History of Art - Historical Development

Historical Development

The field of "art history" was developed in the West, and originally dealt exclusively with European art history, with the High Renaissance (and its Greek precedent) as the defining standard. Gradually, over the course of the 20th century, a wider vision of art history has developed. This expanded version includes societies from across the globe, and it usually attempts to analyze artifacts in terms of the cultural values in which they were created. Thus, art history is now seen to encompass all visual art, from the megaliths of Western Europe to the paintings of the Tang Dynasty in China.

The history of art is often told as a chronology of masterpieces created in each civilization in the world. It can thus be framed as a story of high culture, epitomized by the Seven Wonders of the World, which is somehow different from vernacular expressions. The latter can, however, be integrated into art historical narratives, in which case they are usually referred to as folk arts or craft. The more closely that an art historian engages with these latter forms of low culture, the more likely it is that they will identify their work as examining visual culture or material culture, or as contributing to fields related to art history, such as anthropology or archeology. In the latter cases art objects may be referred to as archeological artifacts.