Humans have been creating objects of meaning since the Upper Paleolithic era, 40,000 years ago. Art history is the record of human creativity from the first stone tools to today. To break it down, we’ve divided history into six chapters.
Super power of all super powers.
4000 BCE-30 BCEPoetry, war and the invention of law and propaganda.
3500 BCE-1000 BCEThe lost faces of the ancient world.
3000 BCE-1200 BCEThree dynasties birth Chinese art and philosophy.
2070 BCE-256 BCEKnow Thyself
800 BCE-31 BCEA mysteriously happy people at the fringes of the classical world
768 BCE-264 BCERoads, Plumbing, High Culture = Empire.
753 BCE-530When India held the largest economy in the world for 1500 years
230 BCE-550The proliferation of Christian art
330-1453Religion, feudalism and lots of gold leaf.
476-1200Persia brings a wealth of art, poetry, and mysticism to Islam.
651-1500When you don't paint people, things get beautifully, powerfully decorative.
661-1243Wolves among sheep
793-1066The God-kings and stone cities of Cambodia
800-1431The race for height
1144-1500Finding the sublime in nature's power.
960-1127Cultural rebirth though intellectual inquiry
1350-1500How Humanism beats down Feudalism with the printing press
1420-1650Religion and the laws of perspective.
1492-1600Power, sophistication, luxury and might.
1500-1800Tension, distortion and ice-cold style
1520-1600Art, culture, and NO OUTSIDERS.
1603-1868Benevolent emperors and the height of literature and art
1644-1912"Dare to know! Have courage to use your own reason!"
1685-1815The best truth is secret truth
1690-1947The drama of deep color and shadow
1600-1725Opulent, playful embrace of the ornate — 18th century swag.
1715-1774Classical imagery, democratic ideals, and the bloody hands of change.
1760-1830"One of the greatest eras of orderly government and social stability in human history"
1368-1644Allegory, craft, and the unrelenting dictatorship of the Academy.
1650-1900Artistic revolt against the Age of Enlightenment
1800-1860A small village in France, a gathering of artists.
1830-1870Emo teenagers drag art back to the future.
1848-1860An American fraternity of mountain worshipers
1825-1870Nature's pencil: light!
1826-1860Truth, accuracy, and the absence of personal bias
1850-1880The end of feudalism begins with the search for knowledge.
1868-1912Light and movement as the crux of human perception
1860-1900Beyond nature, toward emotional simplicity.
1886-1905"To every age its art. To art its freedom."
1897-1905Out with the old, in with the sexy.
1890-1910A mystic search for meaning and psychological truth.
1880-1910"A pot of paint has been flung in the face of the public"
1900-1910A more authentic, anxious, and grotesque reality
1905-1933Blood, speed and violence.
1909-1944"We only wanted to express what was in us..."
1910-1930Taking refuge in the square.
1913-1924Dada is anti-dada!
1916-1924The art of the perfectly straight line
1917-1931Art should only serve society.
1919-1935Art created without reason, aesthetics or morality.
1924-1965Tradition be damned.
1800-1950Geometry, ornamentation, and lots and lots of money
1920-1940It is not a picture, it is an event.
1940-1960Colonialism vs Tradition
1925-1981