Preface INTRODUCTION
On art and artists Strange Beginnings
Prehistoric and primitive peoples; Ancient America
Art for Eternity
Egypt, Mesopotamia, Crete The Great Awakening
Greece, seventh to fifth century BC The Realm of Beauty
Greece and the Greek world, fourth century
BC to first century AD
World Conquerors
Romans, Buddhists, Jews and Christians,
first to fourth century AD A Parting of Ways
Rome and Byzantium, fifth to thirteenth
century
Looking Eastwards
Islam, China, second to thirteenth century
Western Art in the Melting Pot
Europe, sixth to eleventh century
The Church Militant
The twelfth century
The Church Triumphant
The thirteenth century
Courtiers and Burghers
The fourteenth century
The Conquest of Reality
The early fifteenth century
Tradition and Innovation
The later fifteenth century in Italy
Tradition and Innovation
The fifteenth century in the North Harmony Attained
Tuscany and Rome, early sixteenth century
Light and Colour
Venice and northern Italy, early sixteenth
century
The New Learning Spreads
Germany and the Netherlands, early
sixteenth century
A Crisis of Art
Europe, later sixteenth century
Vision and Visions
Catholic Europe, first half of the
seventeenth century
The Mirror of Nature
Holland, seventeenth century
Power and Glory
Italy, later seventeenth and eighteenth
centuries
Power and Glory
France, Germany and Austria, late
seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries The Age of Reason
England and France, eighteenth century
The Break in Tradition
England, America and France, late
eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries Permanent Revolution
The nineteenth century
In Search of New Standards
The late nineteenth century Experimental Art
The first half of the twentieth century A Story Without End
The triumph of Modernism
Another turning of the tide
The changing past
A note on art books
Chronological charts
Maps
List of illustrations by location
Index and glossary
Acknowledgements