1I'm not an artist, even less an archaeologist. It's just recently that I happened to feel want to learn art history. The only idea coming up was to shape my understanding by gathering resource from the net. As for a person who lacks proper background, it first seemed almost impossible to stitch everything into its place. However after spending sometime surfing the net I found some very helpful sites. First is Professor Christopher L. C. E. Witcombe which helps a lot laying out the whole picture of art evolution from very beginning. Then Anne S. de Luengas of ITESM Campus Tampico whose explanation is so consize yet complete. Please know that all explanations you see here belong to her. Not a single word is mine. The last one is wikipedia, the amazing web of information. Please receive my thanks.

What you see now is just the first part of my collecting. It traces the path of conventional history from prehistoric to Gothic era. Things of the time after that will come afterwards.

Prehistoric Art
For the history of art, Prehistory is the period that covers the evolution of man before writing. The most interesting manifestation of art are the wall paintings of Paleolithic times and the stone buildings of the Neolithic period.
Mesopotamian Art
Mesopotamia is the region found between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, which opens to the Persic Gulf. Approximately 3,000 years B.C., several urban civilizations originated there. They left not only texts and other traces but also impressive artistic tracks. Some of the important cultures were Sumer, Caldea and Assyria.
Mesopotamian civilizations show peculiar urbanization characteristics: protection walls. The pits surrounding them and their abundant decorations reveal the hostile environment in which the people lived. The temples and palaces architecture indicates a strict and efficient social structure, one based on collective help and strong religious and political powers. Except for the Assyrian palaces, the materials used in construction were adobe bricks, reason why the paintings in the long run weathered away.
Egyptian Art
The Egyptian civilization developped along the river Nile, in Eastern Africa, starting about 3000 years b.C. It had a theocratic government. People believed that Pharao was the son of Ra, their principal god. The importance of religion and the respect for death that existed among Egyptians led them to express their art mostly in temples and graves and to adopt strict canons controlled by the priests.
Greek Art
The Greek civilization started with a series of invasions. As the invaders settled, they developed their own culture in a rather hostile surrounding consisting mainly of dry mountains and sea. This led them to develop commerce, marine activities and finally crafts. They were never truly united but developed city states that spent a lot of time fighting each other, getting together only when great dangers threatened them (wars against Persians) or during the Olympic games. They also experimented with different types of government, from autocracy to democracy. The fundamental values of Western Civilization: humanism, individualism and human dignity were inherited from Greece. The Greeks' point of view on the world is definitely anthropocentric: their gods resemble men and their art centers around the contemplation of man. Four periods of evolution can be distinguished in greek art: archaic, severe, classic, and hellenistic.
Roman Art
The Roman civilization starts approximately seven centuries before Christ and ends with the Barbarian invasions, officially it ends in the middle of the fifth century A.D. The three most important periods are associated with the three different political systems: kingdom, republic, and empire. These periods are obvious in the development of the Roman territory: from the city limited by seven hills around Rome, in the middle of the Italian peninsula, soldiers leave to impose the Roman organization around the Mediterranean basin, even further out into England and the Middle East. The most important characteristics of the Roman civilization are its abilities to make synthesis, to gather alien influences and to assimilate them into one unified culture. In the area of art, the most determining influence is, beginning the second century B.C., the Greek influence. This influence can be traced eventhough the architecture, sculpture and painting from Rome show some original aspects.
Early Christian Art
The art of the first Christians develops in Rome and in the Italic peninsula in the first four centuries of our era. Eventhough it was inspired in Roman art, it lacks the quality that characterized it. Neither its painting nor its sculpture or its architecture show great talent, however, they manifest a symbolism that opposes the realism of Roman artists. The first Christians don't see in art a way of expressing beauty, but one of transmiting their faith and beliefs as well as to teach them.
Medieval Art
In western Europe, the ten centuries between the fall of Rome in the 5th and the fall of Constantinople in the 15th, became known as Middle Ages. The Greek-Roman cultural background and the beginning Christian culture, merge with "Barbarian" influences due to the invasions. Goths, Arabs, and Northmen, left lasting traces , mostly in the field of art. Arabs are responsible for the isolation of Europe as well as for the establishment ofsome of the social and political structures of the feudal system.They are also responsible for the Crusades which by the end of this period reopen the commerce with orient,make possible the reappearance of a new burgeoisie with a developed taste for luxury and refinement, and in England, the signature of the Carta Magna.
Gothic Art
By the end of the XII century, in nothern Europe, when thanks to trade villages develop into cities, Gothic Art flourishes. At the same time, new systems of social, economical, political, and religious organizations appear. The bourgeosie, the group of city inhabitants, influences the development of a different new society and promotes a new style: Gothic The guilds of craftmen contend for the construction of cathedrals. Gothic, although symbolic, is a lot more anecdotal and naturalistic than Romanesque.