Art History — Study Path Agent

Chapter 1

Foundations: How to Look at Art (Visual Analysis)

1

Elements & Principles of Design (line, color, composition, balance, scale)

2

Mediums, Techniques & Materials (painting, sculpture, architecture, prints, photography)

3

Iconography & Symbolism (reading subject matter and attributes)

4

Style, Periodization & Attribution (how styles change; how works are assigned)

5

Primary vs. Secondary Sources (catalogues raisonnés, archives, scholarship)

6

Writing About Art (formal analysis paragraph → full comparative essay)

Chapter 2

Methods & Theories in Art History

7

Formalism & Connoisseurship (form, style, authorship)

8

Social History of Art (patronage, class, labor, institutions)

9

Marxist, Feminist & Postcolonial Approaches (power, gender, empire)

10

Psychoanalysis, Semiotics & Structuralism (meaning-making frameworks)

11

Reception, Audience & Museum Studies (display, interpretation, publics)

12

Building an Argument (thesis, evidence, counterclaims, citation ethics)

Chapter 3

Chronological Survey: Ancient to Medieval

13

Prehistoric & Early Civilizations (cave art, Mesopotamia)

14

Ancient Egypt (monuments, funerary art, canon)

15

Aegean, Greek & Hellenistic (idealism, naturalism, narrative)

16

Roman Art & Architecture (empire, portraiture, engineering)

17

Byzantine & Early Christian (icons, mosaics, sacred space)

18

Islamic & Medieval Europe (manuscripts, mosques, cathedrals)

Chapter 4

Chronological Survey: Renaissance to 19th Century

19

Early Renaissance (Florence; perspective; humanism)

20

High Renaissance & Mannerism (Rome; ideal vs. artifice)

21

Baroque (dramatic light, movement; Catholic & court cultures)

22

Rococo & Neoclassicism (taste, antiquity, Enlightenment)

23

Romanticism & Realism (emotion, modern life, politics)

24

Impressionism & Post-Impressionism (optics, color, structure)

25

19th-Century Architecture & Design (industrialization, new materials)

Chapter 5

Modern & Contemporary Art (20th–21st Century)

26

Early Modernism (Fauvism, Cubism, Futurism)

27

Dada, Surrealism & the Avant-Garde (anti-art, unconscious, collage)

28

Abstract Expressionism & Postwar Art (New York, gesture, scale)

29

Pop, Minimalism & Conceptual Art (commodity, objecthood, ideas)

30

Postmodernism (appropriation, critique, pluralism)

31

Global Contemporary (biennials, diaspora, decolonial debates)

32

New Media & Digital Art (video, internet art, AI, NFTs as context)

Chapter 6

World Traditions & Cross-Cultural Art Histories

33

South Asian Art (Hindu, Buddhist, Mughal visual cultures)

34

East Asian Art (China, Korea, Japan; calligraphy, ink, court arts)

35

African Art Histories (materials, performance, colonial archives)

36

Indigenous Arts of the Americas (sovereignty, continuity, repatriation)

37

Arts of the Americas: Colonial to Modern (exchange, nationhood, identity)

38

Oceania (Pacific arts; navigation, carving, textiles)