When I was a kid learning about "art history" it bugged me that it was presented as an evolution, with newer stuff ever better than what came before. Now I know that's just a bald-faced lie invented to elevate and center art made by rich white cis men.

Realism is not the ultimate, best, or "most evolved" form of art. That is some shitted-up white-centric trash.

Art did not "evolve" as a whole. It only evolves within each individual person, in the sense that the more art you are exposed to and the more art you make, the more possibilities you can imagine for your own style and technique.

Note: When I say evolved here, I mean that in the connotation of "improved." The way that it was presented to me in school is that art from other times and cultures was like child scribbles, while art from modern, western, mainstream museums/galleries contained better ideas and better execution and better everything. The education I got presented it as a linear progression over time and put all stylized, non-representational, or "unrealistic" art as "primitive" which just HAPPENED to be most non-European art. /sarcasm