The book examines the art of the West from about 30,000 BC to the present day. The structure is ergocentric, meaning that the key to getting to know and understanding artistic creation is the works themselves. Their analysis, comparison and parallels are made in relation to the material and spiritual conditions of their time, to the personality of their creator and, wherever possible, to the current in which research has placed them. The aim is, through the multiplicity of stimuli offered by the combination of word and image, to enable the reader, regardless of his or her previous contact with the subject, to approach the history of Western art in a comprehensive way, understanding both the succession of its epochs and the ways in which they communicate with each other.

As the author writes in his preface, the great challenge he faced was choice. Which works and which artists could give the exact stamp of each era in the fields of painting, sculpture, architecture or even ceramics, photography and contemporary forms of expression, so that, despite the inevitable exclusions, the clarity of the overall picture that the reader is trying to form is not reduced? In addition, an effort was made to ensure that the representativeness and validity of the choices were, as far as possible, based on objective yet complex criteria.

Alkis Charalambidis is an art historian, professor emeritus of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki.