The Grove Dictionary of Art Online provides Web access to the entire 34 volumes of print version of The Dictionary of Art (1996). Included in the online subscription is a link to the Bridgeman Art Library that contains 100,000+ images. Features include:

• 30,000+ links to color art images in galleries and museums around the world.
• 21,000+ biographies (artists, architects, writers, etc.)
• Multicultural scope: articles are written by 6,800+ contributors from 120 countries
• Extensive coverage of World Art: covers the civilization and cultures of Africa, Southeast Asia, Europe, South American, Ancient Rome, etc.

Note: Grove Dictionary is not a periodical index. Rather it is an electronic encyclopedia like Britannica. The term "article search" is somewhat misleading since it retrieves encyclopedic entries rather than articles.

Using the box provided at the top of the screen enter terms you'd expect to find in the article heading. Click on an article in the list to view it in full.

Example: Searching for retablo in an article search retrieves an encyclopedic entry:

Retable [Lat. retrotabulum: 'behind the altar'; Port.retabulo; Sp. retablo].

Image-bearing structure positioned behind the altar. In its broadest sense the term is interchangeable with ALTARPIECE, but it is used in this article to denote the type of altarpiece produced in Spain, Portugal and their colonies in the New World. Such retables are architectonic in form, usually of carved and polychrome wood (although sometimes made in other materials such as silver, alabaster and enamel)...

This is similar to using a controlled vocabulary search, i.e. subject headings, and more precise than a full-text search. However, the words you use may not appear in the article heading, in which case you'd get a zero result. If that happens, try a full-text search.

Use full-text searching to search the entire text of the dictionary for every mention of a word or phrase. Enter one or more terms placing quotation marks around a phrase, e.g. &wuot;Albrecht Durer."

In our example on retablo, a full-text search retrieves the encyclopedia article and mentions of retablos in other articles as in this example:

The retables that Huguet painted in Barcelona fitted perfectly into the aesthetic traditions of that city. The earliest documented example, the retablo mayor of St Anthony Abbot (1454) ...

A list of articles will be displayed. Click on the article title in the list to view the full text.

It is generally more effective to do a simple search, e.g. just O'Keeffe rather than "O'Keeffe and Stieglitz". Then, use the Related Articles or other links from the top gray navigation bar to find additional information. Also, you may select Image Links to directly link to images available on the Web.

Use the arrows at the right-hand side of the top gray navigation bar or, in a large article, move directly to a chosen section from the table of contents automatically displayed in the left-hand frame.

Use Control+F on your keyboard to display the Find pop-up box. Type in the term you wish to find to highlight it in the text of the article.

Groveart.com uses abbreviations for general terms, in bibliographies, and for locations of works of art. Access the lists of abbreviations by choosing the Find abbreviation box in the top gray navigation bar. Enter the abbreviation you wish to find and hit return. The selected term will be displayed with the full meaning. To re-display the article click on Back to Table of Contents.

Included in the Grove Dictionary of Art Online is the Bridgeman Art Library that contains over 100,000 images. At present these images are not integrated, but this is a goal of the partnership.

To search for images in Bridgeman, select it from the Home Page or click on Bridgeman in the top gray navigation bar. Once connected you will need to repeat your search in the boxes provided.

The searching software is not very sophisticated and works differently than Grovesart.com.

There are two ways to search Bridgeman Art Library, Simple and Advanced.

1. Simple Search - A free text search option that allows you to use any word, whether an artist's name, title of a work, or location. You can add as many words as you wish, leaving a space between each word.

   Note: The default display is 12 images at one time. Even if your results are zero, the display will say "display 12 images", even when nothing is actually displayed.

   You'll get a more precise result by combining terms using the operator "and". For example, a simple search on Post-impressionism retrieves approximately 396 images displayed on 12 pages, while a search on "post-impressionism and van gogh" retrieves only 4 images but is a more focused search result.

2. Advanced Search - Advanced search allows you to search for images within specific categories, such as title, artist, nationality, century, medium, location, keyword. Note: the keyword field in Advanced Search allows you to search on any descriptive words which have been applied to the work on the basis of the style and subject matter only. A keyword search on Paris will display only images of Paris (the city or the mythological figure). This differs from a Simple Search on Paris which will find all the images in Paris, of Paris and by any artists called Paris.

The Advanced Search option allows you to be more precise in your search results. However, in some cases, a quick search may be more successful. For example, if you type Michelangelo into the artist field, you will find many works by Caravaggio (whose first name is Michelangelo) and a few by Michelangelo himself. In many cases the artist's name is not added to the artist field. For a complete search, use the Simple Search option which searches the entire record of each work.

Use the advanced search if you are looking for a specific work of art. For example, completing these fields will retrieve the one image of Manet's Olympia:

Artist: Manet

Title: Olympia

Click on any image to bring up a larger image and full caption. You may print the images for personal use, but they may not be used for any commercial purposes. You may also sort your images by Artist, Title, Location, etc. by selecting the values from the pull down menus on the left.