Art is a form of expression of the human being through which he expresses his ideas, feelings and the way he relates to the world, through plastic, linguistic and sonorous resources. Art, as part of culture, reflects in its creation the economic and social bases, transmitting ideas and values inherent to any human culture throughout time and space. Art historians have tried to define the great stylistic epochs of the history of art from the Paleochristian, Gothic-Byzantine, Renaissance, Baroque, Impressionist to Post-Impressionism.
Paleochristian art originated in the first Christian communities between the 2nd and 3rd centuries, until the fall of the Western Roman Empire (476 AD).
Byzantine art was born as a confluence of Greek, Roman and Oriental styles. This fusion was due to the division of the Roman Empire into West and East, which gave rise to the Byzantine Empire, whose capital was Constantinople. Thanks to its privileged location and with the fall of the Western Roman Empire, Constantinople became the cultural capital of the Western world.
The pre-renaissance, developed during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries (trecento), a period in which Gothic and Byzantine art of strictly religious artistic conceptions had in painting one of the best known representatives Giotto di Bondone.
The Renaissance, a time of men with extraordinary talents. The Renaissance developed during the XV and XVI centuries, (four and cinquecento), this stage of art is characterized by an explosion and transformation of art and the artist. The church continues to be the one who commissions most of the works of art.