A study of art history might be a good way to learn more about a culture than that is possible to learn in general history classes. Most (1) history courses concentrate on politics, economics, and war. (2) , art history (3) on much more than this because art reflects not only the political values of a people, but also religious (4) , emotions, and psychology. (5) , information about the daily activities of our own can be provided by art. In short, art expresses the (6) qualities of a time and a place, and a study of it clearly offers us a deeper understanding than what can be found in most history books.
In history books, objective information about the political life of a country is (7) ; that is, facts about political are given, but (8) are not expressed. Art, on the other hand, is (9) : it reflects emotions and impressions. The great Spanish painter Francisco Goya severely criticized the Spanish government for its (10) of power over people. Over a hundred years later, symbolic (11) were used in Pablo Picasso’s Guemica to express the (12) of war. (13) , on another continent, the powerful paintings of Diego Rivera depicted these Mexican artists’ concealed 14 and sadness about social problems.
In the same way, art can (15) a culture’s religious beliefs. For hundreds of years in Europe, religious art was (16) the only type of art that existed. Churches and other religious buildings were filled with paintings that depicted people and stories from the Bible. (17) most people couldn’t read, they could still understand biblical stories in the pictures on church walls. (18) , one of the main characteristics of art in the Middle East was (and still is) its (19) of human and animal images. This reflects the Islamic belief that statues are (20) .

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