This introductory exploration of basic artistic concepts and terms applies them to a skeletal multi-disciplinary and multi-cultural history of artistic styles. It treats all the arts—painting, printmaking, photography, sculpture, music, theatre, dance, film, architecture, literature—uniformly, and uses a common outline to reinforce the relationship of terms and concepts to the perceptual process. The text also ties both artistic media and history to the theme of art as a reflection of human reality.