Pages from the
Chronicles of Art

On these pages we invite you to learn a little about some of the developments which have influenced art and artists throughout the world since mankind first learnt to express himself in a visual form. We regret that our pages are insufficient to deal with this complex subject in great detail (it would require many thousands of pages to do full justice) but would hope that the snippets of information we have provided will be an aid in helping you decide the art form for your walls and perhaps provide a hunger for learning a little more. There are many sites on the web, particularly those set up by Universities and National Galleries, where information abounds and is excellently presented. We comprehensively recommend and endorse these to you.

Art - A Concise History

style	period	attributes
Ancient	BC 15,000-3,000	Paleolithic (Old Stone Age) and Neolithic (New Stone Age), small objects carved out of stone or bone or modeled in clay, decorative art drawings on cave walls
Egyptian	3000-50	Large scale projects as pyramids and sphinx, medium scale tombs, mummies and sculptures, plus hieroglyphic writing and paintings
Greek Roman	400 100	Temples, columns (simple Doric, graceful Ionic, ornate Corinthian), sculptures portraying gods and goddesses and mortals, pottery and paintings mainly of mythology and every day life
Byzantine	AD 300-1400	Religious art comprising paintings and mosaics, symbolic and extensive use of precious metals, little use of shading or other techniques made subjects appear flat and abstract
Romanesque	800-1100	Adopted from the Roman style, hence the name, reflected the political and religious climate of the times, evident in such large scale structures as Cathedrals whose walls portrayed religious subjects and stories painted in fresco and containing stone sculptures
Gothic	1150-1400	A style of architecture heavily influenced by the "flying buttress" method of support which made possible Cathedrals gigantic in size and height with large stained glass windows, religious sculptures close to human scale often depicting the Old Testament, development of oil painting in Flanders
Renaissance	1450-1600	Adoption of naturalistic styles and formal rules of composition such as perspective plus adherence to the Greek classical ideas of ideal proportions, large scale decorative features of whole walls and ceilings plus smaller works by famed artists such as Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, Dontello and others
Baroque	1600-1700	Flamboyant art style of religious nature, ornately decorated, dynamic and filled to the edge of the canvas with emotion, and high drama, notable artists included Rubens and Rembrandt
Rococo	1700-1780	A luxurious art form which focused on the delicate and ornate often drawing on nature for inspiration such as shells and flowers, often appears in decorative art as tapestries, furniture and porcelain, artists of note include Boucher and Watteau
Neoclassicism	1750	Inspired by archaeological discoveries in Greece and Rome, used simple lines to reflect serious subjects including the French Revolution, artists of note include the painter Jacques-Louis David and the sculptor Bertel Thorvaldson
Romanticism	1800-1850	The style of those who shared a revulsion against established values with drama, struggle and emotion replacing calm, order and sense of purpose, painters covered the canvas in great detail and graphic emotion scandalous and tragic subjects of the day, Napoleon's defeat at Waterloo being typically illustrated
Realism	1800	The result of the many social and economic problems stemming from the Industrial Revolution artists shared a growing concern about the plight of the ordinary person and reflected this in their paintings, the ordinary person (in inglorious setting) became the subject matter and landscapes were painted with the starkness of reflecting different weather or light conditions
Pre-Raphaelites	1850	Pre-Raphaelite artists broke away from the general somberness of other artists around them filling their paintings with bright, fresh colors on a white canvas, they believed art should have a serious, moral purpose and chose subjects from the Bible, Shakespeare and the legend of King Arthur
Luminist	1850	American artists who sought to capture the specific effects of light realistically on canvas
Impressionism Post- Impressionism	1875	Derived from Claude Monet's painting Impression : Sunrise shown at an exhibition in 1874, used by a critic to mock all the works in the show but later adopted by the artists to describe themselves. Preferring to work outdoors in natural light Impressionists used quick, visible brushstrokes and often brilliant colors to try and capture an image immediately and "as seen", renowned Impressionist artists include Monet, Renoir and Degas Post-Impressionism followed Impressionism and led up to Abstract, Fauvism and Cubism, the approach became more expressive often with bold, unrealistic colors, leading artists included van Gogh, Cezanne and Gaugin
Abstract Fauvism Cubism Futurism Dada Surrealism	1900	Abstract - the term used to describe the work of artists who change the appearance of the subject so it no longer looks realistic, those paintings which have no recognizable subject are referred to as "non-objective" Fauvism - a movement in French painting which shocked the public with raw, often shocking and violent, images created using bright colors, short blunt brushstrokes and bold distortions Cubism - an abstract art form which shows more than one view at a time, a typical example of which is Picasso's "Girl with Dark Hair" which shows both the front and side of a face at the same time Futurism - an aggressive and inflammatory art form developed in Italy and Russia, similar in approach to Cubism but rejecting inanimate subjects such as still-life in favor of animate objects such as speeding cars to reflect the aggression of the style Dada - a name randomly selected by simply sticking a knife into a dictionary page, an art form which struck out against all the conventions in art, sometimes called anti-art the intention being to enrage as well as engage the viewer by ridiculing the conventional, artists include Duchap and Picabia Surrealism - meaning "beyond the real" owes much to and reflects the theories of Dr. Sigmund Freud and The Unconscious, an endeavor to portray dreams and fantasy more than reality, or a melding of both, often quite beautiful but at the same time cruel and violent, similar in some respects to Dada with the desire to shock their audience and make them think in new ways, artists of note include Magritte, Ernst and Dali
Pop Art	1950	A very controversial art form loved by Supporters who saw it as art everybody could understand and rejected by Critics who considered it vulgar, sensational and without artistic merit, Pop Artists used media, advertising and comic book art styles to reflect real life in art form, a classic example of this is Andy Warhol's painting of the Soup Can
Op Art	1950	Also referred to as Optical Art, Op Art used colors, lines and shapes in such a way as to make them appear to pulsate and flicker creating perceived movement and optical illusions, artists of note include Vasarely, Riley and Poons.

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Pages from the Chronicles of Art

Art - A Concise History

Pages from the
Chronicles of Art