"I am a former art history student who makes his living in marketing communications and graphic design. I frequent museums in every city I visit."

My father spent little time in museums. He earned his living selling shoes and bowled in a men’s club league at night. Art was not his thing. Yet there we were, meeting in Washington D.C. for his 80th birthday, and he wanted me to take him to a museum, as I occasionally did back home in Cleveland, Ohio. He grew to appreciate art from the stories I told him as we wandered from gallery to gallery.

ARTe is for him, and anyone who ever felt like entering a museum was like stepping onto foreign soil. Art was made for everyone. ARTe just makes it easier to understand.

ARTe started with a Monday morning e-mail from your local museum, with an interesting story about a piece of art they had on view.

The heart of the ARTe Project is an art history timeline built around the simple rhythms of changing artistic styles. At a glance you can see how the history of art has unfolded.

You will see how the art in museums reflects our own ever-changing world and why these works are more than just pretty pictures. Art provides a literal illustration of human history, its grandest achievements and worst failures.

The story begins with early humans recording the world around them on cave walls. It tells the mythologies of ancient tribes; the struggles of emerging cultures; the worship of beauty in Rome; the pulsing religious conflicts from Byzantium, through the Protestant Reformation and into modern times.

It is a story that captures the dreams of enlightenment and the raw emotions of revolution.

It is the story of our world, told through the observant eyes of artists. Now showing at museums around the world. Previewed on ARTe.

Mark Spaner
President, The ARTe Project