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Jul 15, 2024 · Below are short videos, essays, high-resolution photographs, and additional resources for each of the 250 required works of art that form the central curriculum for the AP®︎ Art History course.
- Mona Lisa (Leonardo da Vinci) Likely the most recognized painting in the world, the “Mona Lisa” embodies the artistic genius of Leonardo da Vinci. Created in the early 16th century, its enigmatic smile and groundbreaking techniques in portraiture have made it a subject of fascination for centuries.
- The Starry Night (Vincent van Gogh, 1889) Vincent van Gogh’s swirling skies and bold use of color and brushwork have made “The Starry Night” a favorite subject for academic studies and dorm room posters.
- The Kiss (Gustav Klimt, 1908) A symbol of love and intimacy, “The Kiss” is celebrated for its sumptuous decorative patterns and universal theme. Klimt’s use of gold leaf adds a mythical quality to the piece, elevating a simple embrace of the realm of the divine.
- Girl with a Pearl Earring (Johannes Vermeer, 1665) Often referred to as the “Dutch Mona Lisa,” this captivating portrait is famous for its enigmatic expression and exquisite detail, especially in the eponymous pearl earring.
From artists who reimagined what art could look like to paintings that introduced tropes that would be revisited for centuries to come, these 10 works make remarkable statements about the societies in which they were produced and the generations of art that followed.
A History of the World in 100 Objects was a joint project of BBC Radio 4 and the British Museum, consisting of a 100-part radio series written and presented by British Museum director Neil MacGregor. In 15-minute presentations broadcast on weekdays on Radio 4, MacGregor used objects of ancient art, industry, technology and arms, all of which ...
- A Conservative Discipline?
- Scholarship vs. Survey
- The “Global” in Scholarly Discourse
- The “Global” Problem in The Classroom
- Do I Have to Leave Out Michelangelo?
- Reframing The World
- “Global” vs. “World”
- Questioning, Critiquing, and Connecting
- Networks as Critique
“Art history is relevant” is not how the discipline of art history is typically framed in popular discourse. Most people picture art historians as wealthy, white, intellectually conservative, and disconnected from the rest of the world. If the humanities are viewed by many critics as outdated fields with little to contribute to “productive,” STEM-d...
Many—perhaps even most—people working in the field today would probably say something similar about their own work. And yet, when we walk into the classroom to teach an introductory art history survey course, even the most radical among us may feel that we have little choice but to fall back on what has been handed down to us through textbooks, dep...
D’Souza and Casid’s words call attention to the continuing presence of the “center-periphery” model within our discipline: that is, Western art, with its more or less accepted trajectory through classical Greece and Rome, the European Renaissance, and modern Europe and Anglo North America, has historically been accorded a central place within the d...
Most of the globe remains at the periphery of undergraduate art history education, as recent studies have shown. This overwhelmingly Western bias does not end solely with departmental requirements; it also exists at the basic level of the introductory art history survey curriculum. The most widely-used textbooks still organize the history of art in...
A key issue we all face when teaching global surveys is the question of what to leave out. Even a stripped-down version of the well-established Western canon may be too much to fit into one or two semesters if we want to make enough room to cover even the bare minimum of “non-western” and/or global contemporary art. What do we cut? Do we have to st...
In 1987, the artist Alfredo Jaar provoked furor with his public artwork A Logo for America,an animation he designed for Times Square’s Spectacolor board wherein he proclaimed that the United States is not “America.” Rather, the animation posited, the term applies to places all across the Americas—both North and South. Jaar’s snappy, 15-second jab a...
This critique of methods is at the root of key current discussions about the use of the word “global” itself. John Onians has proposed the term “world art studies” (as opposed to “global art history”) to differentiate between research that looks at the “global”—i.e. globalized, networked—contemporary world through a traditional art historical lens,...
As Benjamin Harris, a specialist on the global contemporary art world, remindsus: “A truly ‘global field of art history’ would comprise an intellectual intervention premised on a critique of Western power in the world as it exists and is reproduced (and challenged) in cultural and artistic terms.” I believe many of us would agree with this statemen...
What these approaches have in common, besides their willingness to expand the lens of art history to include concerns such as institutional, political, and cultural power relations, is a focus on objects as interconnected. Scholars in Global Renaissancestudies, for instance, have been pioneering ways of reframing the art production of the trans-Atl...
This means that the work of art history—interpreting, contextualizing, and thinking critically about visual culture, and helping others to do so— really matters: not just for those involved directly with the art world, but for society at large.
People also ask
Should art history be considered a 'global'?
Does art history have a Western bias?
How did cultural and historical context affect art?
How did Buddhism influence East Asian art?
How did abstract painting evolve in America?
Who influenced the art world in the 20th century?
The history of painting reaches back in time to artifacts and artwork created by pre-historic artists, and spans all cultures. It represents a continuous, though periodically disrupted, tradition from Antiquity.
