Known for mastery of metals, Christian missions and thereby religious art, the Europeans created dramatic and ornate work of incredible craftsmanship.

Europe’s earliest inhabitants – some perhaps Neanderthals – created enduring art from a very early date in places like the Cave of El Castillo (ca. 40000 years ago) and Chauvet Cave (ca. 37000 years ago). Here we explore slightly more recent art, starting with stone handaxes from the Neolithic (ca. 4500 to 2000 BCE), incredible in their craftsmanship given the techniques used to make them. The European mastery of metals in the Bronze Age (ca. 3000 to 1000 BCE) and Iron Age (ca. 1000 BCE to 150 CE) gave us dramatic weapons and jewelry to be buried alongside warriors from cultures known today as Beaker, Hallstatt, Celtic, and others. After the fall of Rome (ca. 5th century CE), Christian missions to all corners of the continent created incredible social change and led to the production of the gorgeous religious art of the Medieval (ca. 850 to 1400 CE) and Renaissance (ca.1400 to 1650 CE) periods. In the Baroque and Rococo periods (ca. 1650 to 1800 CE), Europeans created dramatic and ornate work. Meanwhile, intellectual thought created the Enlightenment, whose rudimentary scientific tools, groundbreaking at the time, are now objets d’art that remind us of how far we’ve advanced. Through the war and peace of the 20th century, and the emergence of modernism, Europe’s history is still unfolding…