Was your Art History class an endless succession of names and dates and movements? Art History doesn't have to be that way! We discuss new (and much more compelling) approaches the study of art.

Welcome to Crash Course Art History! Over the next 22 episodes, Sarah Urist Green will explore the hidden stories behind artworks. We’ll make connections across time and space, unlock the secrets of the past, and look ahead to the art of...

Wassily Kandinsky: 6 Minute Art History Video

Independent public art like graffiti and street art often gets a bad rap, thanks to its legal classification as vandalism. But these art forms have much to offer as a means for people to speak truth to power and take ownership of...

From giant rock sculptures to Confederate statues, there’s something about public art that cranks up the temperature of debate. In this episode of Crash Course Art History, we’ll learn about public art’s diversity of media, how it...

Our cultural perspectives shape how we perceive art, including who we see as contributing to its most important movements. In this episode of Crash Course Art History, we’ll get to the truth behind the creation of modernism and bust...

Art is the perfect tool for activists to get across their message and make people pay attention. In this episode of Crash Course Art History, we’ll learn about the centuries-long practice of iconoclasm, how art intersects with protest...

In this episode of Crash Course Art History, we’ll learn why museums are so much more than just collections of interesting and pretty objects. Their legacy includes everything from violence to theft, to, oddly enough, mermaid hands.

Did you know Paul Cezanne was rejected by the Academy of Art and Paris Salon during his time? Many now consider Cezanne the grandfather of modern art.

The Blue Rider Group in 5 Minutes How: Wassily Kandinsky and Franz Marc Paved the Way for Modern Art & Were Devastated by World War I

Learn about Modigliani, sculptor and painter and how African Art influenced his work.

In this video I look at Hieronymus Bosch’s The Garden of Earthly Delights. Nobody painted Hell quite like Bosch. What we think of as Hell, and certainly what Bosch thought of as Hell is not based on the bible....

Women were excluded from almost all cultural and social resources in the centuries from 1400 to 1900 when so much of the world's great art was created. And visual art was almost entirely a male industry before modern times. Having...

In this video I look at Hieronymus Bosch’s The Garden of Earthly Delights. Nobody painted Hell quite like Bosch. What we think of as Hell, and certainly what Bosch thought of as Hell is not based on the bible. What we...

The painting was just too complex and detailed to deal with in fifteen minutes, so I made it in three parts.



There are no records to tell us what Bosch or his contemporaries were thinking. There are so many theories...

With 2017 comes great change. Assignments are ending, but the channel is not! Starting in March we’ll be focusing on "The Case for" videos, Art Trips, and other art and art history related topics. We're also starting an Art Assignment...

Empathy is a term we hear a lot, but what does it mean and how does it work? Looking back through art history, we find many moments when art has allowed us to share in the feelings of others, from Maya Lin's Vietnam Veterans Memorial, to...

Host Sarah Urist Green shares 40 reflections about art, gathered in the course of a career in art, art history, curating, and making videos about all of the above.

This assignment comes to you from Chicago based artist Geof Oppenheimer. Geof's work reflects personal experience and the social and political atmosphere they were created in, and he wants you to make an object that does the same. John...

This video is about Jenny Saville's self-portrait "Propped", but it's also about art history. It's about philosophy. It's about the role art plays in representation and cultural narratives. It's about a lot of stuff.

Artists have been taking selfies since the dawn of photography. Cameras allowed people to capture their own image in a way that had never been possible in all of human history, and today most of us carry these magical devices in our...

Art history is much more than names, dates, and creepy babies. It helps us understand how history itself gets constructed and told. In this episode of Crash Course Art History, we’ll learn how interpreting artwork reveals connections...

What makes a painting worth millions of dollars? In this episode of Crash Course Art History, we’re looking at the history behind today’s art industry and how we determine an artwork’s financial value. We’ll also learn how the big...

How do smartphones and 3-D models change how we experience art? And even history itself? In this episode of Crash Course Art History, we’ll learn how technology is shifting the ways we think about art’s past, present, and future....