Philadelphia

American art—definitionally—has had a checkered existence. Early artistic attempts were largely derivative of European art; Native American and folk art weren't taken seriously until recent decades, and decorative objects were deemed "industrial arts" for a long time. Not until the 19th century, with the birth of the Hudson River School, could the U.S. claim a native-born style and, even then, only in the mid-20th century, with the advent of Abstract Expressionism, did American art gain worldwide recognition.

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Gloucester, Mass.

In the 1930s and '40s, three friends—all artists, one almost a generation older than the others—spent their summers here, sketching and painting the picturesque environs of America's oldest continuously operating seaport. They are known for very different styles: Milton Avery (1885-1965) for his colorful, flat, figurative scenes; Adolph Gottlieb (1903-1974) for his abstractions, especially those featuring a sun-like orb over a burst of color; Mark Rothko (1903-1970) for his color-block paintings evoking emotion, not image.

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San Francisco

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San Francisco

They were ancient Italy's first great engineers, ambitious road-builders who drained land for development and showed the Romans how to build their famous aqueducts. They pioneered winemaking, loved banquets and included women in public life. They saw messages from the divine in thunder and lightning, bird flight and the entrails of sacrificed animals. And they developed an alphabet that evolved into the Roman letters used throughout Western civilization today.

Vanth

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High up on the Bolivian Altiplano, Potosí was once a glorious "imperial city," deemed by Holy Roman Emperor Charles V to be the "Treasure of the World." Starting around 1545, when a bountiful silver deposit was discovered in a mountain that came to be known as "Cerro Rico," or rich hill, the indigenous village at its foot exploded with fortune-seekers from abroad, becoming a bustling city larger than any other in the Americas, with a population that in the 1600s roughly equaled London's. Exploited by the Spanish—who forced local laborers and enslaved Africans to work in dangerous mines and refining mills—Potosí's silver operations were reputed to be the world's largest industrial complex in the 16th century. They created fabulous wealth, financed the expansion of Spain's empire, elevated its global standing, and helped trigger the Industrial Revolution.

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