Chapter 2

Introduction: Close looking and approaches to art

A brief introduction to art history, with a focus on close looking and different approaches to analyzing art. The second of two essays.

Chapter 1

Introduction: Learning to look and think critically

A brief introduction to art history, and what it means to learn to look and think critically. The first of two essays.

Chapter 3

An Art History of Gender Identity and Sexuality

Throughout time and across the planet, works of art have revealed the complexities of a wide range of gender identities and human couplings—expressions that can connect LGBTQIA2+ people and allies today with a vibrant past and inclusive future.

Chapter 6

Death and material culture in early China

An overview of “death” in ancient China from the neolithic through the Han dynasty, c. 5000–2nd century B.C.E.

Chapter 11

Early South America (c. 3000 B.C.E.–2nd century C.E.)

South America's ancient past gave rise to many cultures and diverse artistic expressions.

Chapter 8

The world of ancient Egypt

This brief glimpse at the world of ancient Egypt is just a springboard for gaining an understanding of this compelling and complex culture.

Chapter 14

With and Without Homer: Reframing Aegean Art

This chapter takes a thematic approach to the cultures of the Bronze Age Aegean, looking to women and non-elites in particular.

Chapter 7

Rethinking approaches to the art of the Ancient Near East until c. 600 B.C.E.

Enormous cities. Writing. Massive temples that stretched upwards to the sky. Long-distance trade. These are but a few of the achievements of the region we today refer to as the Ancient Near East

Chapter 15

Pottery, the body, and the gods in ancient Greece, c. 800–490 B.C.E.

This chapter will examine the art and architecture of ancient Greece from c. 800 to 450 B.C.E., examining art from South Italy and Sicily in the west to Anatolia in the east.

Chapter 9

Ancient Egyptian religious life and afterlife

Ancient Egyptian religious beliefs created a fascinating foundation for their unique society.

Chapter 17

Empire and Art in the Hellenistic world (c. 350–31 B.C.E.)

This three-hundred-year period was one of artistic vibrance and immense culture influence.

Chapter 16

War, democracy, and art in ancient Greece, c. 490–350 B.C.E.

This chapter aims to go beyond the established stylistic reputation of classical art and examine it within its original historical context.

Chapter 22

Middle South America, c. 2nd century–c. 900 C.E.

This chapter deals with a time in Andean history (2nd century–c. 900 C.E.) when a multitude of cultures (among them the Jama-Coaque, Moche, Chimú, Nasca, and Tiwanaku) proliferated along the Andean coast and in the highlands.

Chapter 28

Continuity and Innovation: Early Islamic art and architecture of the Umayyads and Abbasids

Artists in the early Islamic world drew on a range of traditions and materials, with dazzling results.

Chapter 24

Building new Romes: The Eastern Romans, Umayyads, and Carolingians

This chapter addresses the continuity between ancient Rome and the Eastern Roman “Byzantine” Empire that endured through the “middle ages,” a period which also saw the rise of the Umayyads and Carolingians who sought to appropriate the Roman legacy through their art and architecture.

Chapter 26

Buddhism in Chinese Art (2nd century through 907 C.E.)

This chapter explores Buddhist art in China from the Han through the Tang dynasties, a period that saw the introduction of Buddhism to China and its widespread growth as a major religion.

Chapter 23

Mesoamerica 200–900 C.E.

This chapter considers a time period when powerful centers flourished in the diverse landscapes of Central Mexico, the Gulf Coast, and the Maya area, and when artists throughout the region created monumental works of architecture and art that connected the everyday world with the sacred.

Chapter

The Silk Roads

The Silk Roads were a network of trade routes that connected towns, settlements, and peoples, across Asia that flourished from about 200–900 C.E.

Chapter 27

Framing Islamic art

This chapter takes a thematic approach to Islamic art while engaging with the field’s own history and idiosyncrasies.

Chapter

Permanence, Portability, and Power in the Northern Seas, c. 700–1200

This chapter considers how powerful warrior kings as well as devoted followers of Christ demonstrated their political and holy power with both permanent and portable visual object in the northern seas of Europe.

Chapter 30

Art under the Mongols

In the arts, the Yuan dynasty is a period in Chinese history marked by self-reflection and exploration in a time of social upheaval under the new Mongol regime.

Chapter 39

Late medieval multimedia and devotion

Explore the crisis of the devotional image in medieval and early modern northern Europe.

Chapter 31

Late South America (c. 800 C.E.–16th century C.E.)

This chapter addresses four topics: cities and sacred spaces, adorning the body, drinking and enacting status, and empire and agriculture in South America, c. 800–16th century C.E.

Chapter 29

Art in the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms Period and Song dynasty China

If the arts of the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms offered reflections on nature and morality, then artists of the Song dynasty deepened themes of peace and unity through extraordinary innovations in the visual arts. Through awe-inspiring landscapes, intimate views of urban life, sacred sculptures, and radiant ceramics, artists re-envisioned cultural harmony for a new era.

Chapter 36

Medieval Materiality across the Mediterranean, 900–1500 C.E.

Medieval artists communicated complex layers of meaning through the materials they employed.

Chapter 37

Material culture of the Crusades

This chapter explores how crusading, as both a militant action and a powerful idea—to travel and restore the Holy Land to Christian sovereignty—had a profound impact on medieval visual culture.

Chapter 35

Architecture and monumental art after iconoclasm

This chapter explores the monumental art and architecture of the Eastern Roman (Byzantine) Empire after a period in which the usefulness of images was debated, as well as ways it influenced neighboring cultures.

Chapter 32

Mesoamerica and the Caribbean, 900–16th century

From enormous stone sculpture to elaborate books and religious figurines, this chapter explores art produced by cultures including the Aztec, Huastec, and Taíno—and the monumental changes set into motion by the Spanish invasion.

Chapter 46

Portuguese contacts and exchanges, c. 1400–1800

Portuguese explorations paved the way for other European nations to travel, conquer, and exploit regions of Africa, Asia, the Americas, and the Pacific. This chapter includes artworks from the 1400s, when Portuguese voyages began to explore the coast of Africa, through the early 1800s, when Brazil gained political independence from Portugal.

Chapter 41

Art in Ming dynasty China

From the colorful ritual objects of the court to the calligraphy and cool hues of garden culture, there is no singular definition of Ming art.

Chapter 47

Art in the Italian Renaissance Republics, c. 1400–1600

For God and glory, capital and kin—competitive patronage among the merchants and bankers of the Italian renaissance republics spurred artistic innovation.

Chapter 48

Art in Sovereign States of the Italian Renaissance, c. 1400–1600

In Italian renaissance city-states ruled by a prince, his tastes ruled supreme.

Chapter 49

Printing and painting in Northern Renaissance art

This chapter focuses on the varieties of media of the so-called Northern Renaissance, especially the invention of printing methods that allowed pictures to be produced in multiples rather than one at a time and the skilled use of oil paint that allowed Northern artists to create uncanny illusions of reality.

Chapter 57

Responding to the early modern European tradition

This chapter looks at works of art made by contemporary artists that engage with the legacies of European art in relation to race and other social hierarchies.

Chapter 52

Art of the Qing dynasty

This chapter introduces key topics in the histories of Qing dynasty art, looking at how the making of art intertwines with the politics of identity and ethnicity, from regional social circles to global audiences.

Chapter 53

The sacred baroque in the Catholic world

What we call the “baroque” is an art historical period and style spanning the 17th and most of the 18th centuries that originated in Europe but manifested throughout many parts of the globe.

Chapter 45

The four seasons in the arts of Japan

Nature has been a source of inspiration and subject matter in the arts of Japan throughout the centuries.

Chapter 54

Secular matters of the global baroque

This second chapter devoted to the baroque explores how secular works engage with historical, social, and artistic transformations in a global context.

Chapter 59

Art in American Colonies and the United States, c. 1600–1860

This chapter covers about 250 years (c. 1700–1865) of art made during a period of dramatic shifts and changes that reflect the cultural fluidity in the American colonies (and later, the United States).

Chapter 50

The art of the viceroyalty of New Spain

The objects in this chapter originate in, were exported to, and depict peoples originating in the Viceroyalty of New Spain, showcasing the remarkable art created at the crux of a multi-ethnic trans-oceanic encounter.

Chapter 65

Empires and their endings in the late 18th and 19th centuries

Through the art of this time in Europe, we can see dreams of equality and self-governance confront the brutality of war, slavery, and the goals of international trade.

Chapter 76

Popular, Transient, Expendable: Print Culture and Propaganda in the 20th century

This chapter explores the many ways in which art in the mid-to-late twentieth century engaged with the expansion of “mass media" (television, newspaper, magazines, films, websites, and the advertisements or articles contained within them).

Chapter 64

Art and Nationalism in 19th-century Latin America

This chapter explores both art academies and the international transatlantic artists who shaped nationhood in post-independent Latin America.

Chapter 73

Itinerant Modernisms: Cosmopolitans, Exiles, Travelers since 1950

In the second-half of the twentieth century, the large-scale migrations of artists, ideas, and visual forms had an enormous impact on the evolution and practice of contemporary art worldwide.

Chapter 74

Art into Life: Anti-Modernist Gestures

In the 1950s and 1960s, certain artists in locations around the world sought to challenge this idea that art should divorce itself from the messy terrain of “real life.”

Chapter 77

Re-Mapping Land Art: Earthworks, Borderlands, Ecology

This chapter takes an expansive view on the relationship of art, landscape, and nature in the late twentieth century.

Chapter 69

Latin American modernisms

The 20th century was a period of tremendous artistic innovation, political change, and social transformation in Latin America.

Chapter 66

Journeys in the 19th-century European world

After facing the rise of the charismatic autocratic Napoleon, and the prospect of conquest by a foreign power, many artists across Europe began to explore their individual gifts.

Chapter 67

A wider world in 19th-century Europe

We often think of Europe, Africa, and the other continents as self-contained units, but another way to think about these places is as sites on the edges of oceans linked together internally by canals, roads, and rail that carried people from one place to another.

Chapter 68

Modern Art, Colonialism, Primitivism, and Indigenism: 1830–1950

This chapter surveys European and American modern art from the 1830s through the 1940s within a global context and specifically in relation to colonialism’s impact on the history of modern art.

Chapter 70

The potentials of modern Chinese art in the Republic of China (1912–49)

This chapter highlights artists’ impulses to probe and define the potentials of modern Chinese art.

Chapter 63

The arts of Africa, c. 18th–20th century

African arts played a central role in their communities, whether to communicate royalty, sacrality, inner virtues, aesthetic interests, genealogy or other central concerns

Chapter

African American art and social justice

This chapter addresses how slavery continues to resonate in contemporary African American art and how it is connected to social justice movements.

Chapter

Northern Northwest Coast Art

Indigenous peoples on the Northwest Coast created one of the world's great art traditions, renowned for its monumental poles, its complex two-dimensional design system, advanced weaving techniques, and literary wealth.

Chapter 5

Coming Soon: The earliest art of the prehistoric period

This chapter focuses on development of what we today call art and architecture in the prehistoric period across the globe.

Chapter 10

Coming Soon: Ancient Egypt and the outside world

Ancient Egyptians did not exist in isolation, but belonged to larger networks of exchange.

Chapter 18

Coming Soon: Identities in the ancient Mediterranean

Chapter 19

Coming Soon: Connectivities in the ancient Mediterranean

Chapter 21

Coming Soon: Legacies of the ancient Mediterranean

Chapter 20

Coming Soon: Urbanisms, a global view

Chapter 13

Coming Soon: The earliest art of South Asia

Chapter 25

Coming Soon: Religion and myth in South Asia until c. 1300

Chapter 38

Coming Soon: Medieval architectural dialogues

Chapter 34

Coming Soon: Bound, Rolled, & Folded: Premodern Book Arts

In the premodern world, the formats and materials used to record the written word, as well as the texts themselves, demonstrate relationships between peoples across vast geographic distances and connections of ideas, trade networks, and religious communities.—coming soon

Chapter 42

Coming Soon: Cultural Exchange and Syncretism in the Arts of South Asia since 1200

This chapter provides an introduction to the broad themes of cultural exchange an syncretism across the diverse region of South Asia from roughly the 13th century to the present.

Chapter 43

Coming Soon: The Body, Materiality, and the Senses in South Asia

Chapter 44

Coming Soon: Power and Performance in South Asia

Chapter 71

Coming Soon: Postwar Aftermath and Abstraction

Chapter

Coming Soon: Art in the People’s Republic of China, 1949–present

This chapter explores how artists responded to the complex historical circumstances of the Mao era, Cultural Revolution, and the post-Mao era, including its many avant-garde and global movements.

Chapter 33

Coming Soon: From the Atlantic to the Pacific: Christian Religious Communities On the Move

Pilgrimage to sacred sites and missionary activities provided opportunities for artists to provide luxury and devotional objects to Christian individuals and communities across Europe, Africa, and Asia. Focus will also be given to related themes in Judaism, Islam, and Buddhism.

Chapter 72

Coming Soon: Performance: An Overlooked Thread of Twentieth-Century Art

This chapter traces the historical precedents for masquerade back to the 15th century and identifies the forms of popular entertainment that artists drew on directly—including minstrelsy—to collapse the distinction between art and life through the development of what art historians today term performance art.

Chapter 79

Coming Soon: Neo-Traditional African Art

Today, many contemporary African artists are influenced by tradition-based African art forms just as European avant-garde artists like Picasso looked to abstract African sculpture as a source of inspiration for their artwork in the late 1880s.

Chapter 12

Coming Soon: Mesoamerica, prehistoric–200 C.E.

By 1500 B.C.E., ancient Mesoamerican artists created works that demonstrate the importance of jade, innovative approaches to the human body, and the central role of transformation and ritual in the creation of the world.

Chapter 55

Coming Soon: Global romanticism and landscape convention

This chapter investigates the unlike pairing of European romantic ideas and the renewed scientific exploration that erupted throughout the Americas during the late colonial period.

Chapter 61

Coming Soon: Art in the United States, mid-19th century to 1917

Chapter 78

Coming Soon: Material and processes

Chapter 51

Coming Soon: The art of the viceroyalty of Peru

Chapter

Coming Soon: Portraiture in a premodern global context, c. 700–1400

Chapter

Coming Soon: Picturing Gender and Sexuality in Medieval Europe

Chapter

Coming Soon: Global early modern architecture and humanism

Chapter

Coming Soon: Framing Jewish Art

Chapter

Coming Soon: The body in the ancient Mediterranean world

Chapter

Coming Soon: The icon

Chapter

Coming Soon: Art of the Joseon Dynasty

Chapter

Coming Soon: Expanding ideas about Renaissance art

Chapter

Coming Soon: Jewish art in Spain, North Africa, and West Asia

Chapter

Coming Soon: The art of empires in Southeast Asia

Chapter

Coming Soon: Art, Adornment, and Identity in Africa

Chapter

Coming Soon: The art of medieval Iberia

Chapter

Coming Soon: The Roman Empire in a Connected World, 27 B.C.E.–330 C.E.

With territories that included the Athenian Parthenon and the Giza pyramids and with access to trade routes extending all the way to China, the Roman Empire was a highly connected place with richly varied cultural traditions.