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30,000 BCE
Prehistoric art
Cave paintings, shell jewelry, engraved stone
30,000 BCE - 20,000 BCE -
5000 BCE
Indigenous art
Decorative and depictive carvings from the earliest periods have been found in the Lower Fraser region of British Columbia, and other pieces have been found in several parts of Canada. The development of Indigenous art in Canada is in many ways more complex than that of the relatively recent European settlers, and may be divided into three distinct periods: prehistoric art, contact or "historic" art, and contemporary Aboriginal art.
5000 BCE - present -
2500 BCE
Ancient art
Art of ancient civilizations such as China, Mesopotamia, Rome, Africa, Greece, etcetera. 2500 BCE - CE -
Feb 11, 1000
Medieval art
Includes Romanesque art, gothic art, Islamic art
1000 CE -
Feb 11, 1400
Renaissance
A French word that means "rebirth," art changed from a way of depicting social status and religious scenes (Medieval) to more realistically represent the physical world. -
Feb 11, 1520
Mannerism
This new style became a distortion of the Renaissance perfection & an exaggeration of the previous movement's qualities. -
Baroque
After the idealism of the Renaissance and the forced nature of Mannerism, Baroque art intended to reflect the religious tensions of the time. -
Rococo
The style sought to renew art in a more florid and graceful way, using light colours, ornaments and gold to depict elegant and refined yet playful subjects. -
Neoclassicism
In reaction to the excesses of Baroque and Rococo, the movement sought to return to the beauty and magnificence of ancient Greece and the Roman Empire.
1770-1830 -
Romanticism
Neoclassicism returned classical beauty and perfection of the ancient world while Romanticism revived medievalism: emphasis on emotion and imagination as well as the glorification of nature with its irrational forces. Reaction to Industrial Revolution/Enlightenment.
1800-1880 -
Realism
Realism rejected the perfectionism of Neoclassicism and the emotionalism of Romanticism, portraying contemporary society and everyday life realistically, unpleasant aspects and all.
1840-1880 -
Photography
Instead of merely capturing a realistic rendition of the subject, the photographer is aiming to produce a more personal - typically more evocative or atmospheric - impression.
1851-present -
Impressionism
Technology enabled Impressionism. Advances in paint portability allowed artists to take their canvases outside. Photography allowed artists to study movement and gestures to capture real-life spontaneity.
1872-1892 -
Arts and Crafts
A reaction against a decline in standards associated with machinery and factory production. Stood for traditional craftsmanship, simple forms in medieval, romantic, or folk style. Advocated economic and social reform and was essentially anti-industrial.
1880-1910 -
Symbolism
While Impressionism emphasized the reality of the created paint surface itself, Symbolism was an artistic and a literary movement that suggested ideas through symbols and emphasized the meaning behind the forms, lines, shapes, and colors. -
Post Impressionism
The Post-Impressionists rejected Impressionism's concern with the spontaneous and naturalistic rendering of light and color. Some believe this is when art became more a reflection of the artist's inner world/perspective than a rendering of the outer world.
1880-1914 -
Fauvism
Henri Matisse rejected the traditional renditions of three-dimensional space promoted by the Impressionists and instead discovered a new way to portray it with image layers and colour movements.
1899-1910 -
Art Deco
Art Deco works are symmetrical, geometric, streamlined, often simple, and pleasing to the eye. This style is in contrast to avant-garde art of the period, which challenged everyday viewers to find meaning and beauty in what were often unapologetically anti-traditional images and forms.
1900-1945 -
Art Nouveau
Art Nouveau took inspiration from Japanese wood-block prints and the Arts and Crafts movement to modernize design. Artists drew inspiration from both organic and geometric forms, uniting flowing, natural forms resembling the stems and blossoms of plants. Muted greens, browns, yellows, and blues.
1890-1905 -
German Expressionism
In part a reaction against Impressionism and academic art, Expressionism was inspired most heavily by the Symbolist currents in late nineteenth-century art. Anxiety about humanity's increasingly discordant relationship with the world and accompanying lost feelings of authenticity and spirituality.
1905-1933 -
Cubism
By breaking objects and figures down into distinct areas or planes, the artists aimed to propose a revolutionary new approach to represent reality.
1907-1922 -
Futurism
Committed to the new, Futurists wished to destroy older forms of culture and to demonstrate the beauty of modern life - the beauty of the machine, speed, violence and change.
1909-1928 -
Suprematism
The Suprematists' searched for the 'zero degree' of painting: the point beyond which the medium could not go without ceasing to be art. Very simple motifs articulating the shape and flat surface of the canvases on which they were painted.
1913-1928 -
Constructivism
It borrowed ideas from Cubism, Suprematism and Futurism, but was a new approach to making objects, one which sought to abolish the traditional artistic concern with composition, and replace it with 'construction.'
1915-1938 -
Dada
A reaction to World War I and nationalism. Influenced by other avant-garde movements - Cubism, Futurism, Constructivism, and Expressionism - its output ranged from performance art to poetry, photography, sculpture, painting, and collage.
1916-1924 -
Bauhaus
Shaped by 19th and 20th centuries trends such as Arts and Crafts movement. This is reflected in the romantic medievalism of the school's early years. But in the mid 1920s the medievalism gave way to a stress on uniting art and industrial design, and it was this which ultimately proved to be its most original and important achievement.
1919-1933 -
Harlem Renaissance
During the early 20th century, African-American poets, musicians, actors, artists and intellectuals moved to Harlem in New York City and brought new ideas that shifted the culture forever.
1920-1930 -
Surrealism
Powerfully influenced by psychoanalysis, the Surrealists believed the rational mind repressed the power of the imagination, weighting it down with taboos.
1924-1966 -
Social Realism
While there was a variety of styles and subjects within Social Realism, the artists were united in their attack on the status quo and social power structure. The artists were realists who focused on the human figure and human condition.
1929-1958 -
Outsider Art
Art made by people who weren’t working within the artistic establishment. For as long as their has been art there have been Outsider Artists. -
Abstract Expressionism
Shaped by the legacy of Surrealism, a movement that they translated into a new style fitted to the post-war mood of anxiety and trauma.
1943-1965 -
Fluxus
The persistent goal of most Fluxus artists was to destroy any boundary between art and life.
1959-1978 -
Minimalism
The new art favored the cool over the "dramatic": their sculptures were frequently fabricated from industrial materials and emphasized anonymity over the expressive excess of Abstract Expressionism.
1960-1970 -
Conceptual Art
Conceptualists claim the articulation of an artistic idea suffices as a work of art. This implied that concerns such as aesthetics, expression, skill and marketability were all irrelevant standards by which art was usually judged.
1965-present -
Postmodern Art
A style of post-1960s art which rejected the traditional values and politically conservative assumptions of its predecessors, in favour of a wider, more entertaining concept of art, using new artistic forms enriched by video and computer-based technology.
1970-present -
Pop Art
Pop art came from an outsider's perspective as it looked at the new visual imagery: everything from toasters to cars to beauty creams were placed on colorful pedestals in the glossy pages of magazines or touted on television in the hands of long legged beauty queens.
1947-1969
