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2500 BCE
Stone Age (30,000 b.c.–2500 b.c.)
Cave painting, fertility goddesses, megalithic structures.
Art/Artists: Lascaux Cave Painting, Woman of Willendorf, Stonehenge -
653 BCE
Indian, Chinese, and Japanese(653 b.c.–a.d. 1900)
Characteristics: Serene, meditative art, and Arts of the Floating World.
Art/Artists: Gu Kaizhi, Li Cheng, Guo Xi, Hokusai, Hiroshige -
1550
Early and High Renaissance (1400–1550)
Characteristics: Rebirth of classical culture.
Art/Artists: Ghiberti’s Doors, Brunelleschi, Donatello, Botticelli,
Leonardo, Michelangelo, Raphael -
Baroque (1600–1750)
Characteristics: Splendor and flourish for God; art as a weapon in the religious wars.
Art/Artists: Reubens, Rembrandt, Caravaggio, Palace of Versailles -
Romanticism (1780–1850)
Characteristics: The triumph of imagination and individuality.
Art/Artists: Caspar Friedrich, Gericault, Delacroix, Turner, Benjamin
West -
Impressionism (1865–1885)
Characteristics: Capturing fleeting effects of natural light.
Art/Artists: Monet, Manet, Renoir, Pissarro, Cassatt, Morisot, Degas -
Realism (1848–1900)
Characteristics: Celebrating working class and peasants; en plein air
rustic painting.
Art/Artists: Corot, Courbet, Daumier, Millet -
Post-Impressionism (1885–1910)
Characteristics: A soft revolt against Impressionism. Art/Artists: Van Gogh, Gauguin, Cézanne, Seurat -
Cubism (1905–1920)
Characteristic: Pre– and Post–World War 1 art experiments: new
forms to express modern life.
Art/Artists: Picasso, Braque, Leger, Boccioni, Severini, Malevich -
Fauvism and Expressionism (1900–1935)
Characteristics: Harsh colors and flat surfaces (Fauvism); emotion distorting form.
Art/Artists: Matisse, Kirchner, Kandinsky, Marc -
Surrealism (1917-1966)
Artists relied on their own recurring motifs arisen through their dreams and/or unconscious mind. Imagery is outlandish, perplexing, and even uncanny, as it is meant to jolt the viewer out of their comforting assumptions. Artists: Salvador Dali, Max Ernst, Rene Magritte -
Abstract Expressionism (1940s-1950s)
Characteristics: a post–World War II art movement in American painting, developed in New York. The Art depict abstract forms not drawn from the visible world.
Art/Artists: Gorky, Pollock, de Kooning -
Pop Art (1960s)
Characteristics: Imagery from popular and mass culture, such as advertising, comic books and mundane cultural objects.
Art/Artists: Warhol, Lichtenstein, Rosenquist -
Postmodernism (1970s)
Characteristics: Movements such as intermedia, installation art, conceptual art and multimedia, particularly involving video.
Art/Artists: Richter, Sherman, Kiefer