Arch of Constantine in Rome, with the Colosseum in the background When Constantine killed Maxentius in the battle of the Milvian Bridge, in 312 AD, he marched triumphantly into Rome. After the [...]
The Ara Pacis - the Altar of Peace. Originally it was outside, but today a roof protects it. Who built the Ara Pacis? When the Roman emperor Augustus took over Rome after [...]
Trajan's Column in the Forum of Trajan, in Rome Trajan's column was built just after 100 AD to remind people in Rome about the Roman emperor Trajan's victories in a war in Dacia [...]
Byzantine iconoclasm: an Icon of St. Nicholas (Russia) Byzantine iconoclasm By the early 700s AD, the Roman Empire had seen four hundred years of religious arguments about what or who Jesus Christ was. The Arians believed that [...]
Rock Art from Utah, about 1700 AD Native Americans made most of the art from North America in the 1500s and 1600s AD. They made a lot of art. Artists used [...]
A Woodland period pipe shaped like a dog (from modern Alabama) We don't really have any art from North America in the Paleo-Indian period, before about 8000 BC. Even from the Archaic period [...]
Swannanona pottery (ca. 1000 BC) Even before Cherokee people first came to the southeast, the Woodland people who were living there were making baskets and pottery. Their earliest pottery looks a lot like baskets and probably came [...]
Velazquez (self-portrait), ca. 1650 AD, when he was about fifty years old. Diego Velazquez was one of the best artists of the generation after Rubens. He was born in 1599, in [...]
Titian's self-portrait of himself in old age The Renaissance painter Titian was born about 1490 AD, near the Italian city of Venice. He was a little younger than other Renaissance artists. When [...]
Rubens (self-portrait), 1620 AD Peter Paul Rubens was born in Germany in 1577. At that time, the Holy Roman Emperors were weak and there were a bunch of civil wars going on. His [...]
