Arts databases
The Bpi provides you with reviews, image databases, professional directories and dictionaries of artists covering all sectors of the arts: audiovisual, fine arts, dance, photography, theatre, cinema.
The Arts databases are classified into 4 sections:
How to access resources?
Click on the instructions for use to discover the meaning of the access pictograms next to the resources (accessible from Bpi computers, from wifi.bpi, from your home, etc.)
Arts and architecture
Oxford Art Online, entirely in English, includes a large part of the Oxford Press publishers’ offer in art history. There are many encyclopedias and the Grove Art Online database, specializing in all forms of Eastern and Western art from prehistory to the present day. As a bonus: many illustrations and links to the iconographic collections of museums.
Art and Architecture Source
Art and Architecture Source provides access to over 750 journals and 220 full-text books on the history of art and architecture. This site also includes a collection of over 63,000 images.
Le Corbusier Online
Find online all the titles written by Le Corbusier and published by Birkhäuser: an essential collection to better understand the theories of this great architect.
Living Arts
Performing Arts Database
This database is essential for exploring specialized performing arts journals, of which around a hundred are accessible in full text. All the living arts are represented: dance, drama, musical theatre, circus, puppet theatre, performance art…
Mascarille
Mascarille is a knowledge base dedicated to theatre: it includes the bibliography of many past and contemporary theater authors, as well as a review of works published on theatre.
Fashion
Berg Fashion Library
This site, entirely in English, allows you to find fashion ebooks and encyclopedias online, as well as a very rich selection of images from museum collections. Covering all continents through the centuries, the Berg Fashion Library contains a wealth of information on the history of fashion, which crosses fields as diverse as anthropology, art history, folklore, design …
Vogue archive
Vogue Archive is the complete archive of American Vogue magazine, digitized in color, covering more than a hundred years of trends in the world of fashion through the lens of famous photographers. Each cover, photograph, advertisement has been indexed very precisely, which allows for very detailed research! A mine for the history of fashion!
Ebooks and articles in arts
The Benezit, entirely in English, is a dictionary with nearly 170,000 biographies of artists regardless of their field: there is a description of their life, a detailed list of their works, and a bibliography. It covers all periods from Antiquity to the present day.
The Benezit also reproduces more than 11,000 signatures, artists’ monograms and sales stamps to facilitate the identification of works of art.
Numérique Premium
Numérique Premium is a platform of digital books with numerous works concerning the history of art: one can find there sums on artistic currents, several monographs of artists as well as memoirs of artists of the 20th century.
Our advice: after creating a personal account at the Bpi, these digital books can be found remotely from your home!
OpenEdition
OpenEdition is a platform in the humanities and social sciences with an important corpus in art history: find many ebooks and journal articles in theatre, architecture, dance…
Cairn
Cairn contains many articles, ebooks and Que Sais-Je to deepen your knowledge of art history or cultural policies
Bibliovox
Bibliovox is a multidisciplinary ebook platform with the latest in art history. All this content can be found at home after creating an account at the Bpi!
Encyclopaedia Universalis
Do you want to learn more about artistic trends and forms? Encyclopaedia Universalis is there for you with hundreds of short and verified instructions to deepen your knowledge!
Ulrich’s Web
With Ulrich’s Web, you can have a state of the art of all the reviews published in Art in France and abroad since their date of publication. Many journals freely available on the Internet are also listed.
