Art History syllabus, dot point by dot point

Cave and rock painting in global prehistory: the form, technique, and probable function of Palaeolithic cave painting and later rock art, and how art historians interpret images made without writing.

Contextualizing Content Area 1: the chronological and geographic scope of global prehistory, the problem of interpreting art without written records, and the College Board enduring understandings that frame the eleven required works.

Figurative and portable objects in prehistory: the form, material, and probable meaning of small carved and modelled works, from the Ambum Stone and the camelid sacrum to the Tlatilco figurines and the jade cong.

Megalithic and monumental architecture: the form, construction, and probable function of Stonehenge as the key example of prehistoric monument building, and what such sites reveal about labor, the sky, and the dead.

The Neolithic revolution and settlement: how the adoption of agriculture produced the first permanent settlements, and how the art and architecture of Jericho, Catalhoyuk, and the Beaker with ibex reflect settled, farming life.

The visual analysis skill in Content Area 1: how to read line, shape, color, material, and composition in a work of art, move from form to inferred function, and frame the result as a defensible claim for the AP free-response tasks.

Art as activism and social critique: the use of art to confront political power, injustice, and inequality, the critique of the art world and its institutions, the move of art into public space and direct action, and how the idea and the cause often matter more than the crafted object.

Globalization and contemporary art: how artists respond to migration, borders, cultural exchange, and an interconnected world, the negotiation between local heritage and a global art world, and the use of appropriation and hybridity to comment on a connected, unequal globe.

Identity and the body in contemporary art: the exploration of race, gender, sexuality, and cultural identity, the use of the body, self-portraiture, and personal experience as subject and medium, and the strategy of challenging stereotypes and dominant narratives.

New media, installation, and performance: how installation transforms a whole space and immerses the viewer, how performance makes the artist's actions and the body the work, how video and digital media introduce time and technology, and how these forms make the viewer's experience central.

Contextualizing Content Area 10: the 1980 to present timeframe, the global and diverse character of contemporary art, the dominance of concept and new media over traditional painting and sculpture, and the recurring concerns of identity, politics, globalization, and the questioning of art itself.

Art of ancient Greece: how Greek sculpture developed from the kouros to contrapposto and the classical ideal, and how the temple and the Acropolis express civic ideals and polytheism, across the Archaic, Classical, and Hellenistic periods.

Art of dynastic Egypt: how the conventions of Egyptian art and architecture express permanence and serve the king, the gods, and the afterlife, from the Palette of Narmer and the pyramids to tomb sculpture and the Amarna interlude.

Art of the ancient Near East: how Sumerian, Akkadian, Babylonian, Assyrian, and Persian art and architecture express religion, cosmology, and royal power, from the ziggurat and votive figures to the victory stele and law code.

Contextualizing Content Area 2: the chronological and geographic scope of the ancient Mediterranean, the five cultures it spans, and the College Board enduring understandings about religion, power, permanence, and civic ideals that frame its required works.

Art of the colonial Americas: how Spanish and Portuguese colonization imposed Christian art and architecture, how indigenous and African materials, skills, and imagery fused into hybrid works, and how casta paintings and devotional images reflect a layered colonial society built on conquest and conversion.

Baroque art in Europe: the dramatic style of tenebrism, diagonal motion, and heightened emotion, its roots in the Catholic Counter-Reformation and absolutist monarchy, and how it differs from Renaissance balance by aiming to overwhelm and persuade the viewer.

Contextualizing Content Area 3: the chronological and geographic scope from late antiquity to the mid eighteenth century, the dominance of Christianity and royal power, the movement from medieval abstraction to Renaissance naturalism and Baroque drama, and how colonial contact produced hybrid art in the Americas.

Early Christian and Byzantine art: how Christianity adapted Roman basilica and central-plan architecture, why mosaic and icon developed a flat, gold-ground, hierarchical style, and how images served worship, doctrine, and imperial authority in late antiquity and the Byzantine Empire.

Romanesque and Gothic art: the heavy, fortress-like Romanesque church with rounded arches and barrel vaults, the structural breakthrough to the Gothic with pointed arches, ribbed vaults, flying buttresses, and stained glass, and how both used architecture and sculpture to teach and inspire a largely non-reading faithful.

The Italian Renaissance: the recovery of classical ideals, the invention of linear perspective, the mastery of anatomy and contrapposto, and the role of humanism and patrons such as the Medici and the Church across the Early and High Renaissance.

The Northern Renaissance: the development of oil painting, the love of microscopic surface detail and disguised symbolism, the rise of the bourgeois patron and the print, and how Northern naturalism differs from the idealized, perspective-driven Italian Renaissance.

Contextualizing Content Area 4: the 1750 to 1980 timeframe, the impact of revolution, the Enlightenment, industrialization, and modern science, the rapid succession of movements from Neoclassicism to abstraction, and the modern questioning of what art is for.

The early twentieth-century avant-garde: how Cubism fractured form into multiple viewpoints, how Expressionism and Fauvism used distortion and bold color to express feeling, how Dada attacked the idea of art itself, and how Surrealism explored the unconscious, driving art toward abstraction and concept.

Impressionism and Post-Impressionism: the Impressionist capture of momentary light, color, and modern life through loose, visible brushwork and plein-air painting, and the Post-Impressionist reactions that emphasized structure, expressive color, and symbolic feeling, opening the path toward abstraction.

Modern architecture and design: how iron, steel, glass, and reinforced concrete enabled new structures, how modernism stripped away historical ornament in favor of the idea that form should follow function, and how design reached toward a clean, rational, machine-age aesthetic.

Modern art after 1945: Abstract Expressionism and the gestural or color-field canvas as pure expression, Pop art's embrace of mass culture, advertising, and the everyday object, and the broader postwar shift toward art as idea, process, and critique up to about 1980.

Rococo and Neoclassicism: the light, ornate, aristocratic pleasure of the Rococo, the Enlightenment and revolutionary reaction in Neoclassicism with its revival of classical order, restraint, and civic virtue, and how the two styles express opposite values.

Romanticism and Realism: the Romantic emphasis on emotion, imagination, nature, and the sublime against Neoclassical reason, and the Realist commitment to depicting ordinary working people and contemporary life without idealisation, as responses to revolution and industrialization.

Art of Indigenous North America: the great diversity of peoples and regions, the integration of art with ceremony, identity, and daily life, the use of natural and locally significant materials, and the continuity and transformation of these traditions through and after European contact.

Art of Mesoamerica: the temple-pyramid and planned ceremonial city, monumental sculpture and relief glorifying rulers and gods, the central role of the calendar, cosmology, and ritual including bloodletting and sacrifice, across the Olmec, Maya, and Aztec cultures.

Art of the Andes: the mastery of fitted stone masonry, the central importance of textiles as a marker of value and identity, the integration of architecture with a dramatic mountain landscape, and the cosmology and rulership of the Inka and earlier Andean cultures.

Contextualizing Content Area 5: the chronological and geographic scope of indigenous American art across Mesoamerica, the Andes, and North America, the recurring themes of cosmology, rulership, and ritual, and the need to study these cultures on their own terms rather than through a European lens.

Art and leadership in Africa: the role of court arts, regalia, and prestige materials in asserting the power, wealth, and sacred legitimacy of rulers, the use of idealized and commemorative imagery, and how leadership art differs from communal ritual objects.

Contextualizing Content Area 6: the diversity of African cultures and regions, the dominance of art that functions within community, ritual, and leadership, the importance of performance and the living context of objects, and the need to resist outdated Western framings of African art.

Spiritual power objects in Africa: the figure and power object as a vessel for supernatural force, the role of added materials and ritual activation, functions of healing, protection, and mediation with ancestors and spirits, and how meaning depends on belief and ritual rather than appearance alone.

The mask and performance in Africa: the mask as one element of a total performance involving costume, dance, music, and community, its roles in ritual such as initiation, justice, and honoring spirits, and why the static carved object loses meaning when removed from its living context.

Contextualizing Content Area 7: the broad scope from ancient Persia through the rise of Islam to the modern era, the dominance of Islamic art and its preference for calligraphy, geometry, and pattern over figural religious imagery, and the role of trade and empire across the region.

Islamic architecture and the mosque: the core features of the mosque (courtyard, prayer hall, qibla wall, mihrab, minbar, minaret, dome), how the building orients and serves communal prayer, and how calligraphy, geometric, and vegetal ornament cover surfaces in place of figural imagery.

The arts of the book and calligraphy: the supreme status of calligraphy as the sacred word made beautiful, the development of the decorated and illustrated book, the courtly use of figural illustration in non-religious texts, and how these arts express both devotion and royal prestige.

Buddhist art across Asia: the development of the Buddha image with its iconic features and meaningful gestures, the stupa as a sacred reliquary and focus of devotion, and how Buddhist art spread from South Asia along trade routes and adapted to local cultures.

Chinese art and the landscape: the supreme status of ink landscape painting, the expression of harmony between humanity and nature shaped by Daoist and Confucian thought, the use of atmospheric perspective and shifting viewpoints, and the integration of painting, poetry, and calligraphy.

Contextualizing Content Area 8: the scope across South, East, and Southeast Asia, the role of Hinduism, Buddhism, Confucianism, and Daoism in shaping art, the spread of Buddhism along trade routes, and the recurring themes of devotion, the sacred figure, and harmony with nature.

Japanese art and aesthetics: the blending of imported Buddhist and Chinese influences with native traditions, the aesthetic values of asymmetry, simplicity, and refined design, the floating world and the woodblock print, and the influence of Japanese art on the West.

The Hindu temple and deities: the temple as the dwelling place of the god centered on an inner sanctum, the symbolism of multiple arms, attributes, and gestures in depicting deities, and the role of darshan and devotion in Hindu sacred art across South and Southeast Asia.

Ancestors and the spirit world in the Pacific: the honoring and embodiment of ancestors and spirits in figures and ceremonial objects, the role of these works in ritual and performance, and how meaning depends on belief and use rather than the static object alone.

Art and status in the Pacific: the use of prestige materials such as feathers, shell, and fine fiber, the labor-intensive making of objects to display resources and rank, the role of objects in exchange and ceremony, and how status art differs from purely spiritual works.

Contextualizing Content Area 9: the geographic scope across Melanesia, Polynesia, Micronesia, and Australia, the role of art in expressing status, ancestry, and the spirit world, the use of perishable and natural materials, and the importance of performance and exchange.