Humans have created objects of meaning for 40,000 years. Art history is a record of human creativity from the first stone carvings to today. We’ve divided history into six chapters, dig in.
The mysterious line between pre human and post human
25000000 BCE-10 BCEPeople groups who devoted themselves to moving big rocks, creating tools, shepherding livestock, tending to crops and a dedication to the dead.
10 BCE-2000 BCEThe transformation of metals from ore
3200 BCE-600 BCEWhen you have iron you have power
1200 BCE-800 CESuper 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-530 CEWhen India held the largest economy in the world for 1500 years
230 BCE-550 CEA Nubian Empire rivals Egypt for 1000 years
2000 BCE-400 CEThe proliferation of Christian art
330 CE-1453Religion, feudalism and lots of gold leaf.
476 CE-1492Persia brings a wealth of art, poetry, and mysticism to Islam.
651 CE-1500When you don't paint people, things get beautifully, powerfully decorative.
661 CE-1243Wolves among sheep
793 CE-1066The God-kings and stone cities of Cambodia
800 CE-1431The race for height
1144-1500Finding the sublime in nature's power.
960 CE-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.
1886-1905A style of architecture surrounding the time of Queen Victoria and the Victorian Era.
1837-1901"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.
1940-1960What you see is what you see
1950-2000Colonialism vs Tradition
1925-1981For those who didn't like the Modern.
1940-