Stone Ages
Cave Paintings
Stone Age (30,000 b.c.–2500 b.c.) Cave painting, fertility goddesses, megalithic structures Lascaux Cave Painting, Woman of Willendorf, Stonehenge Ice Age ends (10,000 b.c.–8,000 b.c.); New Stone Age and first permanent settlements (8000 b.c.–2500 b.c.)
- Cave paintings were among the most popular and there were also megalithic structures, which are memorials that are large stones that form prehistoric structures.
- One of the most famous caves is called the Lascaux Cave, and it is famous for it's Paleolithic cave paintings. These paintings consist of mainly animals (mammals to be exact) that were native to the area.
- The Stonehenge is also very famous. It is one of the most famous Megalithic structures sites on the whole world. It is located in Wiltshire, England.
Mesopotamian
Monte Albán: South Platform, Stela 2.
Mesopotamian (3500 b.c.–539 b.c.) Warrior art and narration in stone relief
Standard of Ur, Gate of Ishtar, Stele of Hammurabi's CodeSumerians invent writing (3400 b.c.); Hammurabi writes his law code (1780 b.c.); Abraham founds monotheism
Standard of Ur, Gate of Ishtar, Stele of Hammurabi's CodeSumerians invent writing (3400 b.c.); Hammurabi writes his law code (1780 b.c.); Abraham founds monotheism
- The art consisted of warrior art and stone relief work. These are slabs of clay that were used as architectural elements like wall facings.
- On these sculptures, there were names of rulers, sort of like hieroglyphic inscriptions. Many rulers that were carved into these slabs are on different monuments.
- These hieroglyphics show their right to rule and other matters like their power.
- There have also been examples of the carved pieces being used sort of like a timeline or a narrative scene. These were also used for tombs.
Egyptian
Egyptian (3100 b.c.–30 b.c.) Art with an afterlife focus: pyramids and tomb paintings: Imhotep, Step Pyramid, Great Pyramids, Bust of Nefertiti Narmer unites Upper/Lower Egypt (3100 b.c.); Rameses II battles the Hittites (1274 b.c.); Cleopatra dies (30 b.c.)
- The pyramids of Egypt are considered some of the most magnificent man-made structures in history and they play a major role on ancient Egyptian society.
- The pyramids of Egypt are still remaining to show the countries power and its past.
- Egyptian art is based on afterlife for the sake of their rulers and to show pride or respect for their gods or who they worshiped; the Egyptians were obsessed with immorality.
- Their paintings were mainly consistent of hieroglyphics and they tell stories of the deceased.
- Today, we know about the Egyptian tombs and statues that represent life like the Imhotep, the Great Pyramids, and etc.
Greek and Hellenistic
Greek and Hellenistic (850 b.c.–31 b.c.) Greek idealism: balance, perfect proportions; architectural orders (Doric, Ionic, Corinthian) Parthenon, Myron, Phidias, Polykleitos, Praxiteles Athens defeats Persia at Marathon (490 b.c.); Peloponnesian Wars (431 b.c.–404 b.c.); Alexander the Great's conquests (336 b.c.–323 b.c.)
- Greek idealism is based on balance and perfect proportions.
- This time period also consists of architectural order :Doric, Ionic, Corinthian.
- These are sculptures and architectural places show excellent flow and proportions.
- They also portray emphasis by the way everything is formed perfectly and all of the clean lines.
Roman
Roman (500 b.c.– a.d. 476) Roman realism: practical and down to earth; the arch Augustus of Primaporta, Colosseum, Trajan's Column, Pantheon Julius Caesar assassinated (44 b.c.); Augustus proclaimed Emperor (27 b.c.); Diocletian splits Empire (a.d. 292); Rome falls (a.d. 476)
- Carved and modeled portraits
- They stressed the idea of physical perfection of the human figure; anatomy
- Made for wealthy people
- very few Roman artists have been known to us because they were not a respected class
Indian, Chinese, & Japanese
Indian, Chinese, and Japanese (653 b.c.–a.d. 1900) Serene, meditative art, and Arts of the Floating WorldGu Kaizhi, Li Cheng, Guo Xi, Hokusai, Hiroshige Birth of Buddha (563 b.c.); Silk Road opens (1st century b.c.); Buddhism spreads to China (1st–2nd centuries a.d.) and Japan (5th century a.d.)
- The arts of the East show a cultural and aesthetic richness that goes over four millennia and originates from a vast region.
- Cultural tradition, religious beliefs, features of geography, the written word, respect for nature, and man’s role in the universe all influence the making of art in Asia.
- Whether they are powerful ritual objects or sacred sculptures, exquisite textiles, delicate porcelain vessels, or vast landscapes on scrolls and screens, works of Chinese and Japanese art inspire viewers with their beauty and provide valuable clues to understanding the cultures that created them.
Byzantine & Islamic
Byzantine and Islamic (a.d. 476–a.d.1453) Heavenly Byzantine mosaics; Islamic architecture and amazing maze-like design. Hagia Sophia, Andrei Rublev, Mosque of Córdoba, the Alhambra Justinian partly restores Western Roman Empire (a.d. 533–a.d. 562); Iconoclasm Controversy (a.d. 726–a.d. 843); Birth of Islam (a.d. 610) and Muslim Conquests (a.d. 632–a.d. 732)
- Sculptures of portrait busts and full length statues of religious figures represented as commemorative.
- These are also relief carvings and paintings and also mosaics. These are the most popular.
- These can also represent architectural buildings, such as shrines or temples.
- All of the art work doesnt pertain to religion, but also certain territories.
- Decoration
- Calligraphy, vegetal patterns, geometric patterns, and figural representation.
The Middle Ages
Middle Ages (500–1400) Celtic art, Carolingian Renaissance, Romanesque, Gothic St. Sernin, Durham Cathedral, Notre Dame, Chartres, Cimabue, Duccio, Giotto Viking Raids (793–1066); Battle of Hastings (1066); Crusades I–IV (1095–1204); Black Death (1347–1351); Hundred Years' War (1337–1453)
- Celtic-Germanic art combined with ornamental interlacing patterns
- Geometric and abstract arts. There was also use of wood and stone in Celtic art.
- Examples of castles and cathedrals
- Gothic art
Early & High Renaissance
Early and High Renaissance (1400–1550) Rebirth of classical culture Ghiberti's Doors, Brunelleschi, Donatello, Botticelli, Leonardo, Michelangelo, Raphael Gutenberg invents movable type (1447); Turks conquer Constantinople (1453); Columbus lands in New World (1492); Martin Luther starts Reformation (1517)
- Painting, sculpture, and decorative art of European history such as the Renaissance
- Known as a distinct style in Italy, and also the rebirth of ancient traditions
- Classical antiquity = Cultural history
- Renaissance art marks the transition of Europe from the medieval period to the early and high period.
Venetian & Northern Renaissance
Venetian and Northern Renaissance (1430–1550) The Renaissance spreads north- ward to France, the Low Countries, Poland, Germany, and England Bellini, Giorgione, Titian, Dürer, Bruegel, Bosch, Jan van Eyck, Rogier van der Weyden Council of Trent and Counter-Reformation (1545–1563); Copernicus proves the Earth revolves around the Sun (1543)
- Architecture was really important
- Focused on visual keys of perspective in every piece
- Sixteenth-century Venetian painters long enjoyed a reputation as the standard-bearers of an approach that was at once painterly, effective and steeped in the primacy of color as its guiding principle.
- Painters in the three regions shared many aesthetic goals and many artistic ties bound them together.
- Venetian painters were unified by the naturalism of their painting-in degrees that varied from artist to artist and area to area but nonetheless present almost everywhere.
- "Naturalism" to them meant an investigation of the natural world, with its emphasis on direct observation as translated into paint-an emphasis that separated their work from the strongly classicizing styles of their fellow artists south of the Apennines.
Mannerism
Mannerism (1527–1580) Art that breaks the rules; artifice over nature Tintoretto, El Greco, Pontormo, Bronzino, Cellini Magellan circumnavigates the globe (1520–1522).
- The term mannerism describes the style of the paintings and bronze sculpture on this tour.
- Derived from the Italian maniera, meaning simply “style,” mannerism is sometimes defined as the “stylish style” for its emphasis on self-conscious artifice over realistic depiction.
- This intellectual bias was, in part, a natural consequence of the artist’s new status in society.
- No longer regarded as craftsmen, painters and sculptors took their place with scholars, poets, and humanists in a climate that fostered an appreciation for elegance, complexity, and even precocity.
Baroque
Baroque (1600–1750) Splendor and flourish for God; art as a weapon in the religious wars Reubens, Rembrandt, Caravaggio, Palace of Versailles Thirty Years' War between Catholics and Protestants (1618–1648)
- The religious conflicts which had begun in the Renaissance with the Reformation and Counter Reformation continue well into the 17th c.
- The battle between the Catholic and Protestants launched wars, and separated a country - the Netherlands, became Catholic Flanders (modern day Belgium) and Protestant Holland.
- The conflict between the Catholics and the Protestants had a great effect on art.
- The Catholics, through the efforts of the Counter-Reformation launched great building campaigns for churches, and their furnishings and decorations, especially in countries like Italy, Spain and Germany, and Flanders.
- A great demand for art emerged because of the rise of absolute monarchies, and thus grand courts, serving as propaganda and a statement of authority and power.
Neoclassical
Neoclassical (1750–1850) Art that recaptures Greco-Roman grace and grandeur David, Ingres, Greuze, Canova Enlightenment (18th century); Industrial Revolution (1760–1850)
- Neoclassical architecture is an architectural style produced by the neoclassical movement that began in the mid-18th century, manifested both in its details as a reaction against the Rococo style of naturalistic ornament
- In its architectural formulas as an outgrowth of some classicizing features of Late Baroque.
- In its purest form it is a style principally derived from the architecture of Classical Greece and Rome and the architecture of the Italian architect Andrea Palladio.
- Neoclassical architecture emphasizes the wall rather than chiaroscuro and maintains separate identities to each of its parts.
Romanticism
Romanticism (1780–1850) The triumph of imagination and individuality Caspar Friedrich, Gericault, Delacroix, Turner, Benjamin West American Revolution (1775–1783); French Revolution (1789–1799); Napoleon crowned emperor of France (1803)
- Classical revival in European art, architecture, and interior design that lasted from the mid-eighteenth to the early nineteenth century.
- This period gave rebirth to the art of ancient Rome and Greece and the Renaissance as an opposition to the ostentatious Baroque and Rococo art that preceded the movement.
- The style most frequently in their arts and architecture, using the classical elements to express ideas of nationalism, courage, and sacrifice.
- The movement was inspired by the discovery of ancient Italian artifacts at the ruins of Herculaneum and Pompeii.
- Neoclassicism emphasized rationality and the resurgence of tradition.
- Neoclassical painters took extra care to depict the costumes, settings, and details of classical subject matter with as much accuracy as possible.
Realism
Realism (1848–1900) Celebrating working class and peasants; en plein air rustic painting Corot, Courbet, Daumier, Millet European democratic revolutions of 1848
- The attempt to represent subject matter truthfully, without artificiality, and avoiding artistic conventions, implausible, exotic and supernatural elements.
- Was an artistic movement that began in France in the 1850s, after the 1848 Revolution.
- Instead it sought to portray real and typical contemporary people and situations with truth and accuracy, and not avoiding unpleasant or sordid aspects of life.
- Realist works depicted people of all classes in situations that arise in ordinary life, and often reflected the changes wrought by the Industrial and Commercial Revolutions.
- Realist works of art are those that, in revealing a truth, may emphasize the ugly or sordid, such as works of social realism, regionalism, or Kitchen sink realism.
Impressionism
Impressionism (1865–1885) Capturing fleeting effects of natural light Monet, Manet, Renoir, Pissarro, Cassatt, Morisot, Degas Franco-Prussian War (1870–1871); Unification of Germany (1871)
- A major movement, first in painting and later in music, that developed chiefly in France during the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
- Impressionist painting comprises the work produced between about 1867 and 1886 by a group of artists who shared a set of related approaches and techniques.
- The most conspicuous characteristic of Impressionism was an attempt to accurately and objectively record visual reality in terms of transient effects of light and color.
Fauvism and Expressionism
Fauvism and Expressionism (1900–1935) Harsh colors and flat surfaces (Fauvism); emotion distorting form Matisse, Kirchner, Kandinsky, Marc Boxer Rebellion in China (1900); World War (1914–1918)
- Expressionism: figurative art artists purposefully disforms color, form, light, texture for desired intensification of emotional reaction
- Symbolist: colors are expressive in and of itself
- flattened or tilted plane
- patterns
- jarring textures, color
- crowded space
Cubism, Futurism, Supremativism, Constructivism, De Stijl
Cubism, Futurism, Supremativism, Constructivism, De Stijl (1905–1920) Pre– and Post–World War 1 art experiments: new forms to express modern lifePicasso, Braque, Leger, Boccioni, Severini, Malevich Russian Revolution (1917); American women franchised (1920)
Dada and Surrealism
Dada and Surrealism (1917–1950)Ridiculous art; painting dreams and exploring the unconscious Duchamp, Dalí, Ernst, Magritte, de Chirico, Kahlo Disillusionment after World War I; The Great Depression (1929–1938); World War II (1939–1945) and Nazi horrors; atomic bombs dropped on Japan (1945)
Abstract Expressionism
Abstract Expressionism (1940s–1950s) and Pop Art (1960s) Post–World War II: pure abstraction and expression without form; popular art absorbs consumerism Gorky, Pollock, de Kooning, Rothko, Warhol, Lichtenstein Cold War and Vietnam War (U.S. enters 1965); U.S.S.R. suppresses Hungarian revolt (1956) Czechoslovakian revolt (1968)
- Artwork expressionism art represents emotions
- Like art therapy; gives you a way to express your feelings
Postmodernism & Deconstructionism
Postmodernism and Deconstructionism (1970– ) Art without a center and reworking and mixing past styles Gerhard Richter, Cindy Sherman, Anselm Kiefer, Frank Gehry, Zaha Hadid Nuclear freeze movement; Cold War fizzles; Communism collapses in Eastern Europe and U.S.S.R. (1989–1991)
- very modernized