Art is a way of expressing and understanding the world around us. It can be as simple as a pretty landscape or as complex as a modern installation that makes you think and question your ideas about the universe. Art reflects the world we live in and helps create it, so it is an important part of our culture. This is why it’s so important to study art history, a subject that gives us insight into the evolution of our world through the lens of cultural history.
Aside from expressing the cultural norms, values, and beliefs of a civilization through its works, art has many other functions. For one, it chronicles the events of a time — both the grand and the mundane. A 17th-century Dutch Golden Age painting reveals everything from the interiors of homes to the food on the tables, helping us understand what life was like in a different era. Art can also be a catalyst for change in a society, both supporting the establishment and serving as a tool for subversive messages that challenge established ideas and values.
Finally, art often serves as a bridge between cultures, communicating across languages and generations with the power to reach beyond our differences. A haunting melody from a distant land or the graceful arc of a dancer’s leap can communicate as profoundly as a masterpiece on a canvas, transcending our varying histories and connecting disparate communities.
When it comes to defining art, opinions vary greatly. Some people define art in very traditional terms, focusing on order and harmony, while others focus on difference and originality. Art historians often find themselves at the intersection of these two camps, working to bridge this gap by embracing both the traditions of a culture and its avant-garde, experimental work.
The Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History, a robust free art history encyclopedia from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, is an excellent resource for learning about the various styles and techniques of different historical periods. It features the museum’s collection but is not limited to it, so you can also get insights into art from other museums and collections. The Oxford History of Art is another scholarly series that is more in-depth, but less user-friendly.
In addition to learning about different art styles and periods, studying art history can help you develop your analytical skills. It can teach you how to look at a work of art in a more critical and evaluative manner, identifying the elements that make it a good or bad piece of art. This step involves evaluating the work’s proportion, movement, and other aesthetic characteristics, such as the use of color, textures, and lighting. It can also include evaluating whether or not the work is engaging and evokes an emotional response in the viewer. For more tips on how to analyze a work of art, check out our Art Analysis Guide. This guide includes helpful examples of different types of artwork and outlines the steps to a successful analysis.