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  • Histories of Art
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        • Overview of Europe 1300 – 1800
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      • Europe 1800-1900
        • Overview of Europe: 19th century
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        • Overview of Modernisms 1900 – 1980
            • A beginner’s guide
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      • Art since 1980
        • Overview of art since 1980
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            • Revisiting histories
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  • Guided learning
      • Start here
          • OVERVIEW
              • Looking at art
              • Approaches to art history
              • Understanding religion in art
              • Understanding museums
              • For the very beginner
              • seeingamericaFeatured | Art that brings U.S. history to life
      • Courses in art history & history
          • OVERVIEW
              • Expanding the Renaissance – shifting the conversation
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              • ARCHES – At-Risk Cultural Heritage Education Series
              • Short courses – spend an hour — learn a lot!
              • Across cultures – An interconnected world is not as recent as we think.
              • Teaching with images – For K-12 teachers
              • Syllabi / AP & A-level courses
              • Art Appreciation
              • Creating + conserving
      • Smarthistory books
        • Overview – More titles coming soon!
            • AP® Art History (vol. 1) – nos. 1 – 47
            • AP® Art History (vol. 2) – nos. 48-98
            • AP® Art History (vol. 3) – nos. 99 – 152
            • AP® Art History (vol. 4) – nos. 153 – 191
            • AP® Art History (vol. 5) – nos. 192 – 250
            • Ancient Near Eastern art
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            • Guide to Italian art in the 1300s
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Start here

Looking at art
Browse this content
Why art matters
Why art matters (why look at art?)
Must art be beautiful? Picasso’s Old Guitarist
How art can help you analyze
The Power to Look
Alejandro Cesarco, What does looking mean?
What work of art inspired you?
Elements of Art
Line
Shape and Form
Color
Space
Texture
Surface and Depth
Light and shadow
Principles of composition
Balance, symmetry, and emphasis
Movement
Proportion and scale
Pattern, repetition and rhythm, variety and unity
Describing what you see
Introduction to art historical analysis
How to do visual (formal) analysis
Art historical analysis with Goya’s Third of May, 1808
Describing what you see: sculpture
Approaches to art history
Browse this content
An introduction to art history
What is art history and where is it going?
Art history and world art history
Ever wondered… why people become art historians?
Ever wondered…why study art of the past?
Art and empathy
A brief history of the representation of the body in Western painting
A brief history of the representation of the body in Western sculpture
The language of art history
Naturalism, realism, abstraction and idealization
Contrapposto explained
Foreshortening explained
Chiaroscuro explained
Linear perspective explained
Atmospheric perspective explained
Classical orders of architecture explained
Methods of art history
An introduction to iconographic analysis
Brief histories of art and culture
Common questions about dates
A brief history of the cultures of Asia
A brief history of Western culture
What maps tell us
Questions in art history
What is cultural heritage?
Where are the women artists?
Must art be beautiful?
Is there a difference between art and craft?
What's the point of realism?
What made art valuable: then and now?
Current issues in art history
Why you don’t like art history
How Climate Changes Art
The $150,000 Banana
Art about Migration
What does art tell us about gender?
Should Art Be Publicly Funded?
Why Do Corporations Buy Art?
What does resistance look like?
The Case for Copying
The case for nudity
Trending artists
Behind the Banksy Stunt
Tools for understanding museums
Browse this content
The case for museums
A brief history of the art museum
Museums and politics: the Louvre, Paris
Art Museums and (Art) Objects
Artists in and against the Museum
The changing social functions of art museums
Looking at Art Museums
Local art appropriation in France—a study of the loot in the Louvre Museum
Remake the Met
How museums shape meaning
An interview with Fred Wilson about the conventions of museums and race
Tools for understanding religion in art
Browse this content
Beginner's guide
The five major world religions
A brief history of religion in art
Christianity
Christianity, an introduction
The Christian Bible
Who’s who? How to recognize saints…
A new pictorial language: the image in Early Medieval art
The life of Christ in medieval and Renaissance art
Architecture and liturgy
The audacity of Christian art
The problem with Christ
Christ is not like a snail: Signs and symbols
Putting God in his place: here, everywhere, and nowhere
Time and eternity: Yesterday, today, and always
This world and the next: Christ on earth; Christ in heaven
So near and yet so far: visions and thresholds
Unspeakable images: when words fail
Islam
Introduction to Islam
The Qur’an
The Five Pillars of Islam
Hajj
The Kaaba
Introduction to mosque architecture
Hinduism
Hinduism and Buddhism, an introduction
Discovering Sacred Texts: Hinduism
Sacred texts in Hinduism
Beliefs made visible: Hindu art in South Asia
Hindu temples
Varanasi: sacred city
Buddhism
The historical Buddha
The Buddha and Buddhist sacred texts
The stupa
Images of Enlightenment: Aniconic vs. Iconic Depictions of the Buddha in India
Four Buddhas at the American Museum of Natural History
Bodh Gaya: center of the Buddhist world
Beliefs made visible: Buddhist art in South Asia
Buddhist Monasteries
Judaism
Judaism, an introduction
Jewish history to the middle ages
Jewish history 1750 to WW II
Jewish history in the post-war period
For the very beginner
Browse this content
Ancient Greek and Roman art
Medieval and Byzantine art
Renaissance art
Baroque and Rococo
Nineteenth-century art
Introduction to Twentieth-Century Art
Introduction to Contemporary Art

Introduction to Contemporary Art

by Utah System of Higher Education

Video from the Utah System of Higher Education (with special thanks to Dr. Nancy Ross). Video created by Ydraw.

Cite this page as: Utah System of Higher Education, "Introduction to Contemporary Art," in Smarthistory, January 23, 2016, accessed March 7, 2021, https://smarthistory.org/introduction-to-contemporary-art/.

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At Smarthistory we believe art has the power to transform lives and to build understanding across cultures. We believe that the brilliant histories of art belong to everyone, no matter their background. Smarthistory’s free, award-winning digital content unlocks the expertise of hundreds of leading scholars, making the history of art accessible and engaging to more people, in more places, than any other provider.

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