Here is a list, by no means comprehensive, of notable artists by century. You can start by searching books and image databases for these artists and discover others from there. Ask an art librarian to suggest "more like this."

Browse the Timeline of Art History from the Metropolitan Museum of Art to learn more about art movements and key artists/works.

13th Century - Pietro Cavallini, Duccio di Buoninsegna, Giotto di Bondone

14th Century - Pietro Lorenzetti, Simone Martini

15th Century - Fra Angelico, Hieronymus Bosch, Sandro Botticelli, Leonardo da Vinci, Albrecht Durer, Michaelangelo Buonarroti, Raphael, Titian, Jan van Eyck

16th Century - Pieter Bruegel, Caravaggio, El Greco, Hans Holbein the Younger, Jacopo Tintoretto

17th Century - Adriaen Brouwer, Frans Hals, Rembrandt van Rijn, Peter Paul Rubens, Diego Velázquez, Johannes Vermeer

18th Century - John James Audubon, Francois Boucher, John Constable, Jean-Honoré Fragonard, Thomas Gainsborough, Francisco Goya, William Hogarth, Jean Antoine Watteau

19th Century - Sir Edward Burne-Jones, Gustave Caillebotte, Mary Cassatt, Paul Cezanne, Marc Chagall, Edgar Degas, Paul Gauguin, Gustav Klimt, Edouard Manet, Sir John Everett Millais, Claude Monet, Edvard Munch, Camille Pissarro, Pierre Auguste Renoir, Auguste Rodin, Dante Gabrielle Rossetti, Henri Rousseau, John Singer Sargent, Georges Seurat, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Vincent Van Gogh, James Abbott McNeill Whistler

20th Century - Salvador Dali, Willem de Kooning, Keith Haring, David Hockney, Edward Hopper, Jasper Johns, Frida Kahlo, Roy Lichtenstein, René Magritte, Henri Matisse, Joan Miró, Amedeo Modigliani, Piet Mondrian, Georgia O'Keeffe, Pablo Picasso, Jackson Pollock, Diego Rivera, Mark Rothko, Julian Schnabel, Andy Warhol, Grant Wood, Andrew Wyeth

Browse general art history survey books.  The Art Library has many, many more.

Title: 30,000 years of art : the story of human creativity across time and space.
Publisher: London ; New York : Phaidon
Date: 2007.
Library of Congress subject headings: Art--History.
Location: ART Collection (Deering Library) (Large items)
Call number: L 709 T447

Title: Art history / Marilyn Stokstad in collaboration with David Cateforis with chapters by Stephen Addiss ... [et al.].
Edition: 2nd ed.
Publisher: New York : Prentice-Hall : Harry N. Abrams
Date: 2002.
Library of Congress subject headings: Art--History.
Location: ART Collection (Deering Library) Large item; non-circulating
Call number: L 709 S874a 2002
Library has: v.1-2

Title: Gardner's art through the ages.
Author: Gardner, Helen, d. 1946.
Edition: 9th ed. / Horst de la Croix, Richard G. Tansey, Diane Kirkpatrick.
Publisher: San Diego : Harcourt Brace Jovanovich
Date: c1991.
Library of Congress subject headings: Art--History.
Location: ART Collection (Deering Library) (Large items)
Call number: L 709 G227a 1991