Rick Steves' Art of Europe

As the Ice Age glaciers melted, European civilization was born—and with it, so was art. From the Stone Age came prehistoric art: mysterious tombs, mighty megaliths, and vivid cave...

The Romans gave Europe its first taste of a common culture—and awe-inspiring art. From its groundbreaking architecture to its statues, mosaics, and frescos, Rome engineered bigger...

After Rome fell, Europe spent a thousand years in its Middle Ages. Its art shows how the light of civilization flickered in monasteries and on Europe’s fringes: Christian Byzantium...

Around 1400, Europe rediscovered the aesthetics of ancient Greece and Rome. This rebirth of classical culture showed itself in the statues, paintings, and architecture of Florence,...

In the 1600s and 1700s, the art of "divine" kings and popes — and of revolutionaries and Reformers — tells the story of a Europe in transition. In the Catholic south, Baroque bubbl...

In the 1800s, the Industrial Revolution spawned new artistic styles: idealized Romanticism, light-chasing Impressionism, sensuous Art Nouveau. Then Europe’s tumultuous 20th century...