Includes index.

Introduction: on art and artists-- 1. Strange beginnings: prehistoric and primitive peoples; ancient America-- 2. Art for eternity: Egpyt, Mesopotamia, Crete-- 3. The great wakening: Greece, seventh to fifth century B.C.-- 4. The realm of beauty: Greece and the Greek world, fourth century B.C. to first century A.D.-- 5. Wordl conqueros: Romans, Buddhists, Jews, and Christians, first to fourth century A.D.-- 6. Parting of ways: Rome and Byzantium, fifth to thirteenth century-- 7. Looking eastwards: Islam, China, second to thirteenth century-- 8. Western art in the melting pot: Europe, sixth to eleventh century-- 9. The church militant: the twelfth century-- 10. The Church triumphant: the thirteenth century-- 11. Courtiers and burghers: the fourteenth century-- 12. The conquest of reality: the early fifteenth century-- 13. Tradition and innovation: the later fifteenth century in Italy-- 14. Tradition and innovation: the fifteenth century in the North-- 15. Harmony attained: Tuscany and Rome, early sixteenth century-- 16. Light and colour: Venice and northern Italy in the early sixteenth century-- 17. The new learning spreads: Germany and the Netherlands in the early sixteenth century-- 18. A crisis of art: Europe, later sixteenth century-- 19. Vision and visions: Catholic Europe, first half of the seventeeth century-- 20. The mirror of nature: Holland in the seventeenth century-- 21. Power and glory: Italy, later seventeenth and eighteenth centuries-- 22. Power and glory: France, Germany and Australia, late seventeeth and early eighteenth centuries-- 23. The age of reason: England and France, eighteenth century-- 24. The break in tradition: England, America and France, late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries-- 25. Permanent revolution: the nineteenth century-- 26. In search of new standards: the late nineteenth century-- 27. Experimental art: the first half of the twentieth century-- The changing scene: a postscript.

This book was planned from the outset to tell the story of art in both words and pictures by enabling the reader as far as possible to have the illustration discussed in the text in front of him, without having to turn the page.

This book is intended for all who feel in need of some first orientation in a strange and fascinating field. It may serve to show the newcomer the lie of the land without confusing him with the details; to enable him to bring some intelligible order into the wealth of names, periods and styles which crowd the pages of more ambitious works, and so to equip him for consulting more specialized books.