Art Journal Style Guidelines

ART JOURNAL STYLE GUIDELINES

These guidelines are to be followed for style when preparing a manuscript or text for submission to the journal or website. For general questions of style, use the most recent edition of The Chicago Manual of Style, published by the University of Chicago Press. For spelling, refer to Webster’s Third New International Dictionary or Webster’s Fourth.


TEXT

Double-space ALL copy: text, quotations, endnotes, captions, and author’s biographical statement. Use 12-point Times New Roman type for all elements. Number all pages in upper right corner. Do not break words (hyphenate) at ends of lines. Do not justify the right-hand margin. Use italic type for words to be set in italics. Do not use boldface, centering, or other sizes or styles of font.


ENDNOTES

Notes should be numbered consecutively and submitted as endnotes, not footnotes. Do not use smaller type for notes. For citations of periodicals, include volume, number, and full date of the issue. Endnote numbers in the text should use superscript figures placed after punctuation.


QUOTATIONS

Quotations must be absolutely accurate and carefully transcribed. An ellipsis (three spaced dots) indicates words dropped within a sentence. A period and three spaced dots indicates a deletion between sentences.

Unless governed by fair use, authors must obtain permission to quote published material.

Foreign-language quotations in both text and notes should be translated into English, unless the significance of the quotation will be lost. The original text may be included in a note if it is unpublished, difficult to access, or of special relevance to the article. Brackets in quoted material indicate author’s interpolation.

All references to publications and the like should appear in full form (including place of publication and publisher) only once. Subsequent appearances should use a short form: surname of author, short title if necessary, and page reference. (Consult The Chicago Manual of Style for details). Do not use op. cit.


CAPTIONS

Captions should be numbered consecutively.

Art Journal includes full caption information, whenever available and appropriate, in this order:

Caption number
Artist
Title (in italics)
date
medium (on support, if applicable)
dimensions in inches (h. x w. x d.) followed by dimensions in centimeters (1 inch = 2.54 cm)
Name of collection (if applicable)
City of collection (if applicable)
Other collection information such as accession number (if applicable)
(Copyright or credit-line information regarding both the photograph and the artwork, in parentheses)


BASIC CAPTION STYLE

Man Ray, Marjorie Worthington, ca. 1930, gelatin silver contact print from original negative, 3-1/4 x 2-3/16 in. (8.2 x 5.5 cm). Musée National d’Art Moderne, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris (artwork © 2004 Man Ray Trust/Artists Rights Society (ARS)/ADAGP, Paris)

Artist, title, date, medium, and dimensions are separated by commas, and these elements are followed by a period. Collection, city, and credit lines follow, separated by commas. After this, in parentheses, come all copyright and photograph credit lines. There is no terminal period, unless the basic caption information is followed by a descriptive sentence, which occurs rarely. Complete information on medium, dimensions, and collection should be provided if possible.

Not all images are of works of art or other objects, and therefore not all of the above data can be included for every image. For example, works of performance art, architecture, photographs that are themselves artworks, etchings and other prints, etc., may in some cases not include dimensions or medium or other data. Other data specific to the argument of the text may be included.

Since authors are responsible for obtaining reproduction permissions, captions should include all elements specified in the letter(s) of permission from the rights holder, institution, and/or photographer, although Art Journal reserves the right to edit these to conform to its style.

Captions in Art Journal must distinguish clearly between a copyright in an artwork and a copyright in a photograph of an artwork (where the artwork may or may not be in copyright). A copyright notice and/or the © symbol should only be included when requested by a lender or rights holder, and must indicate clearly whether the copyright being asserted is in the underlying artwork or in the photograph of it. Consult the Copyright Term Charts for further information. When in doubt, the author should include the language requested by the lender of a photograph and the language requested by the rights holder who is granting permission. (Frequently, these are separate documents from separate sources.)

Art Journal can accept images for reproduction that have been scanned from a book or other published source only if the quality is acceptable. (If the work is in copyright, permission to publish must still be obtained from the copyright holder, who is rarely the publisher of the book. The publisher may, however, be helpful in providing information about the identity or address of a copyright holder.) An artwork reproduced in Art Journal using a digital scan from a book should not include the publication information for that book in the caption, but should include all information relating to copyright permission. (For further information see the Obtaining Images for Reproduction section coming soon.)

CAA does not use the phrase “courtesy of” in image captions; use “photograph provided by” instead.

Use:

Location unknown
Private collection
Collection of the artist


MORE SAMPLE CAPTIONS

Please note: These are samples, not definitive models of what all captions must contain. Art Journal aims to maintain consistency in caption style with some latitude.

Fred Wilson, Faith’s Fate, 2003, painted wood, glass, chessboard, and chess pieces, figure: 56-3/4 x 14-5/8 x 15 in. (144 x 37 x 38 cm), chess set: 2-3/4 x 20-1/2 x 17 in. (7 x 52 x 43 cm) (photograph by R. Ransick/A. Cocchi, provided by PaceWildenstein, New York)

Kutlug Ataman, Semiha B. Unplugged, 1997, stills from single-screen video installation, approx. 8 hrs., dimensions variable, edition of 5 (artwork © Kutlug Ataman, image provided by Lehmann Maupin, New York)

Yvonne Rainer, Stills from Hand Movie, 1966, 8mm black-and-white film, no sound, 5 min., cinematography by William Davis (artwork © Yvonne Rainer)

Robert Morris, Untitled (Corner Piece), 1964, painted fiberglass-reinforced polyester, 6 ft. x 8 ft. 6 in. x 51 in. (182.9 x 259.1 x 129.5 cm). Panza Collection, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York (artwork © 2004 Robert Morris/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York)

Alison Knowles, Make a Salad, 1962, performance, Institute of Contemporary Art, London (photograph by Bruce Fleming, provided by the Gilbert and Lila Silverman Fluxus Collection, Detroit.) Knowles is pictured second from right.

Thomas Hart Benton, Arts of the West, from The Arts of Life in America, 1932, mural cycle, tempera with oil glaze, 8 x 13 ft. (2.44 x 3.96 m). New Britain Museum of American Art, Harriet Russell Stanley Fund (artwork © T. H. Benton and R. P. Benton Testamentary Trusts/UMB Bank Trustee/Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY)

Max Ernst, The eye without eyes, the hundred-headless woman keeps her secret, plate 138 in La femme 100 têtes, Paris 1929, 5-1/4 x 6 in. (134 x 153 cm) (artwork © 2004 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York/ADAGP, Paris)

William Van Alen, Chrysler Building, completed 1930, New York

Chrysler Building, Lexington Avenue entrance, detail

Pierre Bonnard, Street Corner, ca. 1897, color lithograph, from Quelques aspects de la vie de Paris, Paris, 1899. New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Harris Brisbane Dick Fund, 1928, 28.50.4(3) (photograph all rights reserved, The Metropolitan Museum of Art)


IMAGES

Illustrations submitted (line drawings, halftones, photos, photomicrographs, etc.) should be clean originals or digital files. Digital files are recommended for highest quality reproduction and should follow these guidelines: 300 dpi or higher; sized to fit on journal page; EPS, TIFF, or PSD format only; and submitted as separate files, not embedded in text files.


DIAGRAMS, CHARTS, AND LINE IMAGES

These images cannot be incorporated into text; each must be treated as a figure. Original diagrams, photographs copied from a book, and very sharp enlarged photocopies may all be acceptable. (Remember that you will need written permission from the copyright holder to reproduce these, unless the work is in the public domain.) They should be larger than the desired size of the reproduction. Any markings, such as i.d. letters or numbers, labels, keys, or other text added to a diagram or map must be in type, not handwritten. If the image requires longer text labels, the author is responsible for supplying a final image (usually in digital format). CAA cannot create or insert such data into images.


PUBLISHING PROCESS

After the manuscript is submitted to the editor-in-chief, it is sent to anonymous readers for peer review. It may be returned to the author for revisions one or more times.

If a manuscript is accepted for publication, the editing and production process usually takes about six to ten months. An accepted article may not appear in the immediately subsequent issue of the journal, and all scheduling is at the discretion of the editor-in-chief.


MANUSCRIPT FOR BOOK REVIEWS

The following information must be provided at the beginning of the review, starting new lines as follows:

  • Author’s/editor’s name
  • Complete title of book (with a colon between the main title and the subtitle)
  • Place of publication; publisher; date of publication; total number of pages (including all front matter and illustrations that do not carry page numbers); number of illustrations (black-and-white and color)
  • Price

The format is as follows:

Carol Armstrong
Manet Manette
New Haven: Yale University Press, 2002. 400 pp., 53 color ills., 133 b/w.
$50

Pamela M. Lee
Chronophobia: On Time in the Art of the 1960s
Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2004. 394 pp., 67 b/w ills.
$34.95

Ann Goldstein and Lisa Mark, eds.
A Minimal Future? Art as Object 1958–1968
Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2004. 452 pp., 157 color ills., 213 b/w.
$50

Oksana Bulgakowa, ed.
Kazimir Malevich: The White Rectangle; Writings on Film
Berlin and San Francisco: Potemkin Press, 2002. 252 pp., 20 b/w ills.
$25 paper

Jane Portal
Art under Control in North Korea
London: Reaktion Books, 2005. 224 pp.; 80 color ills., 55 b/w.
£22.50 paper

When quoting from a book under review in the review, please place page numbers in the text in parentheses after the quotation.