library guide for ARTH 112!

How to Do the Research Project (Catalogue Entry)

The famous Renaissance painting, The Last Supper.  Jesus is at the table with disciples talking and gesturing to each other.Basic Requirements for the Paper:

"Write a short paper, 3-4 pages, summarizing the sources that you have found. Basically, each of you will act as a curator for your work, since museum curators select, research and display works of art. You can think of your paper as an entry in a museum exhibition catalogue. Each catalogue entry offers a summary of current scholarship on a single work of art....Your job as curator is to present a helpful summary of the scholarship and the sources that you have found. "  --Dr. Kavky

 

Sources:

Please find at least one scholarly journal article that has information about your selected work.  Look for more than that to increase your grade!

Acceptable Sources

  • Scholarly, peer-reviewed journal article (required to have at least one!)--these are a special type of article that are written by scholars (professors), published in journals, often have long lists of citations.  Check out this example--you might recognize the author!
  • Book--you can order books from other campuses if you can't find a book at Thun Library.  You can also access ebooks through the Penn State Libraries.
  • Exhibition catalogs with scholarly essays--these are books with lists and color photographs of the works in an exhibit at  a museum or gallery.  Exhibition catalogs can be counted as sources if they have scholarly essays that interpret the works.  Museums often publish these.  Here is an example from the New York Met.

Unacceptable Sources

  • Wikipedia
  • Web Sites that lack credibility
  • Book reviews
  • Newspaper and magazine articles
  • Encyclopedia Articles
  • Exhibition catalogs without scholarly essays 

  Class Activity: Which of these sources are acceptable, and which are not acceptable?

Source 1

Source 2

Source 3

Source 4

Source 5

 

 

How To Find Scholarly, Peer-reviewed Journal Articles

1. Search for the title of the work in quotation marks (and maybe add the last name of the artist to help narrow your search down).

"The Last Supper" AND Da Vinci

2. Search for the name of the artist, time period, or type of art (even if you do not find an article about your specific work, you can find an article about the artist,  time period, or type of art that may have a discussion of your work or at least something relevant within it).

Leonardo Da Vinci

Renaissance art

How To Find Scholarly Art Books

Ebooks

  • Penn State Libraries' Catalog--perform a search and select "Online" on the left sidebar to limit your search to ebooks.
  •  Google Books--world's largest collection of ebooks, some are fully available, some have portions.

1. Search for the title of the work in quotation marks (and maybe add the name of the artist to narrow your search down.  After you search, you can also use the filters on the right sidebar to select "Visual Arts").

"The Last Supper" Da Vinci

2. Search for the name of the artist, time period, or type of art (even if you do not find an article about your specific work, you can find an article about the artist, time period, or type of art that may have a discussion of your work or at least something relevant within it).

Leonardo Da Vinci

Renaissance art

3. Browse Dr. Kavky's list of suggested books in Canvas.

Print Books

A blue button that says "I Want It" in white font

Bonus: How To Find Exhibition Catalogs