History of art
The study of artworks and visual culture across time, examining how they were made, what they mean, and how historical contexts shaped them.
Art: Humanly created or interpreted forms that communicate, express, or invite aesthetic attention. Art history takes artworks as its central evidence.
Formal analysis: The examination of an artwork's visual elements, such as composition, color, line, and material. It identifies stylistic features that can be compared across works and periods.
Giorgio Vasari: An Italian painter and writer whose Lives of the Artists shaped early narratives of Renaissance art. His biographies helped establish artists' lives as a framework for art history.
Erwin Panofsky: A German-American art historian known for developing iconological interpretation of images. His layered method connected visual forms with broader intellectual history.
Museum: An institution that collects, preserves, studies, and displays objects or cultural heritage. Art historical classifications shape museum collections, displays, and interpretive labels.
Visual culture: Images and visual practices through which people communicate, organize social life, and interpret the world. It extends art history beyond objects traditionally classified as fine art.
Stylistic analysis: The comparison of recurring visual features to characterize artists, workshops, periods, or traditions. It helps historians attribute works and trace changes in artistic practice.
Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects: Giorgio Vasari's collection of biographies first published in 1550 and expanded in 1568. It supplied an influential account of artistic progress centered on Italian artists.
Linda Nochlin: An American art historian whose feminist scholarship challenged the exclusion of women from art history. Her writing exposed how institutions and social structures shape artistic recognition.
Canon of art: A historically formed selection of artists and works treated as especially significant. Art historical narratives have helped establish—and revise—the works granted canonical status.