Research Guides: Art + Design: Start Your Research

Starting research in the arts

When you're starting research, getting a broad view of related topics can be helpful. The resources below are just some that might be useful for artists and designers.

If your research is leaning towards art history a bit more, see the similar tab on the Art History guide for some others.

Colors: What They Mean and How to Make Them
Call Number: REF NX 650.C676 V37 2006 (1st floor)
The Concise Dictionary of Art Terms
Call Number: Available Online!
The Grove Encyclopedia of Materials and Techniques in Art
Call Number: Available online!

Oxford Art Online (Oxford)
This resource allows you to search the encyclopedic entries of the Grove Dictionary of Art for artists, movements, places, mediums, and more. It also links out to entries in several other Oxford art reference books. Please note our subscription only includes Grove and not the Benezit Dictionary of Artists.

Tate Art Terms
This art term glossary was created and is maintained by Tate, a major museum collection in the UK.