"Research is the process of going up alleys to see if they are blind."
—Marston Bates

Searches in the field of art research may involve multiple online databases, so trying to program a search according to the fields each database assigns requires too much peripheral information and time. Upon reflection the analogous question becomes, "Is it better to spend time preparing and improving swim techniques — OR — to spend time on memorizing the pool dimensions, depths, and hours of operation for all the different swimming pools I might use?" 

The optimum process requires understanding the function of the needed and given information before taking action. Howard S. Becker, in his wonderful book on the process of research, Tricks of the Trade: How to Think About Your Research While You're Doing It (University of Chicago Press, 1998, p. 44), writes, "Making activities the starting point focuses analysis on the situation the activity occurs in, and on all the connections what you are studying has with all the other things around it, with its context." Such connections for art researchers are precisely essential to the better terminology, more accurate querying, and higher-quality retrievals.

The "science" of online art research lies in organizing the facts about an artwork, by asking a few simple, easily remembered "connection questions" first from the client's standpoint and then from the resource standpoint. 

• Who is/was the artist, or client or subject?
• What is/was the medium, technique used?
• When in time does/did the artist live, create the artwork, die?
• Where does /did the artist live while creating this artwork?
• Why is/was this artwork created?
• How much is it worth, as in asking price, value, actual sales price?

Apply the same connection questions to the source side of the equation. Programming the search will help to identify the type of information needed, but the next step is to identify the appropriate sources. Optimal sources are those that gather the information, maintain it for their own needs primarily, and then secondarily allow others access to it for free or for a fee. By asking the connection questions you will have a better view of the possible sources for the information you're seeking.

Typical Client "Connection Questions"

Who (image search, museum/collection search, auction /sales search, provenance search) "I have an image and I don't know who painted it."  "I need to find out whose portrait this is." "I need to find out who owns the copyright on this painting." What (museum/collection search, auction/sales search) "I know the name of the artwork, the artist, and where it is now, but I need to know if it was painted on vellum, paper, wood, canvas, or glass, etc."  "I need to find out if it was ever included as a plate or illustration in a book."  "I need to find Baroque paintings of flowers." When (museum/collection search, auction/sales search) "I need to find when this painting was painted (period, style, actual date)." "I need to find out if this artwork was painted during the artist's "blue period.'" Where (auction/sales search, exhibition catalogue/catalogue raisonnes, provenance search)  "I need to find the current location of a certain painting."  "I need to find out who owns the copyright." (First it will be necessary to find out where the artwork resides.)  "I need to compile a list of all the owners of an artwork (provenance)."  Why (museum/collection search, exhibition catalogue/catalogue raisonnes) "I need to understand the choice of medium for these specific years (during which there happened to be a war that limited certain supplies or perhaps the artist acquired a wealthy patron and improved the quality of their art supplies, etc.)  "I need to find out if Vincent van Gogh made a living by selling his paintings." How (auction/sales search) "I need to find out how much this painting sold for 20 years ago." "I need to find the current value of a painting."

Source "Connection Questions"

Who = Who collects and uses information of this type? Private and public individuals and entities such as collectors, appraisers, dealers, auction houses, museums, companies, libraries, universities, designers, architects, companies, investment and tax consultants, researchers, database aggregators, publishers, and so on. What = What information do these entities make accessible — for free or for fee — to the public? In what forms — CD-ROM, print, microfiche, online, or a combination of several? What subjects do these entities specialize in? When = From what date to what dates do the records in this reference source cover? When and how often is the source updated? Where = From where do these entities get their information? Has this information been a part of another database or reference source in the past? Why = Why do these entities obtain the information? Do they use it for education, display, investment, collection, administration, or just for a tax shelter? How = Does the source buy, donate, or sell art? With public and/or private money?

Art Research Source Information Flow

The Art research process, graphically represented.

Depending upon search priorities, a starting point might require different databases — a museum collection rather than an image library, a provenance database, a timeline filled in with each painting sold at auction, or all source types in various combinations. What you retrieve may require a reorganization of priorities, given the high fluidity of online art resources. 

"A line is a dot that went for a walk." —Paul Klee

The comparison of retrievals from browsing improves the mental sifting needed to evaluate the most likely sources according to the connection questions. This activity is the mental equivalent of "priming the pump" — getting enough pressure to raise water from the deepest well. A scan for interesting resources in the retrieval citations might provide the client with the information they need and leave nothing more than the verification to complete. But for more complex or illusive searches, this is a good time to get familiar with the contextual settings of the artist and his or her work, along with the type and quality of information likely to be found. 

At this point the search is like dipping your toes in the water of a broad reflecting pool that's only one-half-inch deep. The "facts" provided by the client may well be accurate — but you need to verify them. Caution, reflection, and attention to details are all good habits, even when verifying the target information at Web sites of the most reputable museum, library, or university collections. Verify the spelling of names, geographic locations, titles of paintings, and dates, whenever possible. Additional languages and alternative spellings of artists' names and even of everyday words, such as watercolor (American English) and watercolour (British English), will provide more target term options. Watch for any discrepancies in spelling, in dates, in any of the information the client gave you. If you find any such discrepancies, note them and re-check sources before going on to other reputable sites. Finding any differences doesn't necessarily indicate fraud, but the field of art research always involves concerns about authenticity.

In a recent search, I found that some databases/Web sites/collections place the Dutch 17th century as part of the Baroque period, while others consider it part of the Renaissance, making those terms more troublesome. So, while the term "17th" will enable me to narrow within a search, I will not use the terms "Renaissance" or "Baroque" except within certain directories and indexes which require such a choice to drill down for the artists' name. At that point, it's easiest to choose one, e.g., Baroque, take a quick look at the dates, and, if necessary, go to the other. As to searching exact dates, since the artist in my example — Pieter Withoos — is rather obscure and the client requested information doesn't require it, I won't use the birth-death dates — 1654-1693 — except for verification.

"Art washes from the soul the dust of everyday life." 
—Pablo Picasso

Unverified facts can lead to confusion when there are different language versions of the same item, such as the title of a painting by the 17th century Dutch artist, Alida Withoos, "A Forest Floor Still Life with Various Flowers." The same painting image can also carry the title, "Blumen in Einem Waldgrund." Given that the online image is obviously the same, and even with a rudimentary knowledge of German, one can easily verify a translation has occurred. But which one is the original? Is one a translation provided at an auction? A verification or clarification might be in order.

"The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious."
—Albert Einstein

Multilingual terminology can encompass varying nationalities, disciplines, and alternative descriptions and provide additional depth to primary search terms. The selection of languages as well as the terminology is part of structuring the query that increasingly requires more time. Partly driven by the use of two or more languages and partly by interdisciplinary searching, terms can make or break a research project with too much complexity or not enough. For help, try a good thesaurus directory such as the subject-arranged Web Thesaurus Compendium [http://www.darmstadt.gmd.de-
/~lutes/thesoecd.html].

Upon finding several of Pieter Withoos' artwork titles in French, German, and English, I decided to try a key term in those and Dutch language versions of search engines. Using the German version, I retrieved a stunning new auction site in English ­ the Gabrius Auction databank [http://www.gabriusdatabank.com] — with some images hidden from any English-language-only Web search engine.

"Imagination will often carry us to worlds that never were. But without it, we go nowhere." 
—Carl Sagan, Cosmos

Visual art — graphic and fine — is one of the purest forms of communication in that it transcends verbal language barriers. Many times, it forms the only and the deepest connection with the artists themselves. The artists' interpretations hold intensely powerful and subtle views of history, styles, music, architecture, wars, politics, love, pressures, joys, and beliefs of their time. Viewing the image provides a lot of visual clues for alternative keywords as well as the "scent of the hunt" for those inevitable moments when you have to struggle to find anything in database after database. 

In many image searches, the artist's last name is the primary term to search on or find via an index, e.g., "Withoos." The importance of the artist's name in any image search dictates that several configurations be tried: the last name followed by a comma and the first name, e.g., "Withoos, Pieter" or even "Withoos, P.," as well as the modern first name then last name order, e.g., "Pieter Withoos." If you can't locate the specific artwork image, then look at similar works by the same artist, on the same subject if possible (e.g., landscapes, portraits, etc.), and in the same medium — to get a sense of the artist's style. An outside possibility exists that the first name is misspelled, e.g., "Peter" not "Pieter," and that approach too might be worth a quick search.

"Art teaches nothing, except the significance of life." 
—Henry Miller

Strictly as an art query, your best approach is to focus upon the more unusual and prioritize accordingly: name (if it's unusual as in the example "Withoos" rather than "Smith"), then century (17th), then nationality (Dutch), then type of artwork (study) or movement (such as Impressionism). In the example, the artwork title of study indicates the picture might have been included in a book or mentioned in botanical works, so a comprehensive search would also cover botany and botany-related databases, as well as art-related databases.

Searching on the specific artwork title subject, e.g., "study" and "gourds" or "drawing," "painting," "watercolour," "watercolor," will help retrieve a list of artwork citations. The interdisciplinary search terms in the example are botanical and botany-related such as "illustration" (as opposed to the art term "drawing" or "painting") and "kalebas," "mergpompoenen," "cucurbit," and "gourd." Using botanical terms, I find that Pieter Withoos is the "author" of a book that consists of plant drawings and paintings. Due to the artist's life dates, it is likely that the book production involved hand tinting, which would greatly reduce the number of printed copies and any online access to individual prints or plates. 

"No amount of skillful invention can replace the essential element of imagination." 
—Edward Hopper

Ironic, but an absolute must-have resource for doing online art searches is a book by Lois Swan Jones, Art Information and the Internet: How to Find It, How to Use It (Oryx Press, 1999, Phoenix, Arizona). It is an excellent, highly organized resource, and the publisher provides a Web site where you can find updates for the untold numbers of URLs in her extensive book. 

Part of the difficulty of art research stems from the awesome quantity and quality of art sources online from art directories and indexes to museum collections and provenance databases. It's such a delight to virtually "visit the Louvre" or the "Met," to "see a world in a grain of sand and a heaven in a wild flower," as William Blake wrote in his "Auguries of Innocence." Priceless too are the location histories of each work taken by the Nazis that are now finding their way back to the owners through searchable provenance and spoliation databases. 

Just a word on the giant subjects of provenance, provenience, and spoliation sources. Provenance (or provenience — a rarely used derivative) is the result of research to prove the past right and legal ownership and locations of an artwork with the goal of establishing the value and authenticity of an artwork or of restoring the artwork to the authentic owner and/or their heirs. The latter form of provenance research is mandated by law in many nations in efforts to rectify the billions of dollars' worth of artwork looted from Jews by the Nazis in World War II, which was then illegally "gifted" or sold to museums, collections, galleries, universities, libraries, religious institutions, and individuals around the world. Spoliation, meaning "the spoils of war," is a term used primarily in European art museum, collection, or research databases, as an alternative to the terms "provenance" or "provenience." 

Major museums such as the Getty, the Met, the Frick, and so on have searchable provenance databases at their Web sites. UNESCO has a project underway to post international laws "governing the control of cultural property" for museums, collectors, dealers, and customs officials at the Web site [http://www.Invaluable.com], as well as international sources of information and links to databases. The United States National Archives [http://www.nara.gov] has information on provenance research and principles with special coverage for the Holocaust era. 

Finding artworks can put a surprising strain on a searcher's inventiveness. Licensed artwork sources can extend from botanical books to stamps to dinner plates, as well as traditional sources such as museums, galleries, and collections in universities. One good way to assess critically the veracity of an online art source is to consider what the source would risk if their information on an artwork were incorrect. 

Before the final searches commence, the list of interdisciplinary sources needs to be prioritized with the idea of going from the broadest to the narrowest. Due to a widely disparate overlapping of online searchable fields and collection depths, the more optimum general approach is to focus on the auction — sales catalog sites, provenance sites, and image galleries. If the preliminary search retrieves citations for major museums, galleries, or specialized collections, these would qualify for the next tier of databases to search.

"We live in a beautiful and orderly world, not in a chaos without norms, even though this is how it sometimes appears." 
—M. C. Escher

"What good are computers? They can only give you answers."
—Pablo Picasso

Note: All the artist quotes used appear on http://www2.wcoil.com/~mdecker/quotes.htm.