Vision and Approach

The Art Story Foundation’s vision is a world where the ideas behind wondrous works of art are accessible to anyone who wants to explore them, rather than just art professionals and academics.

We streamline and organize information about artists, movements, and ideas, and present it using sophisticated, user friendly graphical tools. The resources of The Art Story Foundation are available on every computer and mobile device to anyone, completely free of charge.

The work of The Art Story now encompasses the history of visual art: from the classical though the contemporary. We make it easy for people new to the field to quickly grasp the main concepts, and then drill down to detailed information on areas that interest them.

Ultimately, our goal is to have the very best overview of single artists and movements, while combining each one into the larger overall picture of the arts and humanities.

Our Approach

Every one of our topic pages is designed to emphasize the importance of a particular artist, movement or idea. The idea is presented clearly, succinctly, and without reliance on specialized art terms or knowledge, making it widely accessible to everyone from art professionals and academics to ordinary people thirsty to understand and appreciate great works of art.

We view art as a progression of discoveries, similar to the world of physics, where one scientist builds on the breakthroughs of others. Our visual presentation reflects this progression, using interactive web-based tools that allow users to navigate quickly and seamlessly between time periods, helping them to easily appreciate the larger picture unfolding before them.

These Art Story values and concepts are reflected in every logical argument, artist quote, or supporting resource throughout our website. Our content grows every week, is read by over 9 million Internet visitors per year, and continues to attract and engage more and more people.