Research Guides: Medieval Art History: Databases

Useful Art Databases

Art & Architecture Complete This link opens in a new window
This database provides full-text coverage of periodicals and books covering art and architecture. In addition, it offers cover-to-cover indexing and abstracts for academic journals, magazines and trade publications. The database also provides selective coverage for an Image Collection provided by Picture Desk and others.
ARTstor This link opens in a new window
ARTstor is a digital library of images in the areas of art, architecture, the humanities, and social sciences, with a set of tools to view, present, and manage images for research and pedagogical purposes.
Arts & Humanities Citation Index This link opens in a new window
Arts & Humanities Citation Index is a multidisciplinary database covering the journal literature of the arts and humanities. It indexes many of the world's leading arts and humanities journals, as well as covering individually selected, relevant items from major science and social science journals. Coverage: 1985-present

Bibliography of the History of Art (B.H.A.) and Repertoire de la litterature de l'art (R.I.L.A.)
The Getty provides access to the Bibliography of the History of Art (B.H.A.) and to the Répertoire international de la littérature de l'art (R.I.L.A.) for no charge on its Web site. These citation databases, searchable together, cover material published between 1975 and 2007. For material published after 2007 see the International Bibliography of Art (I.B.A.).

Art Index Retrospective (H.W. Wilson) This link opens in a new window
Provides searchable indexing art journalism from noted publications around the globe, reflecting coverage provided from 1929 through 1984. Art Index Retrospective cites sources published in French, Italian, German, Spanish, and Dutch, as well as in English. In addition to periodicals, users will find data from important yearbooks and select museum bulletins.

OpenBibArt: History of Art Bibliography
OpenBibArt is a bibliographic database born out of a collaboration between the Institut National d’Histoire de l’Art (I.N.H.A.), the Getty Research Institute (G.R.I.) and the Institut de l’Information Scientifique et Technique of the C.N.R.S. (Inist-C.N.R.S.). OpenBibArt reviews the literature on arts from Late Antiquity to the present day, providing access to close to 1.2 million of bibliographic records of periodicals, books, exhibition and auction catalogues, published between 1910 and 2007.

Index of Medieval Art This link opens in a new window
Houses, contextualizes, and presents images and information relating to the iconographic traditions of the medieval world, reflecting its beginnings as a focused resource for the study of early Christian art, and now includes works from multiple medievalfaith traditions as well as secular imagery.
International Medieval Bibliography This link opens in a new window
I.M.B., a project of the Medieval Academy of America, is an interdisciplinary bibliography of articles in journals, conference proceedings, essay collections, and festschriften, relating to the Middle Ages in Europe, North Africa, and the Near East, 300-1500. It is cross-searchable with the Bibliographie de Civilisation Médiévale and contains live links to the Lexikon des Mittelalters and the International Encyclopaedia for the Middle Ages.
Iter: Gateway to the Middle Ages and Renaissance This link opens in a new window
A collection of materials pertaining to the Middle Ages and Renaissance (400-1700). The platform contains databases, books, and journals.

If you're looking for scholarly journal articles across subject areas, the following databases are your best bet.

Scout This link opens in a new window
The University of Alabama's discovery service, searching content from hundreds of electronic databases, print resources from our library catalog, ebooks, videos, news and more.
Google Scholar This link opens in a new window
Google Scholar is a freely available scholarly search engine that allows you to search across many disciplines and sources: peer-reviewed papers, theses, books, abstracts and articles – from academic publishers, professional societies, preprint repositories, universities and other scholarly organizations.
JSTOR This link opens in a new window
Images of the full text of many scholarly titles in a range of subject areas, including literature, biological sciences, economics, finance, and statistics. Search the archive or pull up a specific article.
Project MUSE This link opens in a new window
Project MUSE provides full-text access scholarly journals in the humanities and social sciences. The database is a collaboration between Johns Hopkins University and other university presses and not-for-profit publishers. Also included are the UPCC collections in Asian and Pacific Studies, and Poetry, Fiction and Creative Non-Fiction.