Art
Where can I find information about the visual arts?
(Years 11-13)
Image: Various Used Wooden Paintbrushes by dejankrsmanovic on Wikimedia Commons.
Entry last updated: 10/07/25
Introduction
The visual arts are types of arts you can see. Some types of visual art are painting, drawing, video, crafts, photography, as well as physical objects like ceramics, sculpture, and architecture. Many performing arts make use of different types of visual art, too.
Visual Art
These websites have general information about visual art or techniques and theory.
This is one of the EPIC databases. EPIC is a collection of reliable databases covering lots of different topics. It’s put together especially for New Zealand school students and helps to answer questions like this.
First, enter your password.
Then enter your keywords to start searching.
Your keywords can be as simple as the word 'art', which which lead you to the main article about Art.
This article gives you a great introduction to what art is, and it links to many other art topics to explore.
Tips: To get to the EPIC resources you will need a password from your school librarian first. Or you can chat with one of our AnyQuestions librarians between 1 and 6pm Monday to Friday and they will help you online. Some EPIC databases may also be available through your public library.
Tips: Search words, or keywords, are the most important words in our question. You can leave out small words like ‘the’ and ‘of’ and just choose the main ones, eg painting. We can always change our keywords or add more if we need to.
This part of the BBCs website is aimed at school students in the UK to help with school work and exam revision. The videos will not work in New Zealand, but you can still use the articles and information.
Select Secondary.
Under England choose GCSE.
Go to Art and Design and any of the exam boards eg OCR.
This has information about different Techniques and Materials, Portfolio, Elements of Art, and Principles of Design.
Tips: Websites that have .com or .co in the address can have good information, but you need to assess how reliable it is. Check the About us link on the website, if you can find one. That can tell you what the company’s mission and values are. The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is the world's oldest public broadcasting organisation and we like it because it is reliable.
This website is a source of educational resources, including videos. It comes from a public television network in the USA.
Go to the Subjects menu. Under The Arts choose Visual Art.
Use the Filter to choose grades 9-12.
You can also narrow the results by topics such as Visual Art Creation and Participation,
Visual Art Media, Visual Art Forms, Elements and Principles of Design in Visual Art
and more.
Choose a topic to watch videos and find handouts.
This is an educational show for high school and university level students. Each video includes sources for where the information came from.
Go to Courses.
Look through the courses for something relevant eg Art History or Film Production.
Then choose a video to watch.
Art History
The history of art goes back to the very first art ever made by prehistoric humans, such as rock art, cave paintings or objects such as sculptures.
Art history is broken up into different periods. There are a huge number of periods that span the whole world, and each period can be split into many different styles. Here are some that you might come across:
Prehistoric Art: The oldest form or art we know. This includes palaeolithic and neolithic art.
Ancient Art: This includes art from ancient cultures all over the world.
Renaissance Art: This covers the 14th, 15th and 16th centuries in Europe.
Modern Art: This is art that comes from around the 1860s till the 1970s.
Contemporary Art: Sometimes this is known as the art of today, but also includes the recent past. This usually means art made in the second half of the 20th century up till today.
Have a look at these websites to find out more about the history of art.
This is another one of the EPIC databases. Oxford Art Online is one of the best databases to use to find articles about every kind of visual art.
To find information about the history of art on this website, there are many options. Have a look through these and see which one suits you best:
Once you have logged in, have a look at the different options along the top of the page.
If you select Field, you can then choose different eras from the history of art, for example
Prehistoric Art, Greek/Roman Art, Medieval Art, Renaissance/Baroque Art, and lots more.
If you select Medium, you can choose the option Art History and Theory.
If you select Eras, you can choose different time periods through history.
Each of these choices will give you a long list of articles. Have a look at the filters down the side of your results page to help you narrow the options down.
Tips: To get to the EPIC resources you will need a password from your school librarian first. Or you can chat with one of our AnyQuestions librarians between 1 and 6pm Monday to Friday and they will help you online. Some EPIC databases may also be available through your public library.
On this website, you can explore the history of art through artifacts from the Met Museum, which is also known as the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Look down the page and choose Chronologies. This is where you can see how art and culture has evolved from prehistory to the present.
Selecting each of the date ranges will give you a list of different regions of the world or cultures to explore.
Tips: Websites that have .org in the address can have good information, but you need to assess how reliable it is. Check the About us link on the website, if you can find one. That can tell you what the organisation’s mission and values are. We like this resource because it is put together by a museum, so we know the information will be well researched and reliable.
This page is part of the Arts and Humanities section of Khan Academy and is like a virtual textbook on the history of art. You can ignore any requests to donate or sing up.
Go to to the topics under Start here for a good introduction to art history.
Look down further to find different periods of art history, such as
Ancient Mediterranean art, Medieval Europe art, Islamic art, all the way through to the present day.
Tips: Websites that have .org or .net in the address can have good information, but you need to assess how reliable it is. Check the About link on the website, if you can find one. That can tell you what the organisation’s mission and values are.
Art in New Zealand
Aotearoa New Zealand has a long history of visual arts. Have a look through these websites to find out more.
Te Ara: The Encyclopedia of New Zealand
Te Ara is an excellent starting point for all questions about New Zealand Aotearoa. If we look down to the bottom of the page, we can see that the website belongs to the Ministry for Culture & Heritage, so the information is well-researched and reliable.
Look down the page till you find the section Creative and Intellectual Life.
Then choose Visual Arts.
Here you can find information about different kinds of visual art including Māori art such as rock art, weaving and tukutuku, and whakairo - carving.
Or enter your keywords into the search box and browse through the results.
NZ History is a great website for information about New Zealand Aotearoa. If we go all the way down the page we can see that the website belongs to the Ministry for Culture & Heritage, so the information is well-researched and reliable.
First choose Culture and Society.
Next, choose The arts and entertainment.
Then you can have a look through the different headings for topics like History of New Zealand painting and History of New Zealand photography.
Tips: We like sites like this because they’re reliable. You can tell because of their web address – they have either .govt or .ac, meaning they are from government or educational organisations. They’re also New Zealand sites, so relevant for us.
Te Papa is Aotearoa New Zealand's national museum located in Wellington. On their website you can find an online collection of artworks from throughout our history.
Select Discover the Collections, near the top of the page.
Then select Collections Online.
Now you can search the collection for all sorts of objects, images and information about the art in Te Papa.
The librarians at Christchurch City Libraries have put together information and resources about Toi Māori (traditional Māori art) and Waka toi (contemporary Māori art).
From the library homepage, select Explore along the top of the page.
Then choose Te Ao Māori.
Look at the blue headings under the introduction and choose Arts and Music.
Then you can follow the link to Māori Arts and Music.
Tips: Websites that have .com or .co in the address can have good information, but you need to assess how reliable it is. Check the About us link on the website, if you can find one. That can tell you what the company’s mission and values are. We like this website because all the information is researched by librarians.
Books
Have a look at some of these books about art, or ask your school or public librarian for more recommendations.
Art history 101 ... without the exams : looking closely at objects from the history of art by Annie Montgomery Labatt
Art theory : a very short introduction by Cynthia A Freeland
The artist project : what artists see when they look at art by the Metropolitan Museum of Art
Themes of contemporary art : visual art after 1980 by Jean Robertson and Craig McDaniel
ART = : discovering infinite connections in art history by the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Gwen Roginsky, Rachel High, Rebecca Morrill, Diane Fortenberry
