Upper Paleolithic

The mysterious line between pre human and post human

Neolithic

Tools, livestock, farming — and big, big rocks

Iron Age

When you have iron you have power

Norte Chico Civilization

The oldest civilization in the Americas

Indus Valley Civilization

No pyramids, but great plumbing

Ancient Egypt

Super power of all super powers.

Mesopotamia

Poetry, war, and the invention of law

Aegean Civilizations

The lost faces of the ancient world

Ancient China

Three dynasties birth Chinese art and philosophy.

Ancient Greece

Know Thyself

The Etruscans

A mysteriously happy people at the fringes of the classical world

The Celts

Death & Gold

Classical India

The largest economy in the world for 1500 years

The Iberians

Human-animal hybrids in the melting pot of ancient cultures

Kingdom of Kush

A Nubian Empire rivals Egypt for 1000 years

Lapita Expansion

History's greatest navigators

Teotihuacan Culture

City of Water & Fire

Byzantine Art

The proliferation of Christian art

Medieval Art

Religion, feudalism and lots of gold leaf.

Medieval Persian Art

Persia brings a wealth of art, poetry, and mysticism to Islam.

Islamic Dynastic Art

When you don't paint people, things get beautifully, powerfully decorative.

Viking Age

Wolves among sheep

Khmer Art

The God-kings and stone cities of Cambodia

Gothic Art

The race for height

Song Dynasty

Finding the sublime in nature's power

Yuan Dynasty

Inca Empire

The original American Empire

The Aztecs

Blood and conquest

Classical Oceania

Floating cities and stone heads facing the sea

Tang Dynasty

The greatest cosmopolitan empire of the middle ages

Italian Renaissance

Cultural rebirth though intellectual inquiry

Northern Renaissance

How Humanism beats down Feudalism with the printing press

Spanish Renaissance

Religion and the laws of perspective.

Mughal Art

Power, sophistication, luxury and might.

Mannerism

Tension, distortion and ice-cold style

Edo Period

Art, culture, and NO OUTSIDERS

The Enlightenment

Dare to Know

Western Esoteric Art

The best truth is secret truth

Baroque

The drama of deep color and shadow

Academic Art

Allegory, craft, and the unrelenting dictatorship of the Academy

Rococo

Opulent, playful embrace of the ornate — 18th century swag.

Neoclassicism

Classical imagery, democratic ideals, and the bloody hands of change.

Ming Dynasty

Orderly government and social stability

Kingdom of Kongo

500 years of spirit objects and power plays

Romanticism

Artistic revolt against the Age of Enlightenment

Barbizon School

A small village in France, a gathering of artists.

Pre Raphaelites

Love-lorn teenagers drag art back to the future

Hudson River School

An American fraternity of mountain worshipers

Early Photography

Nature's pencil: light!

Realism

Truth, accuracy, and the absence of personal bias

Meiji Art

The end of feudalism begins with the search for knowledge

Oceanic Art

10,000 islands, 1800 cultures and languages

Impressionism

Light and movement as the crux of human perception

Post-Impressionism

Beyond nature, toward emotional simplicity.

Early Modernism

Tradition be damned.

Orientalism

The western fantasy

Vienna Secession

"To every age its art. To art its freedom."

Art Nouveau

Out with the old, in with the sexy

Symbolism

A mystic search for meaning and psychological truth.

Fauvism

"A pot of paint has been flung in the face of the public"

Expressionism

A more authentic, anxious, and grotesque reality

Cubism

"We only wanted to express what was in us..."

Suprematism

Taking refuge in the square.

De Stijl

The art of the perfectly straight line

Constructivism

Art should only serve society.

Surrealism

Art without reason, aesthetics or morality

Art Deco

Geometry, ornamentation, and lots and lots of money

Abstract Expressionism

It's not a picture, it's an event

Minimalism

What you see is what you see

Hanoi School

Colonialism vs Tradition

Social Realism

Realism as a weapon

Harlem Renaissance

An explosion of black culture in America

Regionalism

Finding a way back home