Open Access: Art

Online open textbook covering prehistoric to 20th-century art across the world.

This textbook -- written by a group of select experts with a focus on different aspects of the design process, from creation to production -- addresses the many steps of creating and then producing physical, printed, or other imaged products that people interact with on a daily basis. It covers the concept that, while most modern graphic design is created on computers using design software, the ideas and concepts don't stay on the computer. The ideas need to be completed in the computer software, then progress to an imaging (traditionally referred to as printing) process. Keywords are highlighted throughout and summarized in a Glossary at the end of the book, and each chapter includes exercises and suggested readings.

ntroduction to Art: Design, Context, and Meaning offers a comprehensive introduction to the world of Art. Authored by four USG faculty members with advance degrees in the arts, this textbooks offers up-to-date original scholarship. It includes over 400 high-quality images illustrating the history of art, its technical applications, and its many uses.

Historical developments in Western art from 18th century to the mid-20th century. Focus on European and American art.

Art appreciation is centered on the ability to view art throughout history, focusing on the cultures and the people, and how art developed in the specific periods. You cannot understand art without understanding the culture, their use of materials and sense of beauty. Art is also conveyed by the simple act of creating art for art’s sake. Every person is born with the innate desire to create art and similar to other professions, training is essential in honing skills to produce art.

Many of these web pages were produced by Robert Arnold and his students when he taught this class. After Dr. Arnold retired, we kept these biographies and now we are happy to present them as part of an updated, ever-expanding, free and open web book.

This course is an exploration of visual art forms and their cultural connections across historical periods, designed for the student with little experience in the visual arts. It includes brief studies in art history, and in-depth inquiry into the elements, media and methods used in a wide range of creative processes.

Explore film, music, journalism, photography or theatre. Join online arts courses from renowned film schools, universities, cultural institutions. Learn from the experts in creative arts and media.

Find free online classes in poetry, art history, world cultures, classical art, modern art and European painting from top universities worldwide. Learn the Cultural Geography of the World from Peking University or immerse yourself in Harvard University’s popular Poetry in America series.

The Department of the History of Art at Yale offers a wide range of undergraduate and graduate courses in art, architecture, and visual culture in their social and historical contexts.

At Smarthistory, the Center for Public Art History, we believe art has the power to transform lives and to build understanding across cultures. We believe that the brilliant histories of art belong to everyone, no matter their background.

The Art Institute of Chicago is pleased to offer free, unrestricted use of over 50,000 images of works in the collection believed to be in the public domain or to which the museum otherwise waives any copyright it might have.

Use Google to search for royalty free images.

Data about The Met collection, including over 492,000 images of public-domain artworks, available for free and unrestricted use.

The National Gallery of Art has an open access policy for images of works of art in our permanent collection which the Gallery believes to be in the public domain. Images of these works are available for download free of charge for any use, whether commercial or non-commercial.

Browse through over 600 million items to reuse.

Search through thousands of royalty free images on Pexels. You can use all images for free, even for commercial use. All images are completely royalty free and licensed under the Pexels license. Use them for any project you want. This includes blogs, websites, apps, art or other commercial use cases.

Welcome to Smithsonian Open Access, where you can download, share, and reuse millions of the Smithsonian’s images—right now, without asking. With new platforms and tools, you have easier access to more than 3.9 million 2D and 3D digital items from our collections—with many more to come. This includes images and data from across the Smithsonian’s 19 museums, nine research centers, libraries, archives, and the National Zoo.

DOAJ (Directory of Open Access Journals) was launched in 2003 with 300 open access journals.

The MERLOT system provides access to curated online learning and support materials and content creation tools, led by an international community of educators, learners and researchers.

OER Commons is a public digital library of open educational resources. Explore, create, and collaborate with educators around the world to improve curriculum.

OER Commons is a public digital library of open educational resources. Explore, create, and collaborate with educators around the world to improve curriculum.

Discover the art of photography and film with online imaging, film, and animation courses.

Openly Available Sources Integrated Search (OASIS) is a search tool that aims to make the discovery of open content easier. OASIS currently searches open content from 114 different sources and contains 440,452 records.

Explore culture, conflict, and the things that make us human.

TED is a nonprofit devoted to spreading ideas, usually in the form of short, powerful talks (18 minutes or less). TED began in 1984 as a conference where Technology, Entertainment and Design converged, and today covers almost all topics — from science to business to global issues — in more than 100 languages. Meanwhile, independently run TEDx events help share ideas in communities around the world.