| Painted caves and giant stones -- Ancient Egypt and the origins of style -- Palace art in the ancient Near East -- Greek art: idealism versus realism -- Rome: an art set in concrete -- Monotheism: basilica, mosque and tomb -- Dynamics of the Dark Age North -- The climax of cathedral art -- The rise of creative individualism under Christianity -- Rediscovery and transformation of Graeco-Roman culture -- The apotheosis of the statue -- The great masters of Italian painting -- The Roman climax of art and its confused aftermath -- The new realism of the seventeenth century -- The first great landscape paintings -- The golden century of Spanish art -- The Dutch attain 'the perfection of professional art' -- Towns, palaces, churches, gardens -- Splendours and mysteries of the eighteenth century -- Classical and religious revival -- The Western penetration of Asia: India, China, Japan and their art -- The watercolour and its global spread -- Romanticism and history -- Painting the American world and its wonders -- The belated arrival and sombre glories of Russian art -- The internal conflicts of nineteenth-century art -- Art and the realities of the industrialised world -- Skyscrapers, Art Nouveau, Art Deco -- The beginnings of fashion art -- The resurgence of the primitive -- The rule and ravages of ideological art -- The dangers and opportunities of twenty-first-century art. |
