The story of art. [electronic resource]

Includes bibliographical references (p. [447]-450) and index.

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 B.C. -- The realm of beauty : Greece and the Greek world, fourth century B.C. to first century A.D. -- World conquerors : Romans, Bhuddhists, Jews, and Christians, first to fourth century A.D. -- 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 in the early sixteenth century -- The new learning spreads : Germany and the Netherlands in the 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 in the 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 -- Revolution in permanence : the nineteenth century -- In search of new standards : the late nineteenth century -- Experimental art : the twentieth century.