If you want to become more familiar with artists from throughout history, this is the guide for you. Each time period has two lists: a short list for general use and a long list for students of art and art history.

The various time periods of music history are not clearly defined and there is considerable overlap during every transitional time.

The time periods I have used in this guide are as follows:

These time periods reflect when the various artists were primarily active, not their specific birth years.

Tips on Using this Guide

  • Artist names are linked to their Wikipedia articles.
  • The library call numbers are the most commonly used by the Library of Congress for books about them or their art.
  • The Representative Works are links to the images, preferably to the museum that houses each image.