From the elements of art to the great goddess Durga — Smarthistory is adding new content every week.
Prehistoric to contemporary
videos + essays
Folio from a Shahnama, The Bier of Iskandar (Alexander the Great)
Alexander, the Mongols, and the great epic of Iran.
A Ritual Ming dish
A red so rare, so impossible to make, the process was lost before the end of the Ming Dynasty.
Roger Minick, Woman with Scarf at Inspiration Point, Yosemite National Park
The majesty of Yosemite National Park — with Roger Minick and the woman with the scarf.
A brief history of the arts of Japan: the Kamakura to Azuchi-Momoyama periods
Learn about tea-ceremonies, opulent palaces, and splashed-ink paintings from Japan's Kamakura to Azuchi-Momoyama periods.
A brief history of the arts of Japan: the Jomon to Heian periods
Learn about Japan's famous haniwa, tales from behind palace walls, and enormous wooden buddhas.
A brief history of the art of South Asia: Prehistory – c. 500 C.E.
Meet a terra-cotta dog from four thousand years ago, the Kushan emperor Kanishka and visit Hindu sculptures in Madhya Pradesh.
Johannes Stradanus and Theodoor Galle, “The Discovery of America”
In the late sixteenth century, European publications about the Americas had few illustrations, so printmakers felt free to invent imagery about the peoples and lands across the Atlantic.
Engravings in Diego de Valadés’s Rhetorica Christiana
The first book ever printed by an American author was Rhetorica Christiana by Diego de Valadés, who was born in Mexico to a Spanish conquistador father and an indigenous mother.
An introduction to colonial Brazil
Brazil is the largest country in South America and the fifth largest in the world. Learn about its colonial era history that began in the sixteenth century.
Textiles in the Colonial Andes
Textiles remained important items after the Spanish conquest in the Viceroyalty of Peru. Churches were even painted with textile murals to endow these spaces with sacredness.
Christine de Pizan and a City of Ladies
Christine de Pizan was an author and intellectual and wasn't afraid to show the strength of women in the early 15th century.
