Dear  Fellow Bloggers

Okay, so that sort of worked. Here are some visual arts websites that you may find helpful:

http://www.getty.edu/

This site has lesson plans and resources for teachers. Some of their lessons relate to the collection at the museum, others are more versatile. It is pretty interesting.

http://www.getty.edu/art/exhibitions/merian/

This one is about an exhibit with images by Maria Sybilla Merian, a 17^th century artist and explorer who was also a naturalist. Her discoveries that she documented in her paintings showed the full life cycles of insects for the first time. Prior to her work people were unaware of the metamorphosis that insects go through. She is a good artist to use for the Enduring Idea of Life Cycles.

http://artlex.com/

This is a site with a dictionary of art terms that could be very helpful for folks not too familiar with art and artists. There are sections or links to various modern art styles as well as to resources.

http://www.theartstory.org

This is also about modern art styles with time lines and links to artists. I liked the brief biographical essays with options for more information.

http://www.artcyclopedia.com/

After you find the name of an artist and want either more information or more images of his/her work, try this site. You need to start with a name, or title of a work of art. There are awesome links to museum collections all over the world.

http://arthistoryresources.net/ARTHLinks.html

This is my all time favorite art history research site. It covers art from pre-history to contemporary times, world wide cultures and includes research links. There is a section on photography. You need some art background to navigate it if you are looking for something specific. There is a search box on the home age that I thought would allow me to search for topics within the website. But it sent me back out to Google so that was a disappointment. 

I think that the best way to find visual artists for a specific topic, theme or enduring idea is to do a general web search, for example, "Mural artists" or "Installation artists" and then you will get probably more information than you want. Once you get to that stage, narrow it down, "Mexican muralists" or "art installations 2000 - 2014"  and then you will get some names that you can put into the artcyclopedia or arthistoryresources...  

Sincerely yours,
Dikka Rian