Reframing Art History
Global perspectives through an open-access multimedia "textbook" for the 21st century
Reframing Art History, an open-access multimedia art history "textbook," gives you a guided journey through the living, breathing, meaningful side of art history. We’re less concerned with names and dates than with meaning and movement. With chapters developed by a group of more than 50 experts, it showcases art and history from the bottom up.
General resources for this book
Welcome! Learn more about how this textbook developed
Grid View
List ViewPart 1: Introduction
An introduction to art history and this textbook
Part 2: The earliest art: the prehistoric period to c. 300 C.E.
Massive pyramids, delicate rock art, complex writing systems, and elaborate burials—learn about developments in early art from across the globe.
Part 3: Art and architecture c. 200–900 C.E.
The flourishing of Buddhism, the development of Islam, huge cities in the Americas, and the building of new "Romes" all occurred in this time span.
Part 4: Art and architecture c. 900–1400
Learn more about the material culture of the Crusades, art under the Mongols, the Inka Empire, and multi-paneled wooden altarpieces—among other topics.
Part 5: Art and architecture c. 1400–c. 1800
Chapters cover the four seasons in Japanese art, the Portuguese Empire, the Italian renaissance, and the Spanish viceroyalties in the Americas, and much more.
Part 6: Art and architecture c. 1800–present
Modernism in Latin America, empires and their endings in Europe, modern China, and print culture and propaganda—explore developments from the last 200 years
Part 1: Introduction
An introduction to art history and this textbook
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Chapter 2
Introduction: Close looking and approaches to art (2 of 2)
A brief introduction to art history, with a focus on close looking and different approaches to analyzing art. The second of two essays.
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Chapter 1
Introduction: Learning to look and think critically (1 of 2)
A brief introduction to art history, and what it means to learn to look and think critically. The first of two essays.
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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.
Part 2: The earliest art: the prehistoric period to c. 300 C.E.
Massive pyramids, delicate rock art, complex writing systems, and elaborate burials—learn about developments in early art from across the globe.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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
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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.
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Chapter 9
Ancient Egyptian religious life and afterlife
Ancient Egyptian religious beliefs created a fascinating foundation for their unique society.
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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.
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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.
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Chapter
The Roman empire in a connected world, 27 B.C.E.–330 C.E.
With territories that featured the Athenian Parthenon and the Giza pyramids, the Roman empire was a highly connected place with richly varied cultural traditions.
Part 3: Art and architecture c. 200–900 C.E.
The flourishing of Buddhism, the development of Islam, huge cities in the Americas, and the building of new "Romes" all occurred in this time span.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Chapter 27
Framing Islamic art
This chapter takes a thematic approach to Islamic art while engaging with the field’s own history and idiosyncrasies.
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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.
Part 4: Art and architecture c. 900–1400
Learn more about the material culture of the Crusades, art under the Mongols, the Inka Empire, and multi-paneled wooden altarpieces—among other topics.
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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.
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Chapter 39
Late medieval multimedia and devotion
Explore the crisis of the devotional image in medieval and early modern northern Europe.
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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.
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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.
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Chapter 36
Medieval Materiality across the Mediterranean, 900–1500 C.E.
Medieval artists communicated complex layers of meaning through the materials they employed.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Chapter 42
Cultural exchange and syncretism in the arts of South Asia since 1200
This chapter examines cultural exchange and syncretism across South Asia from roughly the 13th century to the present.
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Chapter
Islamic art c. 900–1400
The medieval Islamic world covers a vast geography with diverse rulers, artists, and patrons.
Part 5: Art and architecture c. 1400–c. 1800
Chapters cover the four seasons in Japanese art, the Portuguese Empire, the Italian renaissance, and the Spanish viceroyalties in the Americas, and much more.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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).
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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.
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Chapter
The colonial Andes and the Viceroyalty of Peru
Despite violent European invasion and colonization, Indigenous people living in the Andes continued, adapted, resisted, and shaped Peru.
Part 6: Art and architecture c. 1800–present
Modernism in Latin America, empires and their endings in Europe, modern China, and print culture and propaganda—explore developments from the last 200 years
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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.
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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).
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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.
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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.
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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.”
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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.
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Chapter 69
Latin American modernisms
The 20th century was a period of tremendous artistic innovation, political change, and social transformation in Latin America.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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
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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.
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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.
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Chapter
Art, Adornment, and Identity in Africa
The visual arts have helped, and continue to help, individuals establish frameworks for negotiating and defining identity on the African continent.
Contributors and Co-Conspirators
This textbook would not have been possible without the many collaborators and co-conspirators who helped to shape and develop this project.
