AP Art History study guide
AP Art History · Work through your exam, one topic at a time.
AP Art History is a College Board Advanced Placement course and exam equivalent to a two-semester college introductory art history course. It is designed for high school students who want college-level credit or placement and for independent learners building a foundation in visual and contextual analysis. The AP Art History study guide has 10 sections and about 2,360 words.
01Global Prehistory, 30,000–500 BCE
Prehistoric art asks you to read function and context from objects made before writing. Know the major categories: parietal (cave) painting and engraving, portable sculpture (figurines, carved tools), megalithic architecture, and ceramic traditions.
267 words, about 1 min02Ancient Mediterranean, 3500 BCE–300 CE
This is the densest domain: Mesopotamia, Egypt, Aegean, Greece, Etruria, and Rome. Master chronology and cultural markers .
276 words, about 1 min03Early Europe and Colonial Americas, 200–1750 CE
From Late Antique and Byzantine through Romanesque, Gothic, Renaissance, Baroque, and into colonial Spanish America. Core concepts: basilica-plan and central-plan churches; mosaic and icon ; manuscript illumination ; Romanesque barrel vaults, thick walls, tympana, and pilgrimage; Gothic rib vault, pointed arch, flying buttress, stained glass, and Rose Window symbolism; humanism , linear perspective , chiaroscuro/sfumato , and patronage in the Renaissance; Baroque theatricality, tenebrism, and Counter-Reformation rhetoric; colonial hybridity, mestizaje , and Andean/ Mexican adaptations of European models.
241 words, about 1 min04Later Europe and Americas, 1750–1980 CE
Modernity: Neoclassicism, Romanticism, Realism, Impressionism, Post-Impressionism, and the twentieth-century avant-gardes through early postmodernism. Concepts: Enlightenment rationalism vs.
226 words, about 1 min05Indigenous Americas, 1000 BCE–1980 CE
Mesoamerican, Andean, North American, and later Indigenous traditions. Concepts: cosmology and calendrics , axis mundi , sacred geography , urban planning aligned to celestial events , reciprocity and tribute , textile as record , effigy and transformation , and revival/self-determination in modern Indigenous art.
254 words, about 1 min06Africa, 1100–1980 CE
African art across regions and media: terracotta and bronze casting , lost-wax technique, royal regalia , masquerade , reliquary figures , textiles , architecture in earth (banco, adobe) . Concepts: performance-based art (masks activated by dance and music), commission and kingship , spiritual mediation , idealized form , asymmetry and balance , and modern African modernism (e.g., studio-trained artists negotiating tradition and modernity).
233 words, about 1 min07West and Central Asia, 500 BCE–1980 CE
Persian, Islamic, and Central Asian traditions. Concepts: aniconism and calligraphy as high art; arabesque and geometric interlace ; iwan , mihrab , qibla , hypostyle and four-iwan mosque plans; minaret ; muqarnas ; tilework ; manuscript painting and shahnama traditions; carpet and textile as portable architecture; and modern negotiation of tradition and nation.
207 words, about 1 min08South, East, and Southeast Asia, 300 BCE–1980 CE
Buddhist, Hindu, Jain, Daoist, Confucian, Shinto, and Islamic arts of Asia. Concepts: mudra and asana in Buddha images; stupa and circumambulation ; mandala ; axis mundi and cosmic mountain (Meru); garbhagriha and shikhara ; torana and pagoda ; handscroll viewing and literati painting; ukiyo-e and print culture; porcelain and trade; modern national and anti-colonial idioms.
220 words, about 1 min09The Pacific, 700–1980 CE
Oceanic art: Melanesia, Micronesia, Polynesia, and Aotearoa New Zealand. Concepts: ancestor veneration , mana (spiritual power), tapu (sacred restriction), chiefly regalia , canoe and navigation as cosmology, moai and ahu platforms, tapa (barkcloth), headdress and featherwork , carved meeting houses , and contemporary Pacific artists addressing diaspora and sovereignty.
215 words, about 1 min10Global Contemporary, 1980 CE to Present
Art since 1980: installation , performance , video , digital and internet art, relational and participatory practices, identity politics , postcolonial critique , institutional critique , site-specificity , biennials and the global market, and activist art. Concepts: the viewer as participant , ephemerality and documentation , the body as medium , appropriation , commodity critique , and decolonization of museums and canons.
221 words, about 1 min