But since these objects can only be fully understood within the social, economic, political, and religious contexts in which they were produced and used, art history further requires the critical analysis and interpretation of other historical sources to illuminate these contexts. These other sources can include written texts, archival documents, archaeology, and oral history, as well as other art forms such as music and dance. Art history, therefore, is inherently interdisciplinary.

The discipline of art history is object-based cultural history. It is founded on the premise that artifacts embody, reflect, and shape the beliefs and values of the persons who made, commissioned, and used them. Unlike exclusively text-based historical disciplines, art history documents and interprets changes in human society by taking works of art and other objects of material culture as its primary sources.