Library Guides: Art & Design Foundations: Inspiration

Inspiration Resources

Leonardo da Vinci
Leonardo da Vinci began his career around 1472 in Florence as a portrait painter. This program examines ten elements in da Vinci’s The Virgin, the Infant Jesus, and Saint Anne: darkness and light, volume and color, figure and setting, distance, proximity, movement, and rest.
Renaissance Art
A brief segment on art of renaissance in Florence, Italy. From the program, "Florence: Heart of the Renaissance"

Claude Monet: Vol 2 by Nathalia Brodskaïa; Nina Kalitina
Publication Date: 2015
eBook
With Impression, Sunrise, exhibited in 1874, Claude Monet (1840-1926) took part in the creation of the Impressionist movement that introduced the 19th century to modern art.
Monet by Parkstone Press Staff
Publication Date: 2010
eBook
A beautiful display of Impressionist work, Mega the Registrars/Student Services Dept Monet explores the extraordinary paintings of one of the masters of 19th century. Monet's rapid brushstroke style in landscapes from everyday life illustrates his overall fascination with light and colour.
Claude Monet by Nina Kalitina
Publication Date: 2011
eBook
For Monet, the act of creation was always a painful struggle. His obsession to express emotions and to transmit light effects over nature was much more intense than his contemporaries.
Impressionism and Post-Impressionism by Nathalia Brodskaïa
Publication Date: 2018
eBook
Impressionism is the most famous artistic movement. But what appears today as a charming and exquisite landscape painting, was actually one of the first avant-garde movements whose members had decided to fight the values of traditional art.

Monet: The Impressionists, with Tim Marlow
The program explores the life and works of the great painter Claude Monet, who is often described as the founding figure of the Impressionist movement. It looks at how the Impressionist movement was formed and how its members shocked the establishment by breaking away from the traditional old style of painting.

Pablo Picasso (1881-1973) - Volume 1 by Victoria Charles; Anatoli Podoksik
Publication Date: 2018
eBook
For many people, Pablo Picasso (1881-1973) was undoubtedly the most important artist of the 20th century. Born in Málaga, Spain, Picasso revealed his genius at a very early age and was quick to make contact with the most advanced art circles of his time, first in Barcelona and later in Paris.
Pablo Picasso Masterworks - Volume 2 by Victoria Charles; Anatoli Podoksik
Publication Date: 2018
eBook
In the modernist quest for novelty, Picasso turned to pre-modern history and primitive art for inspiration. We owe him and his colleague Georges Braque the invention of Cubism, not just one of many avant-garde movements but the aesthetic that would change the art of painting forever.
Cubism by Guillaume Apollinaire; Dorothea Eimert
Publication Date: 2010
eBook
Transforming natural forms into cylinders and cubes, painters like Juan Gris and Robert Delaunay, driven by Braque and Picasso, imposed a new vision upon the world, in total opposition to the principles of the Impressionists.

Fernand Leger—The Greatest Painters of the World
Fernand Léger was born in Normandy, but moved to Paris to study at the Ecole des Arts Décoratifs. His first paintings were influenced by Impressionism, and later focused on mechanical elements that enabled him to render modern life.
Landscape: The Invention of Nature - Cubism
A brief video segment analyzing Georges Braque's "Houses at L'Estaque"

Pop Art and Design by Anne Massey; Alex Seago
Publication Date: 2017
eBook
This book offers the first in-depth analysis of the relationship between art and design, which led to the creation of 'pop'.
Andy Warhol and the Can That Sold the World by Gary Indiana
Publication Date: 2010
eBook
In the summer of 1962, Andy Warhol unveiled 32 Soup Cans in his first solo exhibition at the Ferus Gallery in Los Angeles,and sent the art world reeling. The exhibition put Warhol on the map,and transformed American culture forever.

How Pop Art Changed the World
Explore the ideas, materials, colors and technologies adopted by Pop Art. Then, examine how this movement created new images, shapes and forms that continue to influence artists and designers today.
Soup Cans and Superstars
Alastair Sooke champions Pop Art as one of the most important art forms of the 20th century, peeling back Pop’s frothy, ironic surface to reveal an art style full of subversive wit and radical ideas. He brings a fresh eye to the work of Pop Art superstars Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein.

Art Incorporated by Julian Stallabrass
Publication Date: 2005
eBook
Monochrome: Darkness and Light in Contemporary Art by Craig Staff
Publication Date: 2015
eBook
The Psychology of Contemporary Art by Gregory Minissale
Publication Date: 2013
eBook
'The Psychology of Contemporary Art' brings together the most important developments in recent scientific research on visual perception and will be of interest to artists and art historians, as well as those interested in a deeper understanding of contemporary art.

Street Art
In this eye-opening program we speak to eight members of Melbourne's thriving street art scene. Through their stories we look at Melbourne's street art and the contribution of street art and graffiti to art and society around the world.
The Bansky Effect: Revolutionizing Humanitarian Protest Art
Harvard International Review, Spring 2019
The article discusses the influence of the street artist Banksy in relation to social and politics aspects of graffiti. Topics include art by Banksy about issues related to migration and the Syrian refugee crisis, the role of Banksy's anonymous identity in the reception of his work, and the relation of street art to social change.