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

More results

Menu
  • Start here
    • Explore art
    • First things first
    • Tools for understanding art
    • Tools for understanding religion in art
    • Tools for understanding museums
    • For the very beginner
    • Close
  • Cultures
    • Browse by image
    • Prehistoric
      • Paleolithic
      • Neolithic
      • Close
    • Ancient Mediterranean
      • Ancient Near East
        • A beginner’s guide
        • Sumerian
        • Akkadian
        • Neo-Sumerian
        • Babylonian
        • Assyrian
        • Persian
        • Close
      • Egyptian
        • A beginner’s guide
        • Predynastic and Old Kingdom
        • Middle Kingdom and New Kingdom
        • Ptolemaic
        • Close
      • Aegean
        • Cycladic
        • Mycenaean
        • Close
      • Greek
        • A beginner’s guide
        • Pottery
        • Daedalic + Archaic
        • Early Classical
        • Classical
        • Late Classical
        • Hellenistic
        • Close
      • Nabataean
      • Etruscan
      • Roman
        • A beginner’s guide
        • Republic
        • Early Empire
        • Middle Empire
        • Late Empire
        • Close
      • Palmyra
      • Close
    • Medieval Europe + Byzantine
      • Browse by image
      • A beginner’s guide
      • The medieval book
      • Judaism and art
      • Early Christian
      • Byzantine
      • Carolingian
      • Ottonian
      • Romanesque
      • Gothic
      • Close
    • The Islamic World
      • Browse by image
      • A beginner’s guide
      • Early Period
      • Medieval Period
      • Late Period
      • Close
    • Europe 1300-1800
      • Browse by image
      • Late Gothic in Italy: 1300s
      • Renaissance in Italy: 1400s
      • Renaissance and after in Italy: 1500s
      • Renaissance in Northern Europe: 1400s
      • Renaissance and after in Northern Europe: 1500s
      • Renaissance and after in Spain
      • Reformation & Counter-Reformation
      • Baroque: 1600s
      • Rococo: 1700s
      • Neoclassicism: late 1700s
      • British art: 1700s
      • Close
    • Europe 1800-1900
      • Browse by image
      • Becoming Modern, an introduction
      • Romanticism
      • Early photography
      • Victorian Art
      • Realism
      • Second Empire
      • Impressionism
      • Post-Impressionism
      • Symbolism/Art Nouveau
      • The Peredvizhniki
      • Close
    • The Americas to 1900
      • Browse by image
      • A beginner’s guide
      • U.S. + Canada before European colonization
      • Mesoamerica before European colonization
      • South America before European colonization
      • Spanish colonies
      • Native North American art after 1600
      • British colonies to the early Republic
      • United States in the 19th century
      • Mexico in the 19th century
      • Close
    • Modernisms 1900-1980
      • A beginner’s guide
      • Browse by image
      • Cubism + early abstraction
      • Dada + Surrealism
      • German art between the wars
      • Latin American modernism
      • American art to World War II
      • Abstract Expressionism to Minimalism
      • Conceptual + Performance Art
      • Post Minimalism
      • Postwar Europe
      • Global vanguards
      • Architecture + design
      • Close
    • Global Cultures 1980-now
      • A beginner’s guide
      • Appropriation
      • Identity
      • Critiquing ideologies
      • The body
      • Text
      • Banality and Kitsch
      • Ritual, spirituality, and transcendence
      • Photography and video
      • Close
    • Asia
      • Hinduism and Buddhism: a beginner’s guide
      • Browse by image
      • China
      • Korea
      • Japan
      • South Asia
      • Southeast Asia
      • Close
    • Oceania
      • Browse by image
      • Polynesia
      • Melanesia
      • Micronesia
      • Close
    • Africa
      • Browse by image
      • A beginner’s guide
      • East Africa
      • West Africa
      • North Africa
      • Southern Africa
      • Central Africa
      • Close
    • Close
  • Themes + topics
    • Seeing America
    • ARCHES (At Risk Cultural Heritage Education Series)
    • Creating + conserving
    • For teachers
    • 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 August 15, 2018, https://smarthistory.org/art-history-basics/.

Smarthistory deepens respect for art and culture through history and across the globe for the broadest possible audience and by doing so, increases cross-cultural understanding.

  • About Smarthistory
  • Donate
  • Subscribe to our newsletter
  • Contact Us

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

· © 2018 Smarthistory · Designed by Press Customizr · Powered by ·