Histories have been written about architecture, sculpture, painting, music, dance, theatre, motion pictures, television, and literature. Despite essential differences, these forms of historiography have some common features. One is that they are almost invariably produced outside history departments and faculties. For this reason they have tended to be regarded as somewhat exotic specialties. Because the activities of artists are inevitably the central subject of most histories of the arts, such histories generally include formalistic analyses of artistic works. The distinction between history and philosophy in the case of art is thus less distinct than it is ... (100 of 41,316 words)History of the arts