The Art History Web Book

Now there’s a nice alter­na­tive to the tra­di­tion­al, expen­sive art his­to­ry text­book. The folks at smARThis­to­ry have cre­at­ed a free mul­ti-media web-book that offers a dynam­ic sur­vey of art his­to­ry. The online resource com­bines tra­di­tion­al images with audio and videos, and the beau­ty is that you don’t have to read this web-book in a lin­ear fash­ion. Rather, you can sort through things by time peri­od, style and artist and find the infor­ma­tion that you want. In case you’re won­der­ing about the cred­i­bil­i­ty of this resource, it does­n’t hurt to men­tion that one of its founders, Beth Har­ris, is the Direc­tor of Dig­i­tal Learn­ing at the Muse­um of Mod­ern Art in New York City, and the oth­er, Steven Zuck­er, is Dean of the School of Grad­u­ate Stud­ies at the Fash­ion Insti­tute of Tech­nol­o­gy, part of the State Uni­ver­si­ty of New York. Have a look.