What is Oxford Art Online?

Oxford Art Online offers access to the most authoritative and scholarly online art resources that are available. Users can access or cross-search a number of Oxford art reference works: Grove Art Online, the Benezit Dictionary of Arts, the Encyclopaedia of Aesthetics, The Oxford Companion to Western Art and The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Art Terms.  Use the About page to discover more information about these reference works, such as descriptions, their key features and their editorial information.

How do I access Oxford Art Online?

Go to the E-Resources A-Z page, then if you’re in College, click the gold G, or for off-campus access click the green W. If you are off-campus, you’ll need to log in with your IT username and password.

Searching Oxford Art Online

You can either browse Oxford Art Online to get a feel for its content. Click on ‘All Content’ to see all the material it offers, then browse the content alphabetically, or refine by category or by specific reference work, e.g. Grove Art Online. However, you might want something specific, e.g. images or biographies, and you can browse by these as well. Images are copyright cleared and biographies are well researched and cited (thus offering a more academic alternative to Wikipedia), so you can feel confident about using them in your research.

You can also search Oxford Art Online. There is a basic search bar on each page, which will accept keywords and restrictions to Grove Art and/or Images.  For instance, you could use this to search for an image of Goya’s ‘Saturn’, or using Grove Art, you’ll also find an extensive biography of Goya.

The advanced search allows you to be more sophisticated. You can either search generally, or more specifically for images, biographies and bibliographies. You can search in specific reference works or refine by category.