AR300 Art History Directions : Unless otherwise stated, answer in complete sentences, and be sure to usecorrect English spelling and grammar. Sources must be cited in APA format. Your response should...

Art History        2
ART HISTORY
Table of Contents
Part A    3
Part B    4
References    8
Part A
    Art History as an academic field came into existence during the recent times. However, there are numerous art historians who have traced the discipline to much ancient times. They have in a way, believed that the discipline of art history existed during the year 1550, when the publication of Lives of the Most Excellent Italian Architects, Painters and Sculptors took place. The publication was done by the Italian artist and writer Giorgio Vasari (Stokstad, Cateforis & Addiss, 2005). There are other people who trace back the journey of the discipline of art history to even earlier times than this year of publication. According to Stokstad, Cateforis and Addiss (2005), they have put forward the opinion that the discipline originated during the time of the work of ancient Roman commentator Pliny the Elder. He recorded the story of competition between the two Greek painters Zeuxis and Parrhasios. The discipline of art history deals with two distinct but interrelated aspects. One of them is the study of individual works of art outside the purview of time and place, and the other is the study of the historicity of art as a product of its broad cultural base, which is aligned with the help of iconography and contextualism.
    Art history involves an immensity of scope where there is a depiction of the various ways in which human beings have represented the world and expressed their ideas as well as ideals in the form of visual representation. According to Stokstad, Cateforis and Addiss (2005), the work of art history as a humanistic discipline, is to formally analyse the works of art and identify symbolism and subject matter through the help of iconography as well as add theoretical and contextual studies for the purpose of interpreting art. Art history involves a number of subject lines in order to comprehensively study art. The art historians use the biography of the artists as well as their patrons and their public along with the history of ideas so that an understanding is developed and inculcated for the purpose of studying the intellectual currents that are infused in the works of the artists and frame their reception. The art historians do not restrict their study to their works of art, they extend it to the study of other forms of art such as music, drama and literature so that they can gain a clearer and a better sense of the broader cultural context of the work of art and the artist.
    There are a multitude of natural and human threats that concern the art historians regarding the survival of different works of art. One of the human threats is thievery, where greedy people have stolen art objects. The Egyptian pyramids have been plundered and vandalized by thieves (Stokstad,...