History is considered to begin at the time writing is invented.

 The earliest examples of ancient art originate from Egypt and Mesopotamia. The great art traditions have their origins in the art of one of the six great ancient "classical" civilizations: Ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia, Greece, Rome, India, or China. Each of these great civilizations developed their own unique style of art. Animals were commonly depicted in Chinese art, including some examples from the 4th Century which depict stylized mythological creatures and thus are rather a departure from pure wildlife art

. Ming dynasty Chinese art features pure wildlife art, including ducks, swans, sparrows, tigers, and other animals and birds, with increasing realism and detail. In the 7th Century, Elephants, monkeys and other animals were depicted in stone carvings in Ellora, India. These carvings were religious in nature, yet depicted real animals rather than more mythological creatures. Ancient Egyptian art includes many animals, used within the symbolic and highly religious nature of Egyptian art at the time, yet showing considerable anatomical knowledge and attention to detail. Animal symbols are used within the famous Egyptian hieroglyphic symbolic language. Early South American art often depicts representations of a divine jaguar. The Minoans, the greatest civilization of the Bronze Age, created naturalistic designs including fish, squid and birds in their middle period. By the late Minoan period, wildlife was still the most characteristic subject of their art, with increasing variety of species.

 The art of the nomadic people of the Mongolian steppes is primarily animal art, such as gold stags, and is typically small in size as befits their traveling lifestyle. Aristotle (384-322 BC) suggested the concept of photography, but this wasn't put into practice until 1826. The Medieval period, AD 200 to 1430 This period includes early Christian and Byzantine art, as well as Romanesque and Gothic art (1200 to 1430). Most of the art which survives from this period is religious, rather than realistic, in nature. Animals in art at this time were used as symbols rather than representations of anything in the real world. So very little wildlife art as such could be said to exist at all during this period. Renaissance wildlife art, 1300 to 1602. This arts movement began from ideas which initially emerged in Florence.

 After centuries of religious domination of the arts, Renaissance artists began to move more towards ancient mystical themes and depicting the world around them, away from purely Christian subject matter. New techniques, such as oil painting and portable paintings, as well as new ways of looking such as use of perspective and realistic depiction of textures and lighting, led to great changes in artistic expression. The two major schools of Renaissance art were the Italian school who were heavily influenced by the art of ancient Greece and Rome, and the northern Europeans... Flemish, Dutch and Germans, who were generally more realistic and less idealized in their work. The art of the Renaissance reflects the revolutions in ideas and science which occurred in this Reformation period. The early Renaissance features artists such as Botticelli, and Donatello. Animals are still being used symbolically and in mythological context at this time, for example "Pegasus" by Jacopo de'Barbari. The best-known artist of the high Renaissance is Leonardo-Da-Vinci. Although most of his artworks depict people and technology, he occasionally incorporates wildlife into his images, such as the swan in "Leda and the swan", and the animals portrayed in his "lady with an ermine", and "studies of cat movements and positions". Durer is regarded as the greatest artist of the Northern European Renaissance. Albrecht Durer was particularly well-known for his wildlife art, including pictures of hare, rhinoceros, bullfinch, little owl, squirrels, the wing of a blue roller, monkey, and blue crow. Baroque wildlife art, 1600 to 1730. This important artistic age, encouraged by the Roman Catholic Church and the aristocracy of the time, features such well-known great artists as Caravaggio, Rembrandt, Rubens, Velazquez, Poussin, and Vermeer. Paintings of this period often use lighting effects to increase the dramatic effect. Wildlife art of this period includes a lion, and "goldfinch" by Carel Fabrituis. Melchior de Hondecoeter was a specialist animal and bird artist in the baroque period with paintings including "revolt in the poultry coup", "cocks fighting" and "palace of Amsterdam with exotic birds". The Rococo art period was a later (1720 to 1780) decadent sub-genre of the Baroque period, and includes such famous painters as Canaletto, Gainsborough and Goya. Wildlife art of the time includes "Dromedary study" by Jean Antoine Watteau, and "folly of beasts" by Goya. Jean-Baptiste Oudry was a Rococo wildlife specialist, who often painted commissions for royalty. Some of the earliest scientific wildlife illustration was also created at around this time, for example from artist William Lewin who published a book illustrating British birds, painted entirely by hand. Wildlife art in the 18th to 19th C. In 1743, Mark Catesby published his documentation of the flora and fauna of the explored areas of the New World, which helped encourage both business investment and interest in the natural history of the continent. In response to the decadence of the Rococo period, neo-classicism arose in the late 18th Century (1750-1830 ). This genre is more ascetic, and contains much sensuality, but none of the spontaneity which characterizes the later Romantic period.

 This movement focused on the supremacy of natural order over man's will, a concept which culminated in the romantic art depiction of disasters and madness. Francois Le Vaillant (1769-1832) was a bird illustrator (and ornithologist) around this time. Georges Cuvier, (1769-1832), painted accurate images of more than 5000 fish, relating to his studies of comparative organismal biology. Edward Hicks is an example of an American wildlife painter of this period, who's art was dominated by his religious context. Sir Edwin Henry Landseer was also painting wildlife at this time, in a style strongly influenced by dramatic emotional judgments of the animals involved. This focus towards nature led the painters of the Romantic era (1790 - 1880) to transform landscape painting, which had previously been a minor art form, into an art-form of major importance. The romantics rejected the ascetic ideals of Neo-Classicalism. The practical use of photography began in around 1826, although it was a while before wildlife became a common subject for its use. The first color photograph was taken in 1861, but easy-to-use color plates only became available in 1907. In 1853 Bisson and Mante created some of the first known wildlife photography. In France, Gaspar-Felix Tournacho, "Nadar" (1820-1910) applied the same aesthetic principles used in painting, to photography, thus beginning the artistic discipline of fine art photography. Fine Art photography Prints were also reproduced in Limited Editions, making them more valuable. Jaques-Laurent Agasse was one of the foremost painters of animals in Europe around the end of the 18th C and the beginning of the 

.

19th. His animal art was unusually realistic for the time, and he painted some wild animals including giraffe and leopards. Romantic wildlife art includes "zebra", "cheetah, stag and two Indians", at least two monkey paintings. LEG 440 Procurement and Contract Law Assignment help   a leopard and "portrait of a royal tiger" by George Stubbs who also did many paintings of horses. One of the great wildlife sculptors of the Romantic period was Antoine-Louis Barye. Barye was also a wildlife painter, who demonstrated the typical dramatic concepts and lighting of the romantic movement.