Art History

Art history has historically been understood as the academic study of objects of art in their historical development and stylistic contexts, i.e.genre, design, format, and look.This includes the "major" arts of painting, sculpture, and architecture as well as the "minor" arts of ceramics, furniture, and other decorative objects. The historical backbone of the discipline is a celebratory chronology of beautiful creations funded by upper class men in western Europe. Such a "canon" remains prominent, as indicated by the selection of objects present in art history textbooks. Nonetheless, since the mid-20th century there has been an effort to re-define the discipline to be more inclusive of non-Western art, art made by women, and vernacular creativity.

The Annotated Mona Lisa: A Crash Course in Art History from Prehistoric to Post-Modern This second edition of Carol Strickland's The Annotated Mona Lisa: A Crash Course in Art History from Prehistoric to Post-Modern offers an illustrated tutorial of prehistoric to post-modern art from cave paintings to video art installations to digital and Internet media. Featuring succinct page-length essays, instructive sidebars, and more than 300 photographs, The Annotated Mona Lisa: A Crash Course in Art History from Prehistoric to Post-Modern takes art history out of the realm of dreary textbooks, demystifies jargon and theory, and makes art accessible-even at a cursory reading. From Stonehenge to the Guggenheim and from Holbein to Warhol, more than 25,000 years of art is distilled into five sections covering a little more than 200 pages.