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ART 183 (Hamilton): Searching for Images

Keyword Search

Search for a keyword such as “dress” or “bowl.”  You can then filter your results by geography, classification, and date--or search within your results for additional terms to further narrow your results.

Screen shot of Artstor page showing results list of image thumbnails with options for limiting or narrowing the list.

Advanced Search

The advanced search is very effective when you know what you are looking for.  You can enter an artist’s name or the title of a specific work, and choose the appropriate label in the pull down menu next to your entry. For example, if I searched for Frida Kahlo, I would select "creator" from the pull down menu.

If you are looking for works from a specific period and location, you can conduct an advanced search without keywords and limit by date, geography, and classification. For example, if you are looking for paintings from the Italian Renaissance, you could conduct the following search:

Screen shot of Artstor advanced search showing options for constructing a search.

The search results will include all the paintings in Artstor created by Italian artists between 1400 and 1600. You can link to your search results by copying the URL for the search from your browser's address bar. The URL for this search would be: http://library.artstor.org/#/search/*;startDate=1400;endDate=1600;geography=1000080;classification=401010

Search Tips

 You can limit your search to specific data fields such as title, creator, material, and culture using the dropdown menu to the right of each search term. 

  • Search for multiple terms (bombay OR mumbai) (puppies AND kittens) using the dropdown menus to the left of each search term.
  • Use quotations ("civil war") to search for exact phrases.
  • Geography always refers to a creator's country of birth, except for architecture/built environment images, which are based on geographic location.
  • Use wildcards to broaden your search: ​Asterisk wildcard: "trap*" returns results for trap, trapping, trapper, trappist; Question mark wildcard: "advis?r" returns results for adviser and advisor.