Chronology of the History of Art

Chronologically BCE—CE

Pre-historic 40,000 BCE—4,000 BCE:

Painting Cave Art


Egyptian 3,000 BCE—0:

Painting: Wall and Tomb Paintings

Sculpture: Akhenaton, Tutankhamen, The Sphinx

Architecture: Pyramids of Giza and Khufu

Literature: Book of the Dead

Drama: Heb-Seb ceremony


Ancient Greece 1,200 BCE—300 BCE

Painting: Philoxenos

Sculpture: Aphrodite of Melos, Laocoon Group, Praxiteles

Architecture: Parthenon, Theater of Epidaurus

Literature: Homer, Sappho

Drama: Aeschylus, Sophocles, Aristophanes, Euripides, Menander


Roman 300 BCE—500 CE

Painting: Wall Painting in Pompeii

Sculpture: Column of Trajan, Arch of Constantine

Architecture: Pantheon, Colosseum, Roman Forum

Literature: Ovid, Virgil, Propertius

Drama: Plautus, Terence, Seneca


Early Middle Ages 500—1100 CE

Painting: Fan Kuan

Architecture: Hagia Sophia, San Vitale

Literature: Book of Kells, Li Ho, Tu Fu


Late Middle Ages 1100—1400 CE

Painting: Coppo, Cimabue, Giotto

Sculpture: Dancing Apsaras

Architecture: Chartres, Mont St. Michel, Notre Dame

Literature: Dante, Boccaccio, Chaucer


Early Renaissance 1400—1480 CE

Painting: Botticelli, Masaccio, Piero della Francesca

Sculpture: Agostino di Duccio, Donatello, Ghiberti

Architecture: Brunelleschi, Ghiberti, Alberti

Music: Josquin des Pres, Jean Okeghem


High Renaissance 1480—1520 CE

Painting: Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael, Giorgione

Sculpture: Michelangelo

Architecture: San Gallo, Bramante

Literature: Rabelais