Why is Art History

Hello! My name is Ariel and I am a budding art historian, but you might not know what that means. 

You can take each word for its face value. Art is the creations that decorate our homes, paint the streets, or stand silently in museums. History is the past, the knowledge we have gathered over thousands of years of existence. Combining the two means the art of our past, the storied images that inform us visually what was going on around the artist. That is the simplified version, and not exactly what I want to explore with this blog. In order to take you on this journey with me, setting up the basics of definitions is important.
So what does Art history mean, and why does it matter?

Let’s start with defining Art. What is Art? In our current day in age and the looming presence of Generative Artificial Intelligence being everywhere (including the top right corner of the google document I’m writing this post in), it is important to clarify the definition of Art for the purposes of this blog. 

I will be using a definition given by the book “Fundamentals of Art History” by Michael W. Corthren and Anne D’Alleva. 

Which is as follows: 

“- we will define art as potentially any material or visual thing that is made by a person, or persons, and that is invested with social, political, spiritual, and/or aesthetic value by the creator, user, viewer, and/or patron.” (chapter 1, page 15)

This definition, I feel, suitably covers most, if not all, mediums of art used in the past or present. Which means fiber art, buildings, and digital art count. Art can be seen as an ever changing word, and no one person can truly say whether “something” is or is not art. Yet using this definition as we go through our history books will allow us to have a base of what we are looking for.

Meaning, we are not looking for an image generated by a prompt, which is akin to the cooking skills presented by someone phoning the local pizza joint to order a meal.

I am looking at the creations of people, and what they said about the world around them, the artist themselves, and how history affected their art.

Our next point of order is defining History. The definition given to us by Britannica is:
“History, discipline that studies the chronological record of events, usually attempting, on the basis of a critical examination of source materials, to explain events.”

That’s very cut and dry, but we can expound upon this definition. History is the lessons we learned, it allows us to examine how or how we did things, it presents a factual understanding, and in delving into history, we must ask ourselves who, what, when, where, how and why. Those are the questions I want to delve into Art History with. 

Who made a piece, what did they make, when did they make it. How did the “when” affect the artist? How did the where affect the creative process, and why did they make the piece in the first place? Was there a patron funding them? 

Did they just want to? History allows us to answer these questions.

One final question to answer is, why is this important? Why should you keep reading, why should you be learning about any of this?

According to Emma Cormierin in an article shown by Courtauld “-you do not only study how history impacted art but also how art impacted history; art is part of our historical record, and without it, there is much of our past that we could not have reconstructed.” 

Continuing the thought, we are able to gain context for the world around us, and expand our knowledge of other cultures. We can see how art from one country affected another, as Japanese art affected French impressionism. Using art history, we are able to also learn from those who came before us, and allow other artists choices and styles to inform how we approach art today. Staying within our cultural bubble would be a detriment to ourselves and our history. Using art as a way to explore will allow your mind critically think about the world around you. 

Now that we have the definition and importance of art history laid out, we can get to the actual education parts of the blog! I do hope you enjoyed this read, and will read my next one. 

Sources:

Cothren, Michael W., and Anne D’Alleva. “Chapter 1: Making Art History: Wait- What Is ‘Art’?” Fundamentals of Art History, Laurence King Publishing Ltd, London, United Kingdom, 2021, pp. 15–15.

Luebering , J.E. “History | Definition & Discipline | Britannica.” Britannica, www.britannica.com/topic/history. Accessed 24 Aug. 2026.

Cormier, Emma. “Art History: A Relevant Degree in a Contemporary World.” Courtauld, 19 Feb. 2025, courtauld.ac.uk/news-blogs/2025/art-history-a-relevant-degree-in-a-contemporary-world/.

Lesso, Rosie. “How Did Japanese Art Influence Impressionism?” TheCollector, www.thecollector.com/how-japanese-art-influenced-impressionism/. Accessed 24 Aug. 2026.