The Reading Images Project

Site Map

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The Internet is an ideal device for giving students the tools to understand images.  At present this website takes a single painted image (Raphael's School of Athens, in the Vatican, chosen for its historical importance and art-historical richness) and links students to a wide variety of ways that one may "read" it. 

The Reading Images Website presents the works of art as a whole, as well as in details, and suggests multiple ways of interpreting them, based on the art-historical tradition.

Goals

• to give students access to the multiple ways one may investigate a work of art, whether or not they have taken an art-history class
• to exmaine art in a collaborative manner with professionals (i.e., academics) and amateurs (i.e., students) in the field
• to demonstrate the potential of the World Wide Web to accomplish certain teaching and learning skills more effectively than books can

As a public document on the Web, Reading Images is not  restricted to classes in Art  History. The site is a useful tool for any professor in the humanities to use both as an out-of-class assignment and as an in-class demonstration. In addition to its obvious utility of content, the site also provides excellent opportunities to expand students' computer skills.