Art history in a digital way: network analysis of Davison Art Center collections

Many know that Wesleyan has a very large collection of prints dating back to the 15th century, stored in the Davison Art Center (DAC). Not many are aware that, through the efforts of the DAC staff, the collection comes with an extensive dataset containing metadata for all records. In the fall of 2017, students from the Introduction to Network Analysis (QAC 241) got a chance to view some of the famous prints and then search for new insights in art history using their quantitative skills. This post describes the experiences, accomplishments, and challenges of working with art history data.

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