Digital Resources
ARTbeat is the AHVS graduate association newsletter, published twice annually in April and December. Content features include submissions from our AHVS Chair and Graduate Advisor, Department Spotlight on faculty members and sessional instructors, Research in the Field with current students, Alumni Updates and Q&A with recently-graduated Alumni. View past issue PDFs here:
ARTbeat is the AHVS graduate association newsletter, published twice annually in April and December. Content features include submissions from our AHVS Chair and Graduate Advisor, Department Spotlight on faculty members and sessional instructors, Research in the Field with current students, Alumni Updates and Q&A with recently-graduated Alumni. View past issue PDFs here:
Creative Commons Licenses – https://creativecommons.org/licenses/
- CC licenses allow people to copyright their work and explains how people can license and share the works that they create
- watch the 3 minute video to understand how creative commons licenses work
- play around with picking a license so that you understand how they work http://creativecommons.org/choose/
Sources for free, usable images
Creative Commons – through the Creative Commons search engine you can search for images that you can reproduce through various creative commons licenses. To understand how to attribute images that using creative commons licenses, click here.
Flickr also has an excellent selection of photographs, many which are published under a Creative Commons license.
Specifically for images from Art and Architecture of the Islamic World:
How to use Illustrations online (https://islamicarts.commons.gc.cuny.edu/how-to-use-illustrations-online/)
The web offers a host of opportunities to use images and other media in away that print media does not allow; videos can be embedded and color images used extensively. However, for images to be effective, they need to be the correct resolution, or size.
For web usage, images ideally should be no more than 150 KB in size, or 72 or 180 dpi (dots per inch) at the most and ideally jpegs, as this format is easy to manipulate and download. Large images (i.e., Tiff files with resolution of 300 dpi) are great for printing but for poor for the web (they take too long to load).
Pixels (the small little dots that together make up a digital image)
- these needs to be kept in a ratio, otherwise the resolution of the images can be changed and as a result can be blurry and poor quality
Programs you can use to edit photos:
Iphoto (Mac) – good for touching up
Preview (Mac)
- click on the Tools menu and select Adjust Size
- keep the ratio between width and height (often helpful to look in pixels) linked
- If you adjust the dpi upwards (ie from 75 to 300), you need to make sure that to keep the pixel ratio the same, this will present the images from becoming grainy
http://pixlr.com/editor/ (online)
- under Image, select image size and play with the number of pixels
Windows Media Center – PC
- http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/edit-pictures-media-center#1TC=windows-7 – good for general information on how to rotate pictures, touch up
- http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-xp/help/digitalphotography/resize-digital-pictures – see for specifics about how to resize an image
Windows – Photo Gallery – PC
- http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-live/photo-gallery#photogallery=overview – another windows editing platform
Photoshop (for the more advanced)
What makes an image successful in an art historical / archaeological discussion / webpage?
- Relevancy – does it illustrate a point or is it a key example?
- it should not be visual garnish
- crop the image so it shows only what is relevant
- make sure it is straight
- One also has to consider how to place images along side text; typically this is done by an editor or designer when publishing, but on the web, you have to think about the balance between text and image.
Art & Architecture of the Islamic World
[Adapted from CUNY: “Digital Resources for Islamic Art & Architecture]
- Archnet.org is the most comprehensive site on Islamic Architecture on the web.
- Oxford Bibliographies Online has extensive Bibliographies on Islamic art and other aspects of Islamic civilization. The Cambridge History of Islam is also available online. These can be accessed via the Mina Rees Website.
- Bridging Cultures Bookshelf: Muslim Journeys is another good introduction to Islamic civilization and various aspects of the arts of the Islamic World.
- Museum without Frontiers – the Discover Islamic Art Database has many images of important works of Islamic Art
- Saudi Aramco World – general interest publication with very good articles and links on Islamic Art, Architecture and Culture.
- Islamic-Arts.org – a new academic website about Islamic Arts and Architecture; has useful essays and videos about certain topics. But some of the text is from Wikipedia so use with caution
Visual Resources
- The Aga Khan Visual Collection at MIT – a lot of images of Islamic Architecture.
- Manar Al-Athar – An open access multi-media resource for the study of the Middle East, at the University of Oxford (your instructor is deputy director of the project)
- 3-D videos of Major Mosques and other important sites
- Artstor.org – Major image database, but not particularly strong for Islamic Art and Architecture. Access via the Mina Rees website.
- Also check out Flickr and Google Images via Creative Commons Image Search.
- Manar Al-Athar – online photograph database with over 5,000 digitized images of early Islamic monuments in Syro-Palestine (expanding coverage to Egypt and North Africa in 2014). You can sign up for an account that allows you to create collections of images that can be downloaded at various resolutions. (also see under photolinks for additional resources.
- APAAME – the Aerial Photograph Archive for Archaeology in the Middle East. Mainly Aerial photography, but some photographs
- You can use images from the Metropolitan Museum of Art for educational purposes, subject to their terms and conditions, click here for more information and look under “Authorized Uses.”
Museum Sites (there are obviously many more)
- The Met Museum – Very good essays on topics, themes, etc; so hunt around on their site.
- LA County Museum of Art – Introductory Essays and the collection
- V&A (London) – A large range of objects and essays (with bibliography)
- Museum of Islamic Art, Doha (Qatar) – newly opened museum in Doha, with an outstanding collection of art and a unique building designed by I.M.Pei
- British Museum – Many objects and a gallery devoted to Islamic Art
- Brooklyn Museum – the collection and blog
- Louvre Museum – click on the highlights tab to get more information about the collection highlights.
- Museum of Islamic Art, Doha – one of the newest collections of Islamic Art. Some outstanding pieces.
- Aga Khan Museum – reopening in 2014 and has catalogs that can be downloaded and good short descriptions of objects.
Scholarly Organizations
- The Historians of Islamic Art Association which provides support and organizes conferences can also be found here. They offer grants.