Top Ten Lists

 The Song of Roland, composed between 1040 and 1115, is the oldest surviving major work of French literature. It is an example of the chanson de geste, a literary form that celebrated legendary deeds....

 The most famous Russian artist of the medieval period is Andrei Rublev. He specialized as a painter of Orthodox icons and frescos. In the nineteenth century, the artistic movement known as Realism dominated the...

 War poetry is poetry about war either written by a person who participates in a war and writes about his experiences; or by a non-combatant. One of the oldest extant works of Western literature,...

 Flowers have been an important subject for artists throughout history. In Ancient Egypt, the lotus, which symbolized the sun, was often used in papyrus paintings, amulets and ceramics. In many artistic works of the...

 Medieval French literature was dominated by courtly love but perhaps the most famous poet of the era, Francois Villon, rejected courtly love and instead focussed on the lowlifes. The Renaissance in the 16th century...

 In 1971, American art historian Linda Nochlin published her essay "Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists?". It focused on the institutional obstacles that had prevented women in the west from becoming successful...

 The earliest surviving English poetry may have been composed in the 7th century. It is written in Old English or Anglo-Saxon, the direct predecessor of modern English. The highest poetic achievement in Old English...

 Among the oldest sculptures discovered to date is the Lion-man, which was found in 1939 in a German cave. It is between 35,000 and 40,000 years old and belongs to the prehistoric period, or...

 Although Germany as a united state has existed only since the 19th century, the people referred to as German have a long and distinguished tradition in the visual arts. The Renaissance, marked by renewed...

 The earliest surviving English poetry was composed as early as the 7th century. It was written in Old English or Anglo-Saxon, the direct predecessor of modern English. Most Old English poems are recorded without...