Introducing Artstor’s AP® Art History Teaching Resources
Jacques-Louis David | The Oath of the Horatii | 1784 | Musée du Louvre | Image and original data provided by Réunion des Musées Nationaux / Art Resource, N.Y.; artres.com
Artstor’s AP® Art History Teaching Resources support the revised Curriculum Framework for the Advanced Placement® Art History course. The image groups and accompanying essays will eventually cover all 250 key works of art and architecture required for AP® Art History courses. Along with the Digital Library’s 1.8 million images, the project enhances classroom teaching in preparation for the AP® exam and provides support for anyone teaching these works of art.
Senior K-12 Relationship Manager Dana Howard, an experienced Art History teacher, has been leading the team creating the project.
James Conlon | The Great Mosque of Djenne, South façade, exterior | image: 2008 | Djenne, Mali | for commercial use or publication, please contact: Media Center for Art History, Columbia University. Email: mediacenter at columbia dot edu
Exploring the rich resources of the Artstor Digital Library for images that fit seamlessly within the revised curriculum has been really fun work. I often come across an image or a detail that is so helpful to my understanding of a particular work of art that I see the work fresh and wish I could rush back into the classroom and teach it again. Eventually we will create an image set around each of the 250 key monuments prescribed in the revised AP® Art History Curriculum Framework, but we started with this mix of old friends and perhaps new works to give you an idea of what the Artstor Digital Library has to offer.
Images of these monuments are in the title folder in each set, accompanied by brief essays and links to other Web-based resources that can help both the teacher and the student develop a deeper understanding of the work. From there, the set spreads out to include related works along thematic lines, within the same time period or movement, and influences on the artist or movement. The sets are searchable, so you can easily find featured content on a particular works of art.
Maya | Yaxchilán lintel 25 | Kerr Archive; mayavase.com
Instructors can further explore the many resources in the Artstor Digital Library with these image groups as a starting point. Individual works can be copied to a user’s own image group to build a lecture for PowerPoint download, or the groups can be assigned for students to use either in Flashcard mode on their mobile device or as homework.
As we have built these groups, the richness of the Artstor Digital Library has often astounded me. For example, I found a Louis Khan drawing of the Mortuary Temple of Hatshepsut, a set of beautiful vintage interior photographs of the Houses of Parliament, and QuickTime Virtual Reality (QTVR) panoramas of the Paris Opera House. Finding these gems and including them for users in these image groups has been incredibly rewarding.
This project is just getting started. Check this blog for updates.
Nabataean | Petra; ed-Dir (ad Deir) | 3rd cent. BCE-1st cent. CE | Petra | Image and original data provided by Erich Lessing Culture and Fine Arts Archives/ART RESOURCE, N.Y.; artres.com