Research Guides: Art: Primary Sources

Primary vs Secondary Sources

Primary sources are first hand accounts or direct evidence created by a witness about an event, object, or person, including:

Historical Artists

Artwork (painting, sculpture, print, performance piece, etc.)
Journals, Diaries, and Autobiographies
Correspondence or Letters

Contemporary Artists

Interviews and Speeches
Photographs
Recordings (audio or visual)
Artist Created website

Secondary sources interpret and analyze a primary source. Secondary sources typically use quotes and reference primary sources and original pieces of art, including:

Biographies
Commentaries and Criticisms (print, online, or in documentaries)
Reviews

St. Ambrose University Library

Primary Resources in Databases
Primary Resource Online

Stories Of The Italian Artists From Vasari (1908)
Published around 1550, Vasari wrote some of the first biographies of many famous Italian artists. This is the 1913 English translation by E. L. Seeley. Vasari is an important resource because he knew some of the artists personally, and at least lived during the same era as many of the others. He is particularly proud of his friendship with Michelangelo, but he never met many of the artists and is content to tell legends about them that he heard second-hand.
Artists' Books Online
An online repository of facsimiles, metadata, and criticism. From University of Virginia.
Digital Scriptorium
An image database of medieval and renaissance manuscripts that unites scattered resources from many institutions into an international tool for teaching and scholarly research. Presently viewable on the DS website are records for 5,300 manuscripts and for 24,300 images.
Online Archive of California (OAC)
Provides free public access to detailed descriptions of primary resource collections maintained by more than 150 contributing institutions including libraries, special collections, archives, historical societies and museums throughout California.


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