A New History of Western Art: From Antiquity to the Present Day

A radical re-examination of 2,500 years of European art, deconstructing and demystifying its long history from ancient to present

How has art evolved from the pursuit of the ‘ideal’ human form to a black square on a white canvas? Why is a banana duct-taped to a wall worth more on the art market than a beautiful seventeenth-century landscape?

By taking art for what it actually is — a piece of stone or wood, a sheet of paper with some lines drawn on it, a painted canvas — this lively and acce...