| Western Art Periods and Movements |
| Period
| Description | Key Artists |
| RENAISSANCE
1400-1600 | ·
Artists saw classical antiquity as peak era of mans’ creative genius interrupted by barbaric invasion of Roman Empire.
· Authenticity in clothing, draping, architecture and perfection of body. | |
| FLORENTINE
1400 Early Renaissance, Italian/Southern | ·
Exact imitation of nature with “return to classics.”
· Open window perspective, precise surface detail and texture. | Ghirlandaio
Uccello |
| FLEMISH
1400 Netherlands/North | ·
Overly detailed realism, airy vastness of landscape, perspective.
· Honest expression in faces. | Metsys
Van Eyck |
| HIGH RENAISSANCE
1450-1500 Central and Northern Italy | ·
Artist as sovereign genius not devoted to craftsman.
· 3-D bodies made visible not by outlines but incidence of light (chiarocurro). · Emotional continuity of gestures/faces. · Dramatic, sculpturally solid, ample yet intimate, glowing light. | Da Vinci
Michelangelo |
| LATE RENAISSANCE/ ”MANNERISM”
1500-1600 | ·
Mannering works after high renaissance geniuses.
· Anticlassical elegance. | |
| BAROQUE
1600-1750 Rome | ·
Final, irregular phase of Renaissance. New Style of worldly splendor born in Catholic Church who wanted to make Rome the richest, prettiest city in the world.
· Dynamic, moving bodies burst framework and draw viewer in. · Theatrically brilliant light. · Massive scale appealing to sense of touch. Emphasis on the dramatic moment. · Artist’s embraced it as a movement against Mannerism’s lack of emotion. | Hals
Hogarth Rembrandt early Gainsborought Goya Lorrain La Tour Canaletto |
| ROCOCO
Mid-1700 French | ·
Less Cumbersome than Baroque and more refined, sometimes called “miniature Baroque.”
· Intimate in scale and manual. Playful decoration, floating grace of forms, spontaneous feel. | Fragonard
Watteau |
| Period
| Description | Key Artists |
| NEO-CLASSICISM and ROMANTICISM
1750 – 1850 England | ·
Emphasis on feelings and imagination. A nostalgia for the past. A kind of romantic revival of classic antiquity.
· A desire to feel emotions intensely and tear down bars to “return to nature.” · Nature becomes sublime, picturesque, unbounded and ever-changing. · Taken from the term “Romances” for romance novels popular at the time which were daring adventures that stirred emotions and imagination. | England – Constable, Turner
Spanish – Goya French – Cezanne, Daurmier, David, Delacroix, Millet American – Bingham, Sully |
| REALISM
1830 – 1870 | ·
Solid and matter-of-fact delivery.
· Expressing heroism of modern life. · Artist relies on own direct experience and cannot paint things he has not seen (such as angels). · Belief in everyday life as worthy subject for art. Refutes “ideal” art. | Early Manet (“art for art’s sake”)
Currier and Ives Edward Curtis |
| EXPRESSIONISM 1874-1900
| ·
Luminous and flickering color patches.
· Color, not line seems to make the forms. · Non-neutral, hazy backgrounds. Interplay of reality and reflections. · “Slice of Life” subject matter. · Not “reality” per se, but the artist’s impression of the reality he sees. · Usually painted outside capturing the impressions of the moment. Dabs of color, often straight from the tube. Color as light. · Manet’s “Luncheon on the Grass” started the movement, but Manet did not associate himself with Impressionists. | French – Degas, Monet, Morinot, Renoir, Cezanne.
American – Homer, Whistler English – Turner |
| POST-IMPRESSIONISM
1880-1910 | ·
Renewed concern with problems of form; more formal concepts of art and emphasis on subject matter.
· Groups of artists who passed through Impressionism but became dissatisfied with limitations of style. Not anti-Impressionism, more like late Impressionism. · Shadows are treated like shapes in their own right, solid and clearly bounded. · Balance of 2-D with 3-D. | Cezanne
Gaugin Rousseau Seurat Toulouise-Latrec Van Gogh |
| Period
| Description | Key Artists |
| EXPRESSIONISM 1905-1930
| ·
Stresses artist’s emotional attitude toward himself and the world.
· Concern with human community. · Free expression of the artist rather than representation of the reality of the subject. · Exaggeration and distortion of line and color. | |
| FAUVISM
French | Flat, vivid color planes and heavily outlined, primitive feeling in distorted forms. (Came from the French word for “beast,” a critic’s interpretation of the art. | Matisse
Rouault |
| BRUCKE
German | From the German word meaning “bridge.”
| Kokoschka
|
| BLUE RIDER
German | Rich, unnatural colors | Marc
Kandinsky |
| FANTASY
1920 | Explores realm of imagination, irrationalism. | Dali’s surrealism
|
| AB: ACT
1907 | ·
Stresses formal structure of the work; concern with structure of reality, analyzing and simplifying obscured reality.
· Generalized and universal as opposed to concrete and realistic. | Kandinsky
Miro Mondrian |
| CUBISM
1907-1920 | ·
Prevalence of sharp edges and angles.
· Natural forms replaced by geometric shapes. | Picasso
Braque Demuth |
| FUTURISM
| ·
Rejects past, exalts beauty of the machine.
· Mechanized, angularized subjects. | Stella
Duchamp |
| ABSTRACT EXPRESSIONISM\
after 1940 | ·
Something general rather than specific.
· Created images by manipulating paint. | Tobey
Davis |
| DADAISM
| All-purpose word for ”non-art, non-sense.” Duchamp pulled the word from a French dictionary haphazardly (it means hobbyhorse). |