Back Home
Generic selectors
Exact matches only
Search in title
Search in content
Search in posts
Search in pages

More results

Menu
  • Start here
    • Looking at art
    • Approaches to art history
    • Tools for understanding museums
    • Tools for understanding religion in art
    • For the very beginner
    • Close
  • Art histories
    • Prehistoric
      • Paleolithic
      • Neolithic
      • Close
    • Africa
      • East Africa
      • West Africa
      • North Africa
      • Southern Africa
      • Central Africa
      • Close
    • The Americas
      • North America to 1500
      • North America c. 1500 – 1900
      • South America to 1500
      • South America c. 1500 – 1900
      • Close
    • Asia
      • Hinduism and Buddhism: a beginner’s guide
      • China
      • Japan
      • Korea
      • South Asia
      • Afghanistan
      • Southeast Asia
      • The Himalayas
      • Close
    • Ancient Mediterranean
      • Ancient Near East
      • Egyptian
      • Aegean
      • Greek
      • Nabataean
      • Etruscan
      • Roman
      • Palmyra
      • Close
    • Medieval Europe + Byzantine
      • A beginner’s guide
      • Christianity and art
      • Judaism and art
      • The medieval book
      • Early Christian
      • Byzantine
      • Carolingian
      • Ottonian
      • Romanesque
      • Gothic
      • The Crusades
      • Close
    • The Islamic World
      • A beginner’s guide
      • Early Period
      • Medieval Period
      • Later Period
      • Close
    • Europe 1300-1800
      • Italy: 14th century
      • Italy: 15th century
      • Italy: 16th century
      • Northern Europe: 15th century
      • Northern Europe: 16th century
      • Spain: 15th and 16th century
      • Reformation & Counter-Reformation
      • Baroque: 17th century
      • Rococo: early to mid 18th century
      • Neoclassicism: late 18th century
      • British: 18th century
      • Close
    • Europe 1800 – 1900
      • Romanticism
      • Early photography
      • Victorian Art
      • Realism
      • Second Empire
      • Impressionism
      • Post-Impressionism
      • Symbolism/Art Nouveau
      • The Peredvizhniki
      • Close
    • Oceania
      • Lapita people
      • Polynesia
      • Melanesia
      • Micronesia
      • Australia
      • Close
    • Modernisms 1900-1980
      • A beginner’s guide
      • Fauvism + Expressionism
      • Cubism + early abstraction
      • Dada + Surrealism
      • German art between the wars
      • Latin American Modernism
      • American art to World War II
      • Postwar American art
      • Postwar European art
      • Conceptual + Performance Art
      • Post Minimalism
      • Global vanguards
      • Architecture + design
      • Close
    • Global Cultures 1980 – now
      • Appropriation and ideological critique
      • Identity and the body
      • Banality and kitsch
      • Ritual, spirituality, and transcendence
      • Histories, real and imagined
      • Close
    • Close
  • Themes + topics
    • Seeing America (bringing American history to life)
    • ARCHES (At Risk Cultural Heritage Education Series)
    • Across cultures
    • Creating + conserving
    • Short and long courses
    • AP Art History
    • A-level Art History
    • Contribute an essay!
    • Smarthistory video creation guide
    • Close

Art History Basics

by Joseph Ugoretz
Cite this page as: Joseph Ugoretz, "Art History Basics," in Smarthistory, June 2, 2015, accessed July 23, 2019, https://smarthistory.org/art-history-basics/.

At Smarthistory, we’re on a mission to open museums and cultural sites up to the world. We’re creating world-class resources on art and cultural objects for learners from around the globe—for free.

  • About Smarthistory
  • Smarthistory’s blog
  • Contribute an essay
  • Content editors and contributors
  • Donate
  • Follow us on Instagram
  • Subscribe to our newsletter
  • Contact Us

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons
Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License

· © 2019 Smarthistory · Designed by Press Customizr · Powered by ·