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Artstor Digital Library: Asian Studies

A quick start guide to Artstor's key features

This page highlights Artstor content related to the history and culture of Asia as illustrated by works of art and architecture, from traditional forms to contemporary works, as well as photographs of historical events and figures.

Curated Image Groups

​Artstor's Education and Content teams curate groups of images in a number of disciplines. The below image groups are available for Asian studies:

You can save these groups as your own and modify them by opening a group, logging in to your registered Artstor account, selecting "Organize" from the top menu, and then "Save image group as..." To add or remove images, open your copy of the group and begin editing.

Did you know?

Artstor shares several collections that document important religious sites and architecture throughout Asia. These include: the Mellon International Dunhuang Archive (Buddhist cave shrines in Dunhuang, China); Shuilu’an Temple (Northwestern University)(Buddhist sculpture at Shuilu’an Temple in Lantian, China); Deepanjana Danda Klein and Arno Klein: Cave Temples at Ellora, India (Buddhist, Hindu, and Jain cave shrines in Ellora, India); Beyond the Taj: Architectural Traditions and Landscape Experience in South Asia (Cornell University Library); and Getty Research Institute: Carl and Jennifer Strom: Korean Buddhist Monasteries. For the Dunhuang caves and Shuilu-an Temple, Artstor offers scholars and students unique visual documentation of the sites with high resolution digital photography and 360-degree virtual reality panoramas.

Search Tips

Browse by geography to choose countries in Asia, then choose a classification (e.g. Paintings, Sculpture, etc.).

Browse collections specializing in Asian art (e.g. Southeast Asia Visions: John M. Echols Collection), or browse museums with encyclopedic collections (e.g. The Metropolitan Museum of Art) by classification, then by countries in Asia.

Use the asterisk (*) when keyword searching to truncate your terms and retrieve variant endings (e.g. buddh* will retrieve buddha, buddhist, buddhism, etc.

Suggested Search Terms

Try these sample search terms to find images related to Asian studies. Don't forget to use the search filters to narrow your results.