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The history of art focuses on objects made by humans for any number of spiritual, narrative, philosophical, symbolic, conceptual, documentary, decorative, and even functional and other purposes, but with a primary emphasis on its aesthetics visual form. Visual arts can be classified in diverse ways, such as separating from applied arts; inclusively focusing on human creativity; or focusing on different media such as architecture, sculpture, painting, film, photography, and graphic arts. In recent years, technological advances have led to video art, Digital art, performance art, animation, television, and Video game.
The history of art is often told as a chronology of created during each civilization. It can thus be framed as a story of high culture, epitomized by the Wonders of the World. On the other hand, vernacular art expressions can also be integrated into art historical narratives, referred to as folk arts or craft. The more closely that an art historian engages with these latter forms of low culture, the more likely it is that they will identify their work as examining visual culture or material culture, or as contributing to fields related to art history, such as anthropology or archaeology. In the latter cases, art objects may be referred to as archeological artifacts.
A form of prehistoric art found all over the world, especially in Europe, small prehistoric statuettes known as with exaggerated breasts and bellies were made, the most famous ones being the Venus of Hohle Fels and the Venus of Willendorf, found in Germany and Austria. Most have small heads, wide hips, and legs that taper to a point. Arms and feet are often absent, and the head is usually small and faceless.
The Venus of Hohle Fels is one of the numerous objects found at the Caves and Ice Age Art in the Swabian Jura UNESCO World Heritage Site, where the oldest non-stationary works of human art yet discovered were found, in the form of carved animal and humanoid figurines, in addition to the oldest musical instruments unearthed so far, with the artifacts dating between 43,000 and 35,000 BC.
The best-known prehistoric artworks are the large Paleolithic that depict animals in continental Europe, particularly the ones at Lascaux in the Dordogne region of France. Several hundred decorated caves are known, spanning the Upper Paleolithic period ( 38,000–12,000 BC). There are examples in Ukraine, Italy and Great Britain, but most of them are in France and Spain. Many theories have been suggested about the art's purpose, the most accepted being that it was part of religious rituals, possibly to evoke hunting success.
The political, economic, artistic and architectural traditions of the Sumerians lead to the foundation of Western culture. Multiple things appeared for the first time in Sumer: the first city-state (Uruk), ruled by king Gilgamesh; the first organized religion, based on a hierarchical structure of gods, people and rituals; the first known writing, the ; the first irrigation system and the first vehicles with wheels. appeared here as well, engraved with little inscriptions and illustrations. Another civilization that developed here was the Akkadian Empire, the world's first great empire.
During the early 1st millennium BC, after the Akkadians, an empire called Assyria came to dominate the whole of Middle East, stretching from the Persian Gulf to the Mediterranean Sea. Its cities were filled with impressive buildings and art. Assyrian art is best known for its detailed stone reliefs, depicting scenes of court life, religious practice, hunting and epic battles. These reliefs were initially painted in bright colours and placed in palaces. Besides their beauty, they also show us Assyrian life and views of the world, including Assyrian clothing and furniture.
Later, the conquered the Assyrian Empire. During the 6th century BC, Babylon became the largest city in the world. Upon entering Babylon, visitors were greeted with the impressive Ishtar Gate, with its walls covered in vivid blue glazed bricks and reliefs showing dragons, bulls and lions. This gate is named after Ishtar, the goddess of war and love.
In the mid-6th century BC, after a series of military campaigns, the Babylonian Empire fell to the Achaemenid Empire, ruled by King Cyrus II, stretching across the Middle East and Central Asia, from Egypt to the Indus Valley. Its art incorporates elements from across the empire, celebrating its wealth and power. Persepolis (Iran) was the capital of the empire, and it is full of impressive sculptures showing religious images and people of the empire. There are also the ruins of a palace here, with a big audience hall for receiving guests.
Besides Mesopotamia and Iran, there were Ancient civilizations who produced art and architecture in other regions as well. In Anatolia (present-day Turkey), the Hittite Empire appeared. During Antiquity, South Arabia was important in the production and trade of aromatics, bringing wealth to the kingdoms that were in this region. Before circa 4000 BC, the climate of Arabia was wetter than today. In south-west, several kingdoms appeared, like Sheba. The south Arabian human figure is usually stylized, based on rectangular shapes, but with fine details. (2025). 9781838662967, Phaidon. ISBN 9781838662967 (2025). 9786060063926, rao. ISBN 9786060063926
(2025). 9780714849690, Phaidon. ISBN 9780714849690
File:Persépolis, Irán, 2016-09-24, DD 50 (cropped section).jpg|Delegation bearing gifts (Persian art Achaemenid); 490 BC; limestone; 260 x 150 cm; in situ, Persepolis (Iran) (2025). 9780714849690, Phaidon. ISBN 9780714849690
The architecture is characterized by monumental structures, built with large stone blocks, lintels, and solid . Funerary monuments included mastaba, tombs of rectangular form; , which included step pyramids (Saqqarah) or smooth-sided pyramids (Giza); and the hypogeum, underground tombs (Valley of the Kings). Other great buildings were the temple, which tended to be monumental complexes preceded by an avenue of and . Temples used pylons and trapezoid walls with hypaethros and hypostyle halls and . The temples of Karnak, Luxor, Philae and Edfu are good examples. Another type of temple is the rock temple, in the form of a hypogeum, found in Abu Simbel and Deir el-Bahari.
Painting of the Egyptian era used a juxtaposition of overlapping planes. The images were represented hierarchically, i.e., the Pharaoh is larger than the common subjects or enemies depicted at his side. Egyptians painted the outline of the head and limbs in profile, while the torso, hands, and eyes were painted from the front. Applied arts were developed in Egypt, in particular Cabinet making and Goldsmith. There are superb examples such as cedrus furniture Inlay with ebony and ivory which can be seen in the tombs at the Egyptian Museum. Other examples include the pieces found in Tutankhamun's tomb, which are of great artistic value.
Relief depicting Akhenaton and Nefertiti with three of their daughters under the rays of Aton 01 (cropped).jpg|Akhenaten and Nefertiti with Daughters; 1345 BC; painted limestone; 32.5 x 39 cm; Egyptian Museum of Berlin (Germany)
CairoEgMuseumTaaMaskMostlyPhotographed.jpg|Mask of Tutankhamun; ; gold, glass and semi-precious stones; height: 54 cm; Egyptian Museum (Cairo)
Nofretete Neues Museum.jpg|Nefertiti Bust; 1352–1336 BC; painted limestone; height: 50 cm; Neues Museum (Berlin, Germany)
Philae temple at night.jpg|Temple of Philae (Egypt), 380 BC-117 AD
(2025). 9780714849690, Phaidon. ISBN 9780714849690
(2025). 9780500480649, Thames & Hudson. ISBN 9780500480649
Dancing girl of Mohenjo-daro.jpg| Dancing Girl; 2400–1900 BC; bronze; height: 10.8 cm; National Museum (New Delhi, India)
Shiva Pashupati.jpg|Pashupati seal; 2400–1900 BC; steatite; height: 3.6 cm; National Museum (New Delhi)
Mohenjo-daro Priesterkönig.jpeg| Priest-King; 2400–1900 BC; steatite; height: 17.5 cm; National Museum of Pakistan (Karachi)
Clevelandart 1973.160.jpg|Seal with two-horned bull and inscription; 2010 BC; steatite; overall: 3.2 × 3.2 cm; Cleveland Museum of Art (Cleveland, Ohio, US)
One of the most commonly used motifs was the taotie, a stylized face divided centrally into two almost mirror-image halves, with nostrils, eyes, eyebrows, jaws, cheeks and horns, surrounded by incised patterns. Whether taotie represented real, mythological or wholly imaginary creatures cannot be determined.
The enigmatic bronzes of Sanxingdui, near Guanghan (in Sichuan province), are evidence for a mysterious sacrificial religious system unlike anything elsewhere in ancient China and quite different from the art of the contemporaneous Shang at Anyang. Excavations at Sanxingdui since 1986 have revealed four pits containing artefacts of bronze, jade and gold. There was found a great bronze statue of a human figure which stands on a plinth decorated with abstract elephant heads. Besides the standing figure, the first two pits contained over 50 bronze heads, some wearing headgear and three with a frontal covering of gold leaf. Tubular bronze fragments with little branches were discovered here as well, probably representing trees, and also bronze leaves, fruits and birds. Over 4000 objects were found at Sanxingdui in 1986.
Succeeding the Shang dynasty the Zhou dynasty (1050–221 BC) ruled more than any other one from Chinese history. Its last centuries were characterized by violence, the era being known as the Warring States period. During this troubling time, some philosophical movements appeared: Confucianism, Daoism and Legalism.
The Warring States period was ended by Qinshi Huangdi, who united China in 221 BC. He ordered a huge tomb, guarded by the Terracotta Army. Another huge project was a predecessor of the Great Wall, erected for rejecting pillaging tribes from the north. After the death of the emperor, his dynasty, the Qin dynasty (221–206 BC), lasted only three years. Qinshi Huangdi was followed by the Han dynasty (202 BC – 220 AD), during which the Silk Road developed considerably, bringing new cultural influences in China. (2025). 9786060063926, rao. ISBN 9786060063926
Although there was no definitive transition, the art is usually divided stylistically into the four periods of Geometric, Archaic, Classical and Hellenistic. During the Classical Greece (5th and 4th centuries BC), realism and idealism were delicately balanced. In comparison, the works of the earlier Geometric (9th to 8th centuries BC) and Archaic (7th to 6th centuries BC) ages can seem appear primitive, but these artists had different goals: naturalistic representation was not necessarily their aim. Greek art artists built on the artistic foundations of Egypt, further developing the arts of sculpture, painting, architecture, and ceramics. Among the techniques they perfected include methods of carving and casting sculptures, fresco painting and building magnificent buildings.
Roman art lovers collected ancient Greek originals, Roman replicas of Greek art, or newly created paintings and sculptures fashioned in a variety of Greek styles, thus preserving for posterity works of art otherwise lost. Wall and panel paintings, sculptures and mosaics decorated public spaces and private homes. Greek imagery also appeared on Roman jewellery, vessels of gold, silver, bronze and terracotta, and even on weapons and commercial weights. Rediscovered during the early Renaissance, the arts of ancient Greece, transmitted through the Roman Empire, have served as the foundation of Western art until the 19th century.
Since the advent of the Classical Age in Athens, in the 5th century BC, the Classical way of building has been deeply woven into Western understanding of architecture and, indeed, of civilization itself. From circa 850 BC to circa 300 AD, ancient Greek culture flourished on the Greek mainland, on the Peloponnese, and on the Aegean Sea islands. Five of the Wonders of the World were Greek: the Temple of Artemis at Ephesus, the Statue of Zeus at Olympia, the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus, the Colossus of Rhodes, and the Lighthouse of Alexandria. However, Ancient Greek architecture is best known for its temples, many of which are found throughout the region, and the Parthenon is a prime example of this. Later, they will serve as inspiration for Neoclassical architects during the late 18th and the 19th century. The most well-known temples are the Parthenon and the Erechtheion, both on the Acropolis of Athens. Another type of important Ancient Greek buildings were the theatres. Both temples and theatres used a complex mix of optical illusions and balanced ratios.
Looking at the archaeological remains of ancient buildings it is easy to perceive them as limestone and concrete in a grey taupe tone and to make the assumption that ancient buildings were monochromatic. However, architecture was in much of the Ancient world. One of the most iconic Ancient buildings, the Parthenon ( 447–432 BC) in Athens, had details painted with vibrant reds, blues and greens. Besides ancient temples, Medieval cathedrals were never completely white. Most had colored highlights on capitals and . (2025). 9780500343562, Thames & Hudson. ISBN 9780500343562 This practice of coloring buildings and artworks was abandoned during the early Renaissance. This is because Leonardo da Vinci and other Renaissance artists, including Michelangelo, promoted a color palette inspired by the ancient Greco-Roman ruins, which because of neglect and constant decay during the Middle Ages, became white despite being initially colorful. The pigments used in the ancient world were delicate and especially susceptible to weathering. Without necessary care, the colors exposed to rain, snow, dirt, and other factors, vanished over time, and this way Ancient buildings and artworks became white, like they are today and were during the Renaissance. (2025). 9783791357072, Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, Legion of Honor. ISBN 9783791357072
Bronze horse MET DT11722.jpg|Horse figurine (Geometric art); ; bronze; height: 17.6 cm; Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York City)
Terracotta krater MET DT258.jpg|Pedestalled krater (Geometric); ; terracotta; height: 108.3 cm, diameter: 72.4 cm; Metropolitan Museum of Art
Marble statue of a kouros (youth) MET DT263.jpg|New York Kouros (Archaic); ; marble and pigment; height: 1.95 m; Metropolitan Museum of Art
Terracotta Panathenaic prize amphora MET DT5492.jpg|Panathenaic amphora (Archaic); ; ceramic; height: 62.2 cm; Metropolitan Museum of Art
Red-figure cup showing the death of Pentheus and a Maenad by Douris, Kimbell Art Museum (bottom).jpg|Red-figure kylix (Classical Greece); ; ceramic; height: 12.7 cm, diameter: 27.2 cm; Kimbell Art Museum (Fort Worth, Texas, US)
Bronze statue of Zeus or Poseidon from Artemision, Euboea. ca. 460 BC.jpg|Zeus of Artemision (Classical); ; bronze; height: 209 cm; National Archaeological Museum (Athens, Greece)
Segesta AncientGreekTemple 0932.jpg|Temple of Segesta (Calatafimi-Segesta, present-day Italy), 5th century BC
File:Erechtheum Acropolis Athens.jpg|Erechtheion (Athens), with its Ionic order columns and caryatid portico, 421-405 BC
Terracotta vase MET DT1069 (cropped).jpg|Centuripe ware (Hellenistic art); 300-100 BC; ceramic; height: 9.4 cm; Metropolitan Museum of Art (2025). 9780500519585, Thames & Hudson. ISBN 9780500519585
(2025). 9780500519585, Thames & Hudson. ISBN 9780500519585
(2025). 9780500295250, Thames & Hudson. ISBN 9780500295250
(2025). 9780500295250, Thames & Hudson. ISBN 9780500295250
Hallstatt Culture (circa 800–500 BCE): The earliest recognizable form of Celtic art is associated with the Hallstatt culture, located in what is now Austria and surrounding regions. This period saw the development of distinctive metalworking techniques, especially in gold, bronze, and iron. Artifacts from this time often feature geometric patterns, stylized animal motifs, and abstract spirals.
La Tène Culture (circa 500 BCE – 1 CE): The La Tène culture is considered the height of early Celtic art. During this period, there was a significant increase in the complexity and intricacy of designs. Artisans in La Tène created weapons, jewelry, and everyday items adorned with swirling patterns, knotwork, and stylized animals. This era is also noted for the first significant use of the "Celtic knot", a form of endless loop design that symbolizes eternity and continuity.
The Romans were deeply influenced by all aspects of Hellenistic culture. In architecture, just like in other art media, they essentially adopted the Classical language and adapted it to new situations and uses. The Romans also have their own innovations brought to Classical architecture. They used the Doric order, Ionic order and Corinthian order Classical order in a far freer manner than the Greeks had, creating their own version of the Doric and using the Corinthian far more frequently. They also added two new orders to the repertoire: the Tuscan order, a simpler, more massive version of the Doric derived from Etruscan architecture; and the Composite order, a combination of the scroll-like of the Ionic with the Corinthian's acanthus leaves. Other important innovations include the arch, and the dome. Using arches, they built Roman aqueduct and monumental . Roman emperors were proud of their conquests, and commemorated them at home and in the conquered territories through triumphal arches, a good example of this being the Arch of Constantine in Rome. Between 30 and 15 BC, the architect and civil and military engineer Marcus Vitruvius Pollio published a majore treatise, De Architectura, which influenced architects around the world for centuries. (2025). 9780241288436, DK, Penguin Random House. ISBN 9780241288436
After the Middle Ages, with the Renaissance that started in Florence (Italy), a growing interest for ancient Rome started. During it, for the first time since Classical Antiquity, art became convincingly lifelike. The Renaissance also sparked interest for ancient Greek and Roman literature, not just for art and architecture.
Portland Vase BM Gem4036 n5.jpg|Portland Vase; late 1st century BC; glass; height: 24 cm; British Museum (London)
Maison Carree in Nimes (16).jpg|The Maison Carrée (Nîmes, France), one of the best-preserved ,
Marine mosaic (central panel of three panels from a floor) - Google Art Project.jpg|Marine mosaic (central panel of three panels from a floor); 200–230; mosaic (stone and glass tesserae); 2,915 mm x 2,870 mm; Museum of Fine Arts (Boston, US)
500px photo (217110515).jpeg|Arch of Constantine (Rome), that commemorates the triumph of Constantine the Great after his victory over Maxentius in the Battle of the Milvian Bridge, 316
One of the key artistic styles in early Germanic territories was the animal style, which spread through the Eurasian steppe, then developed in Scandinavia and northern Germany and exerted influence across Europe.Emma Bunker, Animal Style Art from East to West, Asia Society. p. 13 This style, characterized by intricate and abstract representations of animals, was common in metalwork and personal adornment. In modern-day Germany, the Rhine and Upper Rhine regions were notable centers for these works, with the use of zoomorphic patterns seen in items like brooches, buckles, and jewelry. A famous example of this style is the Bingerbrück fibula, a decorative brooch found in the Rhineland, showcasing the characteristic intertwining animal forms typical of Germanic art. The style is also evident in artifacts from the Sutton Hoo treasure, where similar animal motifs appear in Anglo-Saxon art but reflect the broader influence of Germanic art across northern Europe.
The polychrome style, developed by the Goths in the Black Sea region, had a significant impact on Germanic art, especially in southern Germany and across parts of France and Spain. Known for its use of gold and precious stones, this style was evident in items such as garnet-inlaid brooches and belt buckles. Objects such as the Visigothic crown of Recceswinth found in Spain show the reach of this style, but similar examples of polychrome metalwork have been uncovered in Germany, particularly in the Frankish kingdom, where these items often had both decorative and symbolic roles.
In the 6th and 7th centuries, the Germanic peoples began to adopt Christianity, leading to a shift in their artistic traditions. Christian symbols began to emerge in Germanic art, marking a move away from purely pagan motifs. The introduction of Christian iconography into Germanic metalwork and manuscripts led to the development of Carolingian art and other regional styles across Europe. In Germany, this period saw the rise of Frankish art, particularly under the reign of Charlemagne (), which blended Germanic traditions with Christian imagery.
Mezquita de Cordoba Mihrab.jpg|Mihrab; 961–976; stucco and glass mosaic; diameter (internal arch): ; Mosque–Cathedral of Córdoba (Córdoba, Spain)
Mosque Lamp for the Mausoleum of Amir Aydakin al-'Ala'i al-Bunduqdar MET 17.190.985.jpg|Mosque lamp; ; glass, enamels and gold; height: 26.4 cm; Metropolitan Museum of Art
Alhambra Löwenhof mit Löwenbrunnen 2014.jpg|Court of the Lions (Alhambra, Granada, Spain), 1362-1391
Ardabil Carpet.jpg|Ardabil Carpet; 1539–1540; wool pile on silk; length: 10.51 m; Victoria and Albert Museum (London)
The Olmecs (1400–400 BC) were the first major civilization in modern-day Mexico. Many elements of Mesoamerican civilizations, like the practice of building of pyramids, the complex calendar, the pantheon of gods and hieroglyphic writing have origins in Olmec culture. They produced jade and ceramic figurines, colossal heads and pyramids with temples at the top, all without the advantage of metal tools. For them, jadeite was a stone more precious than gold and symbolized divine powers and fertility. 17 Olmec colossal heads have been discovered, each weighing a few tons. Each head, with the flattened nose and thick lips, wears a helmet, similar with the ones worn during official ball games, possibly representing kings of officials.
The Maya civilization began around 1800 BC and grew until the arrival of Spanish colonizers in the 1500s. They occupied southeast Mexico, Guatemala, Belize, and parts of Honduras and El Salvador. The Mayans were trading with cities, like Teotihuacán, but also with many Mesoamerican civilizations, like the Zapotecs or the other groups from central or coast areas of Mexico, and also with populations that did not inhabit Mesoamerican territories, like the Taíno from the Caribbean. They produced impressive king portraits, polychromy ceramic vessels, earthenware figures, wooden sculptures, Stele, and built complex cities with pyramids. Most of the well preserved polychrome ceramic vessels were discovered in the tombs of nobles.
Arising from humble beginnings as a nomadic group, the Aztecs created the largest empire in Mesoamerican history, lasting from 1427 to 1521. They did not call themselves 'Aztecs', but Mexica. The term Aztecs was assigned by historians. They transformed the capital of their empire, Tenochtitlan, into a place where artists of Mesoamerica created impressive artworks for their new masters. The present-day Mexico City was built over the Aztec capital, Tenochtitlan. (2025). 9781838662967, Phaidon. ISBN 9781838662967 (2025). 9786060063926, rao. ISBN 9786060063926
Cabeza Colosal 8.jpg|Colossal head; 1050 BC; steatite; height: 2.2 m; Xalapa Museum of Anthropology (Xalapa, Mexico)
Seated ruler in ritual pose, Highland Olmec culture, San Martin Texmelucan, Puebla state, Middle Formative period, c. 900-500 BC, serpentine, cinnabar - Dallas Museum of Art - DSC04572.jpg|Seated shaman in ritual pose-shaped pendant (Olmecs); 9th-5th century BC; serpentine and cinnabar; height: 18.5 cm; Dallas Museum of Art (Dallas, Texas, US)
Mascara Dios Murcielago.jpg|Bat effigy (Zapotec); 50 BC; jadeite and shell; height: 28 cm; National Museum of Anthropology (Mexico City)
K'inich Janaab Pakal I v2.jpg|Portrait of K'inich Janaab Pakal I (Maya; 615–683; stucco; height 43 cm; National Museum of Anthropology
Vessel, Throne Scene MET DT4514.jpg|Vessel with a throne scene (Maya); late 7th–8th century; ceramic; 21.59 cm; Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York City)
Yaxchilan Lintel 24.jpg|Yaxchilan Lintel 24 (Maya); 702; limestone; 109 x 74 cm; British Museum (London)
Telamones Tula.jpg|Warrior columns (Toltec); 1000; basalt; height: 460 cm; Tula de Allende (Mexico)
Double headed turquoise serpentAztecbritish museum.jpg|Double-headed serpent (Aztec); 1450–1521; cedar, turquoise, shell and traces of gilding; length: 43.3 cm; British Museum
File:Mexico-3980 - Coyolxauhqui Stone (2508259597).jpg|Coyolxauhqui Stone (Aztec); 1469–1481; stone; diameter: 3 m; Templo Mayor Museum (Mexico City)
Tlaloc Vasija.jpg|Tlāloc effigy vessel (Aztec); 1440–1469; painted earthenware; height: 35 cm; Templo Mayor Museum
(2025). 9780714849690, Phaidon. ISBN 9780714849690
(2025). 9780714849690, Phaidon. ISBN 9780714849690
The Paracas culture of the south coast of Peru is best known for its complex patterned textiles, particularly mantels. The Moche culture controlled the river valleys of the north coast, while the Nazca culture of southern Peru held sway along the coastal deserts and contiguous mountains. The Nazca are best known for the famous Nazca Lines, a group of in a desert in southern Peru. They also produced polychrome ceramics and textiles influenced by the Paracas, and used a palette of at least 10 colours for their pottery. Both cultures flourished around 100–800 AD. Moche pottery is some of the most varied in the world. In the north, the Huari culture (or Huari) Empire are noted for their stone architecture and sculpture accomplishments.
The Chimú were preceded by a simple ceramic style known as Sicán (700–900 AD). The Chimú produced excellent portrait and decorative works in metal, notably gold but especially silver. Later, the Inca Empire (1100–1533) stretched across the Andes Mountains. They crafted precious metal figurines, and like other civilizations from the same area, complex textiles. Llamas were important animals, because of their wool and for carrying loads. (2025). 9781838662967, Phaidon. ISBN 9781838662967 (2025). 9786060063926, rao. ISBN 9786060063926
Portrait Head Bottle MET 82.1.28.jpeg|Portrait head bottle (Moche culture); 3rd–6th century; painted ceramic; overall: 26.35 x 16.21 cm; Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York City)
Peru Huari Standing Dignitary 1 Kimbell.jpg|Mosaic figurine of a noble man (Wari culture); 7th-9th century; wood, shell, stone and silver; height: 10.2 cm; Kimbell Art Museum (Fort Worth, Texas, US)
Ceremonial Knife (Tumi) MET DP215693.jpg|Ceremonial knife/ tumi (Sican culture); 10th–13th century; gold, turquoise, greenstone and shell; height: 33 cm; Metropolitan Museum of Art
Tupa-inca-tunic.png|Royal tunic (Inca Empire); 1476–1534; camelid fibre and cotton; height: 91 cm; Dumbarton Oaks (Washington, D.C., US)
(2025). 9786060063926, rao. ISBN 9786060063926
Belt buckle with paired felines attacking ibexes MET DT5088.jpg|Belt buckle; 3rd-1st centuries BC; gold; height: 7.9 cm; Metropolitan Museum of Art
Bagram Guimet 12.JPG|Goblet showing The Rape of Europa and of Ganymede, part of the Bagram Treasure; 1st century AD; painted glass; height: 16 cm, diameter: 10 cm; Guimet Museum (Paris)
God and Female Musician, Kizil, Cave 171, 417-435 AD, wall painting - Ethnological Museum, Berlin - DSC01720.JPG|Goddess and celestial musician (Buddhist art); 7th century; pigments on plaster; height: 2.03 m; Museum of Asian Art (Berlin, Germany)
Samarcanda, Gur-e Amir 19.jpg|Gur-e-Amir (Samarkand, Uzbekistan), 15th century (2025). 9780500291719, Thames & Hudson. ISBN 9780500291719
(2025). 9780500291719, Thames & Hudson. ISBN 9780500291719
Sarnath_capital.jpg|Lion Capital of Ashoka; 250 BC; polished sandstone; height: 2.2 m; Sarnath Museum (India)
Buddha in Sarnath Museum (Dhammajak Mutra).jpg|Seated Buddha; 475; sandstone; height: 1.6 m; Sarnath Museum
022 Cave 1, Padmapani (33896247830).jpg| Bodhisattva Padmapani; 450–490; pigments on rock; height: 1.2 m; Ajanta Caves (India)
Shiva Nataraja Musée Guimet 25971.jpg|Shiva as lord of the dance; 11th century; bronze; height: 96 cm; Musée Guimet (Paris)
Beauty of khajuraho temple.jpg|Kandariya Mahadeva Temple (Khajuraho, India), 1030
MET DT238.jpg|Durga killing the buffalo demon; 1150; argilite; height: 13.5 cm; Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York City)
MET DP22193.jpg|Ganesha; 14th-15th century; ivory; height: 18.4 cm; Metropolitan Museum of Art
Basawan. Akbar Taming Mad Elephant Hawai. Composition by Basawan, coloring by Chitra. (left part) Akbarnama, ca. 1590, Victoria and Albert Museum, London.jpg|Basawan Akbarnama; 1590; watercolor on paper; 33 x 20 cm; Victoria and Albert Museum (London)
Taj Mahal, Agra, India.jpg|Taj Mahal (Agra, India), an iconic example of Mughal architecture, 1632-1648
(2025). 9780714849690, Phaidon. ISBN 9780714849690
Chinese art is one of the oldest continuous traditional arts in the world, and is marked by an unusual degree of continuity within, and consciousness of, that tradition, lacking an equivalent to the Western collapse and gradual recovery of classical styles. The media that have usually been classified in the West since the Renaissance as the decorative arts are extremely important in Chinese art, and much of the finest work was produced in large workshops or factories by essentially unknown artists, especially in Chinese ceramics. The range and quality of goods that decorated Chinese palaces and households, and their inhabitants, is dazzling. Materials came from across China and far beyond: gold and silver, mother of pearl, ivory and rhinoceros horn, wood and lacquer, jade and soap stone, silk and paper.
The first settlers of Japan were the Jōmon people (–300 BC). They crafted Jomon pottery, clay figurines called dogū. Japan has been subject to sudden invasions of new ideas followed by long periods of minimal contact with the outside world. Over time the Japanese developed the ability to absorb, imitate, and finally assimilate those elements of foreign culture that complemented their aesthetic preferences. The earliest complex art in Japan was produced in the 7th and 8th centuries in connection with Buddhism. In the 9th century, as the Japanese began to turn away from China and develop indigenous forms of expression, the secular arts became increasingly important; until the late 15th century, both religious and secular arts flourished. After the Ōnin War (1467–1477), Japan entered a period of political, social, and economic disruption that lasted for over a century. In the state that emerged under the leadership of the Tokugawa shogunate, organized religion played a much less important role in people's lives, and the arts that survived were primarily secular.
色絵婦人立像-Figure of a Standing Beauty MET DP220704.jpg|Female figure; 1670–1690; porcelain with overglaze polychrome enamels; height: 39.7 cm; Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York City)
胴箔地南天冊子模様縫箔-Noh Costume (Nuihaku) with Books and Nandina Branches MET DT289471.jpg|Noh robe; 1750–1800; silk embroidery and gold leaf on silk satin; length: 1.66 m; Metropolitan Museum of Art
Tsunami by hokusai 19th century.jpg| The Great Wave off Kanagawa, by Katsushika Hokusai; 1830–1832; full-colour woodblock print; 25.7 x 37.9 cm; Metropolitan Museum of Art
De pruimenboomgaard te Kameido-Rijksmuseum RP-P-1956-743.jpeg| Plum Park in Kameido; by Hiroshige; 1857; full-colour woodblock print; 36.4 x 24.4 cm; Rijksmuseum (Amsterdam, the Netherlands)
Sub-Saharan Africa is characterized by a high density of cultures. Notable are the, Dogon people from Mali; Edo people, yoruba people, Igbo people people and the Nok civilization from Nigeria; Kuba Kingdom and Luba people from Central Africa; Ashanti people from Ghana; Zulu people from Southern Africa; and Fang people from Equatorial Guinea (85%), Cameroon and Gabon; the Sao civilization people from Chad; Kwele people from eastern Gabon, Republic of the Congo and Cameroon.
The myriad forms of African art are components of some of the most vibrant and responsive artistic traditions in the world and are integral to the lives of African people. Created for specific purposes, artworks can reveal their ongoing importance through physical transformations that enhance both their appearance and their potency. Many traditional African art forms are created as conduits to the spirit world and change appearance as materials are added to enhance their beauty and potency. The more a work is used and blessed, the more abstract it becomes with the accretion of sacrificial matter and the wearing down of original details.
Bronze pot, 9th century, Igbo-Ukwu, Nigeria.jpg|Pot; from Igbo-Ukwu (Nigeria); 9th century; bronze; unknown dimensions; Nigerian National Museum, Lagos
Yoruba-bronze-head.jpg|Bronze head sculpture of the Oni Obalufon, ca. 12th century, discovered at the holy city of the Yoruba Yoruba Ilé-Ifẹ̀; Nigerian National Museum, Lagos
Afrikaabteilung in Ethnological Museum Berlin 02.JPG|Head of a king or dignitary; by artists of the Yoruba people; 12th-15th century; terracotta; 19 cm; discovered at Ife (Nigeria); Ethnological Museum of Berlin, Germany
Seated Figure MET DT1213.jpg|Seated figure; by artists of the Djenné-Djenno culture (Mali); 13th century; earthenware; width: 29.9 cm; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City
British Museum - Room 25 (18020107461).jpg|Pendant mask; by artists of the Edo people (Nigeria); 16th century (?); ivory and iron; height: 24.5 cm; British Museum, London
Brooklyn Museum 61.33 Ndop Portrait of King Mishe miShyaang maMbul (5).jpg|N'dop, king Mishe miShyaang maMbul; by artists of the Kuba Kingdom (Democratic Republic of the Congo); 18th century; wood; 49.5 cm; Brooklyn Museum, New York City
Trône Bamum-Musée ethnologique de Berlin.jpg| Mandu Yenu (throne of Nsangu); by artists of the Bamum people; 1870; wood, beads of glass, porcelain and shell; height: 1.75 m; Ethnological Museum of Berlin
Helmet Mask MET DT1234.jpg|Royal mask; by artists of the Bamum people (Cameroon); before 1880; wood, copper, glass beads, raffia and shells; height: 66 cm; Metropolitan Museum of Art
Rep. dem. del congo, kuba, maschera ngaady-a-mwaash, xx secolo.jpg|Ngaad-A-Mwash mask; by artists of the Kuba people; late 19th-early 20th centuries; wood, shells, glass beads, raffia and pigment; height: 82 cm; Detroit Institute of Arts, Detroit, Michigan, US
Appuie-tête Luba-RDC.jpg|Headrest; by artists of the Luba people; 19th century; wood; height: 18.5 cm; Musée du quai Branly (Paris)
(2025). 9780500022368, Thames & Hudson. ISBN 9780500022368
The art of Oceania is the last great tradition of art to be appreciated by the world at large. Despite being one of the longest continuous traditions of art in the world, dating back at least fifty millennia, it remained relatively unknown until the second half of the 20th century.
The often ephemeral materials of Aboriginal art of Australia makes it difficult to determine the antiquity of the majority of the forms of art practised today. The most durable forms are the multitudes of rock engravings and rock paintings which are found across the continent. In the Arnhem Land escarpment, evidence suggests that paintings were being made fifty thousand years ago, antedating the Palaeolithic rock paintings of Altamira & Lascaux in Europe.
British Museum (2082156178).jpg|Statue of A'a from Rurutu; probably 18th century; wood; height: 117 cm; British Museum
Nuova zelanda, isola del nord, maori, prua di piroga taurapa, 1800-20 ca.jpg| Taurapa (māori canoe sternpost); late 18th-early 19th century; wood and sheel; height: 148 cm; Musée du Quai Branly (Paris)
Australie Aborigene ancetre totemique kangourou.jpg|Australian painting of a kangaroo totemic ancestor; 1915; painting on bark; 92.5 × 35.5 cm; Musée du Quai Branly
In Byzantine and Gothic art art of the Middle Ages, the dominance of the Christian Church resulted in a large amount of religious art. There was extensive use of gold in paintings, which presented figures in simplified forms.
Surviving Byzantine art is mostly religious, and—with exceptions at certain periods—is highly conventionalised, following traditional models that translate carefully controlled church theology into artistic terms. Painting in fresco, in illuminated manuscripts and on wood panels, and (especially in earlier periods) mosaic were the main media, and figurative sculpture occurred very rarely except for small ivory carving. Manuscript painting preserved to the end some of the classical realist tradition that was missing in larger works.; . Byzantine art was highly prestigious and sought after in Western Europe, where it maintained a continuous influence on medieval art until near the end of the medieval period. This was especially so in Italy, where Byzantine styles persisted in modified form through the 12th century, and became formative influences on Italian Renaissance art. But few incoming influences affected the Byzantine style. With the expansion of the Eastern Orthodox church, Byzantine forms and styles spread throughout the Orthodox world and beyond.; ; . Influences from Byzantine architecture, particularly in religious buildings, can be found in diverse regions from Egypt and Arabia to Russia and Romania.
Byzantine architecture is notorious for the use of domes. It also often featured marble columns, ceilings and sumptuous decoration, including the extensive use of with golden backgrounds. The building material used by Byzantine architects was no longer marble, which the Ancient Greeks had appreciated so much. The Byzantines used mostly stone and brick, and also thin alabaster sheets for windows. Mosaics were used to cover brick walls, and any other surface where fresco wouldn't resist. Good examples of mosaics from the proto-Byzantine era are in Hagios Demetrios in Thessaloniki (Greece), the Basilica of Sant'Apollinare Nuovo and the Basilica of San Vitale (both in Ravenna in Italy), and in Hagia Sophia in Istanbul. Greco-Roman temples and Byzantine churches differ substantially in terms of their exterior and interior aspect. In Antiquity, the exterior was the most important part of the temple, because in the interior, which contained the cult statue of the deity to whom the temple was built, only the priest had access. Temple ceremonies in Antiquity took place outside, and what the worshippers viewed was the facade of the temple, consisting of columns, with an entablature and two pediments. In contrast, Christian liturgies played out in the interior of the churches, thus the exterior usually having little to no ornamentation.
File:Feeding the multitude, Sant'Apollinare Nuovo, Ravenna.jpg| Feeding of the Five Thousand; 520; mosaic; unknown dimensions; Basilica of Sant'Apollinare Nuovo, Ravenna, Italy
File:Basilica di Sant'Apollinare in Classe --- Ravenna ---.jpg|Basilica of Sant'Apollinare in Classe, Ravenna, unknown architect, 530
KHM Wien Kaiserin Ariadne X 39.jpg|Diptych Leaf with a Byzantine Empress; 6th century; ivory with traces of gilding and leaf; height: 26.5 cm; Kunsthistorisches Museum (Vienna, Austria)
Officina costantinopolitana, tesoro di asyut (egitto), V-VI sec ca. 01 collier.JPG|Collier; late 6th–7th century; gold, an emerald, a sapphire, and ; diameter: 23 cm; from a workshop; Antikensammlung Berlin (Berlin, Germany)
Byzantium, Constantinople, 11th century - Gospel Book with Commentaries - 1942.152 - Cleveland Museum of Art.tif|Page of the Gospel Book with Commentaries: Portrait of Mark; 1000–1100; ink, tempera, gold, vellum and leather binding; sheet: 28 × 23 cm; Cleveland Museum of Art (Cleveland, Ohio, US)
The Ladder of Divine Ascent Monastery of St Catherine Sinai 12th century.jpg| Ladder of Divine Ascent; late 12th century; tempera and gold leaf on panel; 41 x 29.5 cm; Saint Catherine's Monastery (Sinai Peninsula, Egypt)
File:Byzantine 13th Century (possibly from Constantinople), Madonna and Child on a Curved Throne, c. 1260-1280, NGA 35.jpg| Madonna and Child on a Curved Throne; 1280; tempera on panel; 81.5 x 49 cm; National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. (2025). 9786067107517, ART. ISBN 9786067107517
(2025). 9786060063926, rao. ISBN 9786060063926
(2025). 9786067107517, ART. ISBN 9786067107517
Ottonian art is a style in pre-romanesque German art, covering also some works from the Low Countries, northern Italy and eastern France. It was named by the art historian Hubert Janitschek after the Ottonian dynasty which ruled Germany and northern Italy between 919 and 1024 under the kings Henry I, Otto I, Otto II, Otto III and Henry II. With Ottonian architecture, it is a key component of the Ottonian Renaissance (circa 951–1024). However, the style neither began nor ended to neatly coincide with the rule of the dynasty. It emerged some decades into their rule and persisted past the Ottonian emperors into the reigns of the early Salian dynasty, which lacks an artistic "style label" of its own.Suckale-Redlefsen, 524 In the traditional scheme of art history, Ottonian art follows Carolingian art and precedes Romanesque art, though the transitions at both ends of the period are gradual rather than sudden. Like the former and unlike the latter, it was very largely a style restricted to a few of the small cities of the period, to important monastery, as well as to the court circles of the emperor and his leading .
After the decline of the 9th-century Carolingian Empire, the Holy Roman Empire was re-established under the Saxon Ottonian dynasty. From this emerged a renewed faith in the idea of Empire and a reformed Church, creating a period of heightened cultural and artistic fervour. In this atmosphere masterpieces were created that fused the traditions from which Ottonian artists derived their inspiration: models of Late Antique, Carolingian, and Byzantine origin. Surviving Ottonian art is very largely religious, in the form of illuminated manuscripts and metalwork, and was produced in a small number of centres for a narrow range of patrons in the circle of the Imperial court, as well as for important figures in the church. However much of it was designed for display to a wider public, especially to pilgrims.Beckwith, 81–86; Lasko, 82; Dodwell, 123–126
The style is generally grand and heavy, sometimes to excess, and initially less sophisticated than the Carolingian equivalents, with less direct influence from Byzantine art and less understanding of its classical models, but around 1000 a striking intensity and expressiveness emerge in many works, as "a solemn monumentality is combined with a vibrant inwardness, an unworldly, visionary quality with sharp attention to actuality, surface patterns of flowing lines and rich bright colours with passionate emotionalism".Honour and Fleming, 277
Romanesque churches are characterized by rigid articulation and geometric clarity, incorporated into a unified volumetric whole. The architecture is austere but enlivened by decorative sculpting of capitals and portals, as well as frescoed interiors. Geometric and foliate patterning gives way to increasingly three-dimensional figurative sculpture.
St. Michael's Church, Hildesheim, Germany, 1001–1030, is seen by some as a Proto-Romanesque church.
From the mid-eleventh to the early thirteenth centuries, Romanesque paintings were two-dimensional, defined by bold, linear outlines and geometry, particularly in the handling of drapery; painters emphasised symmetry and frontality. Virtually all Western churches were painted, but probably only a few wall-painters were monks; instead, itinerant artists carried out most of this work. Basic blocking-out was done on wet plaster with earth colours. A limited palette, dominated by white, red, yellow ochres and azure, was employed for maximum visual effect, with dense colouring forming a backdrop of bands, a practice that originated in late Classical art as an attempt to distinguish earth and sky.
During the later eleventh and twelfth centuries, the great age of Western monasticism, Europe experienced unprecedented economic, social and political change, leading to burgeoning wealth among landowners, including monasteries. There was increasing demand for books, and economic wealth encouraged the production of richly illuminated manuscripts.
One of the outstanding artefacts of the age is the 70 m long Bayeux Tapestry. It depicts the events leading up to the Norman conquest of England with protagonists William, Duke of Normandy, and Harold Godwinson, and culminating in the Battle of Hastings of 1066. It is thought to date from the 11th century. It tells the story from the point of view of the conquering Normans, but is now agreed to have been made in England - most likely by women, although the designer is unknown. It is housed in France.
Aerial image of the Speyer Cathedral (view from the southwest).jpg|Speyer cathedral (Speyer, Germany), 1030-1106
File:Glees Germany Maria-Laach-Abbey-01.jpg|Maria Laach Abbey (Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany), 1093-1230
Pope Alexander head reliquary, from Abbey Saint-Remacle de Stavelot, Mosan workshop, c. 1145 AD, silver partially gilt, brass, enamel, precious stones - Cinquantenaire Museum - Brussels, Belgium - DSC08823.jpg|Head of pope Alexander; 1145; wood, silver, gilt bronze, gems, pearls and champlevé enamel; height: 45 cm; Art & History Museum (Brussels, Belgium)
Klosterkirche Müstair Freske Steinigung Stephanus.jpg|The stoning of Saint Stephen; 1160s; fresco; height: 1.3 m; Saint John Abbey (Val Müstair, Canton of Grisons, Switzerland)
Brick Gothic was a specific style of Gothic architecture common in Baltic region and Central Europe especially in the regions in and around the Baltic Sea, which do not have resources of standing rock. The buildings are essentially built using .
The imposing Gothic cathedrals, with their sculptural programmes and stained glass windows, epitomize the Gothic style. It differs from Romanesque through its rib-shaped vaults, and the use of . Instead of the thick Romanesque walls, Gothic buildings are thin and tall. Spiral stairs in towers are specific to Gothic architecture.
Gothic painting, much of it executed in tempera and, later, oils on panel, as well as fresco, and with an increasingly broad palette of secondary colours, is generally seen as more 'naturalistic' than Romanesque. The humanity of religious narrative was highlighted, and the emotional state of the characters individualized. The increased urbanity of the medieval economy and the rise of the clerical and lay patron saw a change in the nature of the art market, which can be seen in developments in Gothic manuscript illumination. Workshops employed specialists for different elements of the page, such as figures or marginal vine motifs.
Sainte Chapelle Interior Stained Glass.jpg|The Sainte-Chapelle (Paris), 1243–1248, by Pierre de Montreuil
Naumburg Dom Stifterfiguren Uta und Ekkehard 2012-04-29-17-31-47.jpg|Ekkehard and Uta; attributed to the Master of Namburg; 1245–1260; limestone and polychrome; height: 1.9 m; Naumburg Cathedral (Naumburg, Germany)
4 Jean Pucelle. Hours of Jeanne d'Evreux. 1325-28, Metropolitan Museum, New-York.jpg|Arrest of Christ and Annunciation of the Virgin; by Jean Pucelle; 1324–1328; grisaille and temprea on vellum; 8.9 x 12.4 cm; Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York City)
Anonimo inglese o francese, dittico wilton, 1395-99 ca. 01.jpg|The Wilton Diptych; 1395–1459; tempera and gold on panel; 53 × 37 cm; National Gallery (London)
Marienkirche am Abend.jpg|St. Mary's Church, 1265-1352, in Lübeck, Germany
Stralsunder Rathaus mit Schaufassade, dahinter die Nikolaikirche-2630.jpg|Town Hall and St. Nicholas' church in Stralsund, from around 1250 to 1400, Germany
00_Bruges_JPG6.jpg|Brick Gothic with some decoration of stone, Old St. John's Hospital, 13th to 15th century, in Bruges, Belgium
(2025). 973717075X, Enciclopedia RAO. 973717075X
The Early Renaissance was a period of great creative and intellectual activity when artists broke away completely from the parameters of Byzantine art. It is generally accepted that it started in Florence in present-day Italy in the early 15th century. It is characterized by a surge of interest in classical literature, philosophy and art, the growth of commerce, the discovery of new continents, and new inventions. There was a revival of interest in the art and literature of ancient Rome, and the study of ancient Greek and Latin literature instigated concepts of individualism and reason, which became known as humanism. Humanists considered life in the present and emphasized the importance of individual thought, which affected artists' approaches.
Despite being highly associated with Italy, particularly with Florence, Rome, and Venice, the rest of Western Europe participated to the Renaissance as well. (2025). 9789737170415, Enciclopedia RAO. ISBN 9789737170415 The Northern Renaissance occurred in Europe north of the Alps from the early 15th century, following a period of artistic cross-fertilization between north and south known as 'International Gothic'. There was a big difference between the Northern and Italian Renaissance. The North artists did not seek to revive the values of ancient Greece and Rome like the Italians, while in the south Italian artists and patrons were amazed by the empirical study of nature and the human society, and by the deep colors that northern artists could achieve in the newly developed medium of oil paint. The Protestant Reformation increased the northern interest in secular painting, like portraits or landscapes. Two key northern artists are Hieronymus Bosch, known for his surreal paintings filled with hybrid creatures like The Garden of Earthly Delights, and Albrecht Dürer, who brought the new art of printmaking to a new level.
The High Renaissance took place in the late 15th-early 16th centuries and was influenced by the fact that as papal power stabilized in Rome, several popes commissioned art and architecture, determined to recreate the city's former glory. Raphael and Michelangelo produced vast and grandiose projects for the popes. The most famous artwork of this part of the Renaissance is probably the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.
Mannerism broke away from High Renaissance ideals of harmony and a rational approach to art, to embrace exaggerated forms, elongated proportions, and more vibrant colors. It developed in Italy between 1510 and 1520, among artists who prized originality above all. The name of this movement comes from the Italian maniera, meaning 'style' or 'manner'. The word was meant to describe the standard of excellence achieved during the High Renaissance, to which all art should now adhere, but in practice it led to stylization and art 'to show art', sometimes with great success, an example being Raphael's pupil Giulio Romano. Mannerism has also been used more generally to describe a period following the Renaissance and preceding the Baroque.
File:Giotto. the-crucifix-1290-1300 Florence, Santa Maria Novella.jpg|Crucifix; by Giotto; 1300; tempera on panel; 5.78 x 4.06 m; Santa Maria Novella (Florence, Italy)
Van Eyck - Arnolfini Portrait.jpg| Arnolfini Portrait; by Jan van Eyck; 1434; oil on panel; 82.2 x 60 cm; National Gallery (London)
File:Florence - David by Donatello.jpg| David; by Donatello; 1460s; bronze; height: 1.6 m; Bargello (Florence)
Paolo Uccello 047b.jpg| Saint George and the Dragon; by Paolo Uccello; 1470; oil on canvas; 55.6 x 74.2 cm; National Gallery (London)
Botticelli-primavera.jpg| Primavera; by Sandro Botticelli; 1478; tempera on panel; 2 x 3.1 m; Uffizi (Florence)
Tempietto di San Pietro in Montorio.jpg|The Tempietto (San Pietro in Montorio, Rome), 1502, by Donato Bramante
Mona Lisa, by Leonardo da Vinci, from C2RMF retouched.jpg| Mona Lisa; by Leonardo da Vinci; 1503-1519; Oil painting on Populus panel; 77 × 53 cm; Louvre
The Garden of earthly delights.jpg| The Garden of Earthly Delights; by Hieronymus Bosch; 1504; oil on panel; 2.2 x 1.95 m; Museo del Prado (Madrid, Spain)
File:Sistine ceiling.jpg|Sistine Chapel ceiling; by Michelangelo; 1508–1512; fresco; 13.7 x 39 m; Sistine Chapel (Vatican City)
"The School of Athens" by Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino.jpg| The School of Athens; by Raphael; 1509–1510; fresco; 5.8 x 8.2 m; Apostolic Palace (Vatican City)
The Rhinoceros (NGA 1964.8.697) enhanced.png| The Rhinoceros; by Albrecht Dürer; 1515; woodcut; 23.5 × 29.8 cm; National Gallery of Art (Washington, D.C., US)
Chateau-Azay-le-Rudeau-1.jpg|Château d'Azay-le-Rideau (Loire, France), 1518-1527
Pieter Bruegel the Elder - The Tower of Babel (Vienna) - Google Art Project - edited.jpg| The Tower of Babel; by Pieter Bruegel the Elder; 1563; oil on panel; 1.14 x 1.55 m; Kunsthistorisches Museum (Vienna, Austria)
Armoire Louvre OA 6968.jpg|Cupboard; 1580; walnut and oak, partially gilded and painted; height: 2.06 m, width: 1.50 m; Louvre
Rathaus Augsburg perspective.jpg|The Augsburg Town Hall (Augsburg, Germany), 1615–1624, by Elias Holl
(2025). 9781844848997, Parkstone. ISBN 9781844848997
Succeeding Mannerism, and developing as a result of religious tensions across Europe, Baroque art emerged in the late 16th century. The name may derive from 'barocco', the Portuguese word for misshaped pearl, and it describes art that combined emotion, dynamism and drama with powerful color, realism and strong tonal contrasts. Between 1545 and 1563 at the Council of Trent, it was decided that religious art must encourage piety, realism and accuracy, and, by attracting viewers' attention and empathy, glorify the Catholic Church and strengthen the image of Catholicism. In the next century the radical new styles of Baroque art both embraced and developed High Renaissance models, and broke new ground both in religious art and in new varieties of secular art – above all landscape. The Baroque and its late variant the Rococo were the first truly global styles in the arts, dominating more than two centuries of art and architecture in Europe, Latin America and beyond from circa 1580 to circa 1750. Born in the painting studios of Bologna and Rome in the 1580s and 1590s, and in Roman sculptural and architectural ateliers in the second and third decades of the 17th century, the Baroque spread swiftly throughout Italy, Spain and Portugal, Flanders, France, the Netherlands, England, Scandinavia, and Russia, as well as to central and eastern European centres from Munich (Germany) to Vilnius (Lithuania). The Portuguese, Spanish Empire and French empires and the Dutch trading network had a leading role in spreading the two styles into the Americas and colonial Africa and Asia, to places such as Lima, Mozambique, Goa and the Philippines.
Just like paintings and sculptures, Baroque cathedrals and palaces are characterised by the use of illusion and drama as well. They also frequently use dramatic effects of light and shade, and have sumptuous, highly decorated interiors that blurred the boundaries between architecture, painting and sculpture. Another important characteristic of Baroque architecture was the presence of dynamism, done through curves, and ovals. In France, Baroque is synonymous with the reign of Louis XIV between 1643 and 1715, since multiple monumental buildings were built in Paris, Versailles and other parts of France during his rule, such as the Palace of Versailles, the Château de Maisons, the Vaux-le-Vicomte, the Louvre Colonnade or The Dôme Les Invalides. Besides the building itself, the space where it was placed has a role too. Baroque buildings try to seize viewers' attention and to dominate their surroundings, whether on a small scale such as the San Carlo alle Quattro Fontane in Rome, or on a massive one, like the new facade of the Santiago de Compostela Cathedral, designed to tower over the city. Applied arts prospered during this period as well. Baroque furniture could be as bombastic as the rooms they were meant to adorn, and their motifs and techniques were carefully calibrated to coordinate with the architect's overall decorative programme. One of the most prestigious furniture makers was André Charles Boulle, known for his marquetry technique, made by gluing sheets of tortoiseshell and brass together and cut to form the design. His works were also adorned with gilded bronze mounts. Complex Gobelins tapestries featured scenes inspired by classical antiquity, and the Savonnerie manufactory produced big highly detailed carpets for the Louvre. These carpets with black or yellow backgrounds had a central motif or a medallion. Chinese porcelain, Delftware and mirrors fabricated at (France) spread rapidly in all princely palaces and aristocratic residences in France. During the reign of Louis XIV, big mirrors are put above , and this trend will last long after the Baroque period.
Château de Maisons-Laffitte 001.jpg|Château de Maisons (France), by François Mansart, 1630-1651
Nicolas Poussin - L'Enlèvement des Sabines (1634-5).jpg| The Rape of the Sabine Women; by Nicolas Poussin; 1634–1635; oil on canvas; 1.55 × 2.1 m; Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York City)
La ronda de noche, por Rembrandt van Rijn.jpg| The Night Watch; by Rembrandt; 1642; oil on canvas; 3.63 × 4.37 m; Rijksmuseum (Amsterdam, the Netherlands)
Ecstasy of Saint Teresa September 2015-2a.jpg| Ecstasy of Saint Teresa; by Gian Lorenzo Bernini; 1647–1652; marble; height: 3.5 m; Santa Maria della Vittoria (Rome)
Las Meninas, by Diego Velázquez, from Prado in Google Earth.jpg| Las Meninas; by Diego Velázquez; 1656; oil on canvas; 318 cm × 2.76 m; Museo del Prado (Madrid, Spain)
Maria van Oosterwijck, Kunsthistorisches Museum Wien, Gemäldegalerie - Vanitas-Stilleben - GG 5714.jpg| Vanitas Still Life; by Maria van Oosterwijck; 1668; oil on canvas; 73 x 88.5 cm; Kunsthistorisches Museum
Carpet with Fame and Fortitude MET DP212204.jpg|Carpet with fame and fortitude; by the Savonnerie manufactory; 1668–1685; knotted and cut wool pile, woven with about 90 knots per square inch; 909.3 x 459.7 cm; Metropolitan Museum of Art
Cathédrale Saint-Louis-des-Invalides, 140309 2.jpg|Dôme Les Invalides (Paris), 1677–1706, by Jules Hardouin-Mansart
Commode MET DP108742.jpg|Commode; by André Charles Boulle; 1710–1732; walnut veneered with ebony and marquetry of engraved brass and tortoiseshell, gilt-bronze mounts, antique marble top; 87.6 x 128.3 x 62.9 cm; Metropolitan Museum of Art
Beaker MET DP223288 (cropped).jpg|Part of a Meissen porcelain tea and chocolate service, c. 1725, given to Vittorio Amadeo II, King of Sardinia (1666–1732) by Augustus the Strong, owner of the Meissen factory
100130 150006 Dresden Frauenkirche winter blue sky-2.jpg|Frauenkirche in Dresden, 1726-1743, by George Bähr
(2025). 9780714878775, Phaidon. ISBN 9780714878775
Beginning in France as a reaction against the heavy Baroque grandeur of Louis XIV's court at the Palace of Versailles, the rococo movement became associated particularly with the powerful Madame de Pompadour (1721–1764), the mistress of the new king Louis XV (1710–1774). Because of this, the style was also known as 'Pompadour'. The name of the movement derives from the French 'rocaille', or pebble, and refers to stones and shells that decorate the interiors of caves, as similar shell forms became a common feature in Rococo design. It began as a design and decorative arts style, and was characterized by elegant flowing shapes. Architecture followed and then painting and sculpture. The French painter with whom the term Rococo is most often associated is Jean-Antoine Watteau, whose pastoral scenes, or fêtes galantes, dominate the early part of the 18th century.
Although there are some important Bavarian churches in this style, such as the Wieskirche, Rococo is most often associated with secular buildings, principally great palaces and salons where educated elites would meet to discuss literary and philosophical ideas. In Paris, its popularity coincided with the emergence of the salon as a new type of social gathering, the venues for which were often decorated in the Rococo style. Among the most characteristically elegant and refined examples is the Salon Oval de la Princesse of the Hôtel de Soubise, one of the most beautiful 18th century mansions in Paris. The Rococo introduced dramatic changes to elite furniture, as it favoured smaller pieces with narrow, sinewy frames and more delicate, often asymmetrical decoration, often including elements of chinoiserie. The taste for objects (mainly Chinese) lead to the use of Chinese painted and lacquered panels for furniture.
The movement spread quickly throughout Europe and as far as Ottoman Empire and China thanks to ornament books featuring cartouches, and shell work, as well as designs for wall panels and fireplaces. The most popular were made by Juste-Aurèle Meissonnier (1695–1750), Jacques-François Blondel (1705–1774), Pierre-Edmé Babel (1720–1775) and François de Cuvilliés (1695–1768).
Dresden-Zwinger-Wallpavillion-gp.jpg|Zwinger, Dresden, Germany, by Matthäus Daniel Pöppelmann, 1719
Salon ovale de la princesse in the Hôtel de Soubise (11).jpg|The Salon Oval de la Princesse of the Hôtel de Soubise (Paris), 1737–1739, by Germain Boffrand, Charles-Joseph Natoire and Jean-Baptiste Lemoyne
Jean Joseph de Saint-Germain - Candelabrum - 1946.81 - Cleveland Museum of Art.tif|Candelabrum; by Jean Joseph de Saint-Germain; 1750; gilt bronze; overall: 72.4 x 49.3 x 39.7 cm; Cleveland Museum of Art (Cleveland, Ohio, US)
Fire MET DP104979.jpg| Fire; by Jean-Pierre Defrance; 1750-1760; limestone; height: 223 cm; Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York City)
Wieskirche, Gemeinde Steingaden Ortsteil Wies.JPG|Wieskirche, Steingaden, Germany, by Dominikus and Johann Baptist Zimmermann, 1754
Side table (commode en console) MET DP105703.jpg|Side table (commode en console); by Bernard II van Risamburgh; 1755-1760; Japanese lacquer, gilt-bronze mounts and Sarrancolin marble top; height: 90.2 cm; Metropolitan Museum of Art
Madame de Pompadour.jpg| Madame de Pompadour; by François Boucher; 1756; oil on canvas; 2.01 x 1.57 m; Alte Pinakothek (Munich, Germany)
Coffeepot MET DP103144 (cropped),.jpg|Coffeepot; 1757; silver; height: 29.5 cm; Metropolitan Museum of Art
Sèvres Porcelain Manufactory - Covered Tureen (Terrine du roi) - 1949.15 - Cleveland Museum of Art.tif|Covered tureen (terrine du roi); by the Manufacture nationale de Sèvres 1756; soft-paste porcelain with enamel and gilt decoration; overall: 24.2 cm; Cleveland Museum of Art
Fragonard - swing.jpg| The Swing; by Jean-Honoré Fragonard; 1767; oil on canvas; 81 x 64 cm; Wallace Collection (London)
Louise Elisabeth Vigée-Lebrun - Marie-Antoinette dit « à la Rose » - Google Art Project.jpg| Marie-Antoinette with the Rose; by Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun; 1783; oil on canvas; 130 x 87 cm; Palace of Versailles (Versailles, France)
(2025). 9780714879253, Phaidon. ISBN 9780714879253
In 1789, France was on the brink of its first revolution and Neoclassicism sought to express their patriotic feelings. Politics and art were closely entwined during this period. They believed that art should be serious, and valued drawings above painting; smooth contours and paint with no discernible brushstrokes were the ultimate aim. Both painting and sculpture exerted calmness and restraint and focused on heroic themes, expressing such noble notions as self-sacrifice and nationalism.
This movement paved the way for Romanticism, that appeared when the idealism of the revolution faded away and after the Napoleonic period came to an end in the early 19th century. Neoclassicism should not be seen as the opposite of Romanticism, however, but in some ways an early manifestation of it.
Giovanni Paolo Panini - Fantasy View with the Pantheon and other Monuments of Ancient Rome - 61.62 - Museum of Fine Arts.jpg| Fantasy View with the Pantheon and other Monuments of Ancient Rome, by Giovanni Paolo Panini, 1737, oil on canvas, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, US
The ancient Capitol ascended by approximately one hundred steps . . . (Campidoglio antico a cui si ascendeva per circa cento gradini . . .) MET DP827987.jpg| The ancient Capitol ascended by approximately one hundred steps . . ., by Giovanni Battista Piranesi, 1750, etching, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City
L'Hôtel de la Marine (Paris) (51346237676).jpg|Hôtel de la Marine, Paris, by Ange-Jacques Gabriel, 1761–1770
West facade of Petit Trianon 002.JPG|Petit Trianon, Versailles, France, by Ange-Jacques Gabriel, 1764
Wright of Derby, The Orrery.jpg| A Philosopher Lecturing on the Orrery, by Joseph Wright of Derby, 1766, oil on canvas, Derby Museum and Art Gallery, Derby, England
Osterley House, entrance hall.jpg|The Hall, Osterley Park, London, by Robert Adam, 1767
Self-portrait with Her Daughter by Elisabeth-Louise Vigée Le Brun.jpg| The Artist and her Daughter, by Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun, 1785, oil on canvas, Louvre
File:Berlin - 0266 - 16052015 - Brandenburger Tor.jpg|Brandenburg Gate in Berlin (1788–1791) by Carl Gotthard Langhans
Washstand (athénienne or lavabo) MET DP106594.jpg|Washstand (athénienne or lavabo), 1800–1814, legs, base and shelf of yew wood, gilt-bronze mounts, iron plate beneath shelf, Metropolitan Museum of Art
Villers Young Woman Drawing.jpg| Portrait of Charlotte du Val d'Ognes, by Marie-Denise Villers, 1801, oil on canvas, Metropolitan Museum of Art
Canova - The Three Graces, between 1813 and 1816, Н.ск-506.jpg| The Three Graces, by Antonio Canova, 1813–1816, marble, Hermitage Museum, Saint Petersburg, Russia
File:Exterior views of the Altes Museum Berlin.jpg|Altes Museum in Berlin (1825–1830) by Karl Friedrich Schinkel
(2025). 9781856695848, Laurence King. ISBN 9781856695848
(2025). 9780714878775, Phaidon. ISBN 9780714878775
Modern art has consistently moved toward international influences and exchanges, from the exotic curiosity of Orientalism, the deeper influence of Japonisme, to the arts of Oceania, Africa, and the Americas. Conversely modern art has increasingly extended beyond western Europe. In Russia and the US the arts were developing to a degree that rivaled the leading European countries by the end of the 19th century. Many of the major movements appeared in Latin America, Australia, and Asia too and geography and nationality became increasingly insignificant with each passing decade. By the 20th century important and influential artists were emerging around the world: e.g. Foujita (Japan), Arshile Gorky (Armenia), Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo (Mexico), Wifredo Lam (Cuba), Edvard Munch (Norwegian), Roberto Matta (Chilean), Mark Rothko (Lithuanian-American), Fernando Botero Angulo (Colombia), Constantin Brâncuși and Victor Brauner (Romania).
One of the earliest expressions of romanticism was in the English landscape garden, carefully designed to appear natural and standing in dramatic contrast to the formal gardens of the time. The concept of the "natural" English garden was adopted throughout Europe and America in the following decades. In architecture, the romantics frequently turned to alternative sources other than the Greek and Roman examples admired by the neo-classicist. Romantic architecture often revived Gothic forms and other styles such as exotic eastern models. The Palace of Westminster (Houses of Parliament), London is an example of romantic architecture that is also referred to as Gothic Revival. In painting romanticism is exemplified by the paintings of Francisco Goya in Spain, Eugène Delacroix and Théodore Géricault in France, William Blake, Henry Fuseli, Samuel Palmer, and William Turner in England, Caspar David Friedrich and Philipp Otto Runge in Germany, Francesco Hayez in Italy, Johan Christian Claussen Dahl in Norway, and Thomas Cole in America. Examples of sculptors of the romantic period include Antoine-Louis Barye, Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux, Auguste Préault, and François Rude. As romanticism ran its course, some aspects of the movement evolved into symbolism. (2025). 9786060063926, rao. ISBN 9786060063926
During the 18th century, across all Europe, many academies were founded, that will later dominate the art of the 19th century. In order to study at an art academy, young artists had to take an admission exam, and after being admitted, they would study there for multiple years. Most of the 19th century French were exterior or even opposing the values of academism.
Some of the most important artists of the French academy were William Bouguereau (1825–1905), Jean-Léon Gérôme (1824–1904), Alexandre Cabanel (1823–1889) and Thomas Couture (1815–1879). Academic art is closely related to Beaux-Arts architecture, which developed in the same place and holds to a similar classicizing ideal. The Beaux-Arts style takes its name from the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris, where it developed and where many of the main exponents of the style studied. (2025). 9786060063926, rao. ISBN 9786060063926 (2025). 9789737170415, Rao. ISBN 9789737170415
Despite revivalism being so prevalent, this doesn't mean that there was no originality in these works. Architects, ébénistes and other craftsmen, especially during the second half of the 19th century, created mixes of styles, by extracting and interpreting elements specific to certain eras and areas. This practice is known as eclecticism. This stylistic development occurred during a period when the competition of World's Fairs motivated many countries to invent new industrial methods of creation.
Realism was also in part a reaction to the often dramatic, exotic, and emotionally charged work of romanticism. The term realism is applied relative to the idealized imagery of neo-classicism and the romanticized imagery of romanticism. Artists such as Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot and Honoré Daumier had loose associations with realism, as did members of the Barbizon School, particularly Jean-François Millet, but it was perhaps Gustave Courbet who was the central figure in the movement, self identifying as a realist, advocating realism, and influencing younger artists such as Édouard Manet. One significant aspect of realism was the practice of painting landscapes en plein air and its subsequent influence on impressionism.
Beyond France, realism is exemplified by artists such as Wilhelm Leibl in Germany, Ford Madox Brown in England, and Winslow Homer in the United States. Art historian H. H. Arnason wrote, "The chronological sequence of neo-classicism, romanticism, and realism is, of course, only a convenient stratification of movements or tendencies so inextricably bound up with one another and with the preceding movements that it is impossible to tell where one ended and another began", and this becomes even more pertinent and complex as one follows all of the movements and "isms" into the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
Jean-François Millet - Gleaners - Google Art Project 2.jpg| The Gleaners; by Jean-François Millet; 1857; oil on canvas; 0.84 x 1.12 m; Musée d'Orsay
Honoré Daumier, The Third-Class Carriage - The Metropolitan Museum of Art.jpg| The Third-Class Carriage; by Honoré Daumier; 1862–1864; oil on canvas; 65.4 x 90.2 cm; Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York City)
Adolph Menzel - Eisenwalzwerk - Google Art Project.jpg| The Iron Rolling Mill; by Adolph von Menzel; 1875; oil on canvas; 153 x 253 cm; Alte Nationalgalerie (Berlin, Germany)
Сбор угля бедными на выработанной шахте.jpg| The Poor, Picking up Pieces of Coal; by Nikolay Kasatkin; 1894; oil on canvas; 80 x 107 cm; Russian Museum (Saint Petersburg, Russia)
(2025). 9786060063926, rao. ISBN 9786060063926
Although not unprecedented, many of the techniques used were in contrast to traditional methods. Paintings were often completed in hours or days with wet paint applied to wet paint (opposed to wet on dry paint, completed in weeks and months). Rather than applying glazes and mixed colors, pure colors were often applied side by side, in thick, opaque, impasto strokes; blending in the eye of the viewer when observed from a distance. Black was used very sparingly, or not at all, and defining lines replaced with nuanced strokes of color forming the subjects, contours, and shapes. Art historian H. W. Janson said "instead of adding to the illusion of real space, it strengthens the unity of the actual painted surface." Impressionist paintings typically depict landscapes, portraits, still lifes, domestic scenes, daily leisure and nightlife, all treated in a realist manner. Compositions were often based on unusual perspectives, appearing spontaneous and candid. The paintings were usually void of didactic, symbolic, or metaphoric meanings, and rarely addressed the biblical, mythological, and historical subjects that were so highly regarded by the academies or the darker and psychological interest explored by the symbolist. The nuances of light, shadow, atmosphere, and reflections of colors from surfaces were examined, sometimes emphasizing changes of these elements in time. The painting itself was the subject of the painting. It was art for art's sake, an idea that had been floating around for a few of decades but it perhaps reached a new high and consistency in impressionism.
Edgar Degas - At the Races in the Countryside - Google Art Project.jpg| At the Races in the Countryside; by Edgar Degas; 1869; oil on canvas; 36.5 x 56 cm; Museum of Fine Arts (Boston, US)
Claude Monet, 1873-74, Boulevard des Capucines, oil on canvas, 80.3 x 60.3 cm, Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City.jpg| Boulevard des Capucines; by Claude Monet; 1873; oil on canvas; 80.5 x 60.2 cm; Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art (Kansas City, Missouri, US)
Camille Pissarro - Gelée blanche, ancienne route d´Ennery, Pontoise - 1873.jpg| Hoarfrost: Old Road to Ennery, Pontoise; by Camille Pissarro; 1873; oil on canvas; 64.7 x 92.6 cm; Musée d'Orsay (Paris)
Alfred Sisley, L'automne - Bords de la Seine pres Bougival (Autumn - Banks of the Seine near Bougival), 1873.jpg| Banks of the Seine near Bougival; by Alfred Sisley; 1873; oil on canvas; 46.2 x 62.1 cm; Montreal Museum of Fine Arts (Montreal, Canada)
Pierre-Auguste Renoir 023.jpg| La Loge; Pierre-Auguste Renoir; 1874; oil on canvas; 80 x 63.4 cm; Courtauld Gallery (London)
Gustave Caillebotte - The Floor Planers - Google Art Project.jpg| The Floor Scrapers; by Gustave Caillebotte; 1875; oil on canvas; 1 x 1.54 m; Musée d'Orsay
Gustave Caillebotte - Paris Street; Rainy Day - Google Art Project.jpg| Paris Street; Rainy Day; by Gustave Caillebotte; 1877; oil on canvas; 212.2 × 276.2 cm; Art Institute of Chicago
Berthe Morisot - Jour d'été, 1879.jpg| Summer's Day; by Berthe Morisot; 1879; oil on canvas; 45.7 cm × 75.2 cm; National Portrait Gallery (London)
Edouard Manet, A Bar at the Folies-Bergère.jpg| A Bar at the Folies-Bergère; by Édouard Manet; 1881–1882; oil on canvas; 96 × 130 cm.; Courtauld Institute of Art (London)
Nicolae Grigorescu - Car cu boi (8).jpg| Ox-Drawn Cart; by Nicolae Grigorescu; 1899; oil on canvas; 66 x 81 cm; National Museum of Art of Romania (Bucharest, Romania)
The subjects, themes, and meanings of symbolist art are frequently veiled and obscure, but at its best still manage to resonate deeply on psychological or emotional levels. The subjects are often presented as metaphors or allegories, aiming to evoke highly subjective, personal, introspective emotions and ideas in the viewer, without clearly defining or addressing the subject directly. The poet Stéphane Mallarmé wrote "depict not the thing but the effect it produces" and "To name an object is to suppress three quarters of the pleasure of the poem which is made to be understood little by little". The English painter George Frederic Watts stated "I paint ideas, not things."
La vision après le sermon (Paul Gauguin).jpg| Vision After the Sermon (Jacob Wrestling with the Angel); 1888; oil on canvas; 73 x 92 cm; Scottish National Gallery (Edinburgh, Scotland)
Edvard Munch, 1893, The Scream, oil, tempera and pastel on cardboard, 91 x 73 cm, National Gallery of Norway.jpg| The Scream; by Edvard Munch; 1893; tempera and crayon on cardboard; 91 x 73.5 cm; National Gallery (Oslo, Norway)
Redon - Green Death c. 1905.jpg| Green Death; by Odilon Redon; 1905; oil on canvas; 54.9 x 46.3 cm; Museum of Modern Art
Odilon Redon - The Cyclops, c. 1914.jpg| The Cyclops; by Odilon Redon; 1914; oil on cardboard on panel; 64 x 51 cm; Kröller-Müller Museum (Otterlo, the Netherlands)
Neo-Impressionism (Divisionism or Pointillism, c. 1884–1894) explored light and color based on scientific color theories, creating mosaics of brush strokes in pure colors, sometimes laid out in rhythmic patterns with lines influenced by Art Nouveau. The leading artists were Georges Seurat and Paul Signac, others include Henri-Edmond Cross, Maximilien Luce, Albert Dubois-Pillet, and for a period Pissarro and Van Gogh. It was influential on fauvism, and elements of the style appeared in expressionism, cubism, and early abstraction. Synthetism (Cloisonnism c. 1888–1903) Cloisonnism was conceived by Émile Bernard and immediately taken up and developed by Paul Gauguin and others while at an artists' colony in Pont-Aven (Brittany, France). The style resembled cloisonné enamel or stained glass, with flat, bold colors outlined in black or dark colors. Synthetism, exemplified in the work of Gauguin and Paul Sérusier, is slightly a broader term with less emphasis on dark outlines and cloisonné qualities. Other artist include Cuno Amiet, Louis Anquetin, Charles Filiger, Jacob Meyer de Haan, Charles Laval, and Armand Seguin. Their work greatly influenced fauvism and expressionism. Les Nabis (c. 1890–1905: Hebrew for prophets or illuminati) was a larger movement in France and Belgium that eclectically drew on progressive elements in synthetism, neo-impressionism, symbolism, and Art Nouveau. Perhaps more influential than the art, were the numerous theories, manifestoes, and infectious enthusiasm for the avant-garde, setting the tone for the proliferation of movements and "isms" in the first quarter of the 20th century. La Revue Blanche often published Les Nabis and symbolist content. The work of Édouard Vuillard, and Pierre Bonnard, ca. 1890–1910 is exemplary of Les Nabis, though both evolved in their styles and produced significant work into the 1940s. Other artist include Maurice Denis, Maxime Dethomas, Meyer de Haan, Henri-Gabriel Ibels, Georges Lacombe, Aristide Maillol, Paul Ranson, Ker-Xavier Roussel, Armand Séguin, Paul Sérusier, Félix Vallotton, Jan Verkade, and others.
Signac - Portrait de Félix Fénéon.jpg| Félix Fénéon; by Paul Signac; 1890; oil on canvas; 73.5 x 92.5 cm; Museum of Modern Art (New York City)
Eh quoi! Tu es jaloux? by Paul Gauguin.jpg| Aha Oe Feii? (Are You Jealous?); by Paul Gauguin; 1892; oil on canvas; 68 x 92 cm; Pushkin Museum (Moscow, Russia)
Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, At the Moulin Rouge.jpg| At the Moulin Rouge; by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec; 1892/1895; oil on canvas, 1.23 × 1.41 m; Art Institute of Chicago
Paul Cézanne, French - The Large Bathers - Google Art Project.jpg| The Bathers; by Paul Cézanne; 1898–1905; oil on canvas; 210.5 cm × 250.8 cm; Philadelphia Museum of Art (Philadelphia, US)
The movement is highly associated with sinuous organic forms, such as flowers, vines and leaves, but also insects and animals, through the works of artists like Alphonse Mucha, Victor Horta, Hector Guimard, Antoni Gaudí, René Lalique, Otto Eckmann or Émile Gallé. Art Nouveau designs and buildings can often be asymmetrical. Although there are identifying characteristics, the style also displayed many regional and national interpretations.
Despite being a short-lived fashion, it paved the way for the modern architecture and design of the 20th century. It was the first architectural style without historic precedent, the 19th century being notorious for a practice known as Historicism, which is the use of visual styles that consciously echo the style of a previous artistic era. Between 1870 and 1900, a crisis of historicism occurred, during which the historicist culture was critiqued, one of the voices being Friedrich Nietzsche in 1874, who diagnosed 'a malignant historical fervour' as one of the crippling symptoms of a modern culture burdened by archaeological study and faith in the laws of historical progression. Despite this, Art Nouveau was also heavily influenced by styles from the past such as Celtic art, Gothic art and Rococo art, and also by the Arts and Crafts movement, Aestheticism, Symbolism and especially by Japanese art. (2025). 9780192842220, Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780192842220
The fauvist painted landscapes en plein air, interiors, figures, and still lifes, following examples of realism, impressionism, and post-impressionism. They applied paint with loose brushstrokes, in thick, unnatural, often contrasting, vibrant colors, at times straight from the tube. Gauguin's influence, with his exploration of the expressive values and spatial aspects of patterning with flat, pure colors, as well as his interest in primitivism were significant, as was neo-impressionism. Matisse explained – for a long time color served as a complement of design, the painters of the Renaissance constructed the picture by line, adding local color afterwards – writing: "From Delacroix to Van Gogh and chiefly to Gauguin, by way of the Impressionist, who cleared the ground, and Cézanne, who gave the final impulse and introduced colored volumes, we can follow this rehabilitation of color's function, this restoration of its emotive power." Fauvism was the culmination in a shift, from drawing and line as the fundamental foundations of design in painting to color, and they depicted their subjects on the verge of abstraction.
Matisse-Woman-with-a-Hat.jpg| Woman with a Hat; by Henri Matisse; 1905; oil on canvas; 80.7 x 59.7 cm; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (San Francisco, US)
Fauvism Landscape; by Louis Valtat; oil on canvas, Speed Art Museum, Louisville, Kentucky II.jpg| Fauve Landscape; by Louis Valtat; 1905–1906; oil on canvas; Speed Art Museum (Louisville, Kentucky, US)
Derain CharingCrossBridge.png| Charing Cross Bridge, London; by André Derain; 1906; oil on canvas, 80.3 × 100.3 cm.; National Gallery of Art (Washington, D.C., US)
LA CIOTAT.PNG| La Ciotat; by Othon Friesz; 1907; oil on canvas, 65.7 by 81 cm.; unknown collection
Die Brücke (The Bridge: 1905 -1913) aspired to connect "all revolutionary and surging elements." It was founded by four architectural students Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Erich Heckel, Karl Schmidt-Rottluff, and Fritz Bleyl. Sharing a studio in Dresden they produced paintings, carvings, prints, and organized exhibitions, separating in the summer to work independently. Their first exhibit was in 1905, later joined by Emil Nolde and Max Pechstein in 1906, and Otto Mueller in 1910 among others. Influences included Gothic art, primitivism, Art Nouveau, and developments in Paris, particularly Van Gogh and fauvism. The group shifted to Berlin in 1911 and later dissolved in 1913. Der Blaue Reiter (The Blue Rider: 1911–1914), founded by Wassily Kandinsky and Franz Marc, was a relatively informal group that organized exhibitions of art from Paris and Europe, as well their own. It was one in a series of increasingly progressive groups splitting from the Art Academy in Munich including The Munich Secession in 1892 (realist and impressionist), Phalanx in 1901 (postimpressionist), Neue Kunstler Vereiningung in 1909, and The Blue Rider in 1911. Artist associated with the latter two groups included the David Burliuk brothers, Heinrich Campendonk, Alexej von Jawlensky, Paul Klee, August Macke, Gabriele Münter, and Marianne von Werefkin. The euphonious almanac Der Blaue Reiter, a collection of influential essays, and Kandinsky's Concerning the Spiritual in Art with his ideas on non-objective art were both published in 1912. The Blue Rider ended with the outbreak of World War I in which Macke and Marc both died.
Other artists such as Oskar Kokoschka, Egon Schiele, and Richard Gerstl emerged in Austria. French artist Georges Rouault and Chaïm Soutine had affinities with the movement. Sculptors include Ernst Barlach, Wilhelm Lehmbruck, Gerhard Marcks, and William Wauer. Architects associated with expressionism include Max Berg, Hermann Finsterlin, Johann Friedrich Höger, Michel de Klerk, Erich Mendelsohn, Hans Poelzig, Hans Scharoun, Rudolf Steiner, and Bruno Taut. Der Sturm (The Storm 1910–1932) was a magazine with much expressionist content founded by Herwarth Walden, with an associated gallery in Berlin opened in 1912 and a theater company and school opened in 1918. Films regarded as expressionistic, some considered as classics, include The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (Robert Wiene, 1920), Nosferatu (F. W. Murnau, 1922), and Metropolis (Fritz Lang, 1927).
After World War I a tendency to withdraw from the avant-garde by many artist occurred, seen in the work of the original fauvists during the 1920s, Picasso and Igor Stravinsky neoclassical periods, and De Chirico's late work. This tendency was called New Objectivity (ca. 1919–1933) in Germany, and in contrast to the nostalgic nature of this work elsewhere, it was characterized by disillusionment and ruthless social criticisms. New objectivity artists mostly emerged from expressionist and dada milieus including Otto Dix, Christian Schad, Rudolf Schlichter, Georg Scholz, and Jeanne Mammen. Max Beckmann and George Grosz also had some association with new objectivity for a period. Although not intrinsically expressionistic, the Staatliches Bauhaus (School of Building: 1919–1933) was an influential German school merging crafts, decorative, and fine arts. Moving from Weimar, to Dessau, to Berlin, it changed and evolved in focus with time. Directors included architects Walter Gropius (1919–1928), Hannes Meyer (1928–1930), and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe (1930–1933). At various points the faculty included Josef Albers, Theo van Doesburg, Lyonel Feininger, Johannes Itten, Paul Klee, Wassily Kandinsky, El Lissitzky, Gerhard Marcks, László Moholy-Nagy, Oskar Schlemmer. Bauhaus architects greatly influenced the International Style, which was characterized by simplified forms, a lack of ornamentation, a union of design and function, and the idea that mass production could be compatible with personal artistic vision. As the Nazi Party rose to power, modern art was dubbed "degenerate art" and the Bauhaus was closed in 1933, subduing modernism in Germany for several years.
Franz Marc 028.jpg| Tower of Blue Horses; by Franz Marc; 1912; ink and guache on card; 14.3 x 9.4 cm; Bavarian State Painting Collections (Munich, Germany)
Wassily Kandinsky Composition VII.jpg| Composition VII; by Wassily Kandinsky; 1913; oil on canvas; 2 x 3 m; Tretyakov Gallery (Moscow, Russia)
Einsteinturm 7443a.jpg|The Einstein Tower (Potsdam, near Berlin, Germany), 1920–1924, by Erich Mendelsohn
Paul klee actors mask 1924.jpg| Actor's Mask; by Paul Klee; 1924; oil on canvas mounted on board; 36.7 x 33.8 cm; Museum of Modern Art (New York City)
'A Picasso studies an object the way a surgeon dissects a corpse,' wrote the critic and poet Guillaume Apollinaire in 1913. Five years earlier, Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque – friends, colleagues and rivals – had begun to reject perspectival realism for a form of artistic autopsy: an utterly revolutionary painting style that looked inside and around objects, presenting them analytically, objectively and completely impersonally.
Georges Braque, 1909-10, Pitcher and Violin, oil on canvas, 116.8 x 73.2 cm, Kunstmuseum Basel.jpg| Violin and Pitcher; by Georges Braque; 1909–1910; oil on canvas; 1.17 x 0.73 cm; Kunstmuseum Basel (Basel, Switzerland)
Robert Delaunay - Eiffel Tower - 1911 - Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum.jpg| The Eiffel Tower; by Robert Delaunay; 1911; oil on canvas; 2.02 x 1.38 m; Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum (New York City)
1914 Gris Le Petit Déjeuner.jpg| Breakfast; by Juan Gris; 1914; gouache, oil and crayon on cut-and-pasted printed paper on canvas; 80.9 x 59.7 cm; Museum of Modern Art (New York City)
Some of the most important Art Deco artists are the Paris-based Polish painter Tamara de Lempicka, the Ukrainian-born French poster artist Adolphe Jean-Marie Mouron, known as Cassandre, and the French furniture designer and interior decorator Émile-Jacques Ruhlmann.
With a measure of Dada's irreverence and contempt for the traditional political, religious, and bourgeois values of western culture that they believed had led the world into the First World War (Breton and other founding members were veterans); the surrealist explored the possibilities that had been opened up by Sigmund Freud regarding the subconscious mind: "Pure psychic automatism, by which one intends to express verbally, in writing or by any other method, the real functioning of the mind. Dictation by thought, in the absence of any control exercised by reason, and beyond any aesthetic or moral preoccupation." Surrealism sought to express pure thought, unfiltered and uncensored by political, religious, moral, or rational principles.
After World War II, consumerism and the mass media surged, and as a result, Pop art developed in both London and New York. In a London exhibition in 1956, the word 'Pop' was used in a collage created by Richard Hamilton (1922–2011) made of American magazines. Pop art was a reaction against Abstract Expressionism, and interpreted ideas of pop culture. In celebrating and commenting on consumerism, pop artists, as they became known, produced colorful images based on advertising, the media and shopping, featuring film stars, comic strips, flags, packaging and food – things that everyone, rather than just a highbrow few, could relate to.
The term Minimalism was not new, but it gained momentum in the 1960s, specifically describing a style of art characterized by detached restraint. Originating in New York, it was a reaction against Abstract Expressionism, but it also embraced Constructivist ideas that art should be made of modern materials. Thus, Minimalist artists, primarily sculptors, often used non-traditional materials and production methods, often employing industrial or specialist fabricators to produce works to their specifications. The term was chiefly used to describe a group of American sculptors who re-evaluated the space around them, aiming to challenge assumptions and present familiar objects in new ways. Their artworks don't have any symbolism or hidden meaning, as they try to enable viewers to re-evaluate art and space around forms. Unlike a figural sculpture on which the viewer focuses to the exclusion of the room in which it stands, Minimalist art becomes one with its space. By focusing on the effects of context and the theatricality of the viewing experience, Minimalism exerted an indirect but powerful influence on later developments in Conceptual art and Performance art, as well as providing a foil for the rise of Postmodernism.
Despite developing almost 50 years after Marcel Duchamp's ideas, Conceptual art showed that art does not always have to be judged aesthetically. It was never a single, cohesive movement, but an umbrella term that now covers several types of art and emerged more or less concurrently in America and Europe, first defined in New York. Conceptual artists promote the art of ideas, or concepts, suggesting that they can be more valid in the modern world than technical skill or aesthetics. No matter the art media of an artwork, it is considered as no more than a vehicle for presenting the concept. At its most extreme, Conceptual art foregoes the physical object completely, using verbal or written message to convey the idea.
Traditionally, many creative acts such as sewing, weaving, and quilting have been considered as women's work, described as , and denied the cachet and public recognition of so-called Fine art such as sculpture and painting. Many artists have now challenged this hierarchy by either expanding the scope of a fine art such as sculpture, by creating using unconventional materials and practices, or by reclaiming and redefining the materials and methods of so-called craftwork, publicly exhibiting their work in museums and galleries and thus elevating the status of the decorative and applied arts. Artists of the twentieth and twenty first centuries effecting this radical change include Maria Martinez, Anni Albers, Lucie Rie, Lenore Tawney, Louise Bourgeois, Miriam Schapiro, Faith Ringgold, Magdalena Abakanowicz, Sheila Hicks, Marva Lee Pitchford-Jolly, Judy Chicago, and Dindga McCannon.
IKB 191.jpg| IKB 191; by Yves Klein; 1962
Keith Haring Berlin-Tiergarten.jpg| The Boxers; by Keith Haring; 1987
Barcelona (3392396182).jpg| El Cap de Barcelona; by Roy Lichtenstein; 1991–1992
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![The Death of Sardanapalus; by Eugène Delacroix; 1827; oil on canvas; 3.92 × 4.96 m; Louvre Academism Academism is the codification of art into rules that can be learned in art academies. It promotes the Classical ideals of beauty and artistic perfection. There was also a very strict hierarchy of subjects. At the top, there were paintings that depicted historic events, including the biblical and Classical ones, followed by the portrait and by the landscape. At the bottom of the hierarchy were still life and genre painting. Nicolas Poussin was the artist whose works and theories played the most significant role in the development of academism. The values of academism were situated in the centre of the Enlightenment project of discovering the basic principles and ideals of art. During the 18th century, across all Europe, many academies were founded, that will later dominate the art of the 19th century. In order to study at an art academy, young artists had to take an admission exam, and after being admitted, they would study there for multiple years. Most of the 19th century French were exterior or even opposing the values of academism. Some of the most important artists of the French academy were William Bouguereau (1825–1905), Jean-Léon Gérôme (1824–1904), Alexandre Cabanel (1823–1889) and Thomas Couture (1815–1879). Academic art is closely related to Beaux-Arts architecture, which developed in the same place and holds to a similar classicizing ideal. The Beaux-Arts style takes its name from the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris, where it developed and where many of the main exponents of the style studied. (2025). 9786060063926, rao. ISBN 9786060063926 (2025). 9789737170415, Rao. ISBN 9789737170415 The Roses of Heliogabalus; by Lawrence Alma-Tadema; 1888; oil on canvas; 1.3 x 2.1 m; private collection of Juan Antonio Pérez Simón Revivalism and Eclecticism When it comes to architecture and applied arts, the 19th century is best known as the century of revivals. One of the most well-known revivalist styles is the Gothic Revival or Neo-Gothic, which first appeared in the mid-18th century in a few houses in England, like the Strawberry Hill House in London. However, these houses were isolated cases, since the beginning of the 19th century was dominated by Neoclassicism. Later, between 1830 and 1840, a taste and nostalgia for the rediscovery of past styles, ranging from the Middle Ages to the 18th century, developed under the influence of romanticism. Approximatively until World War I, rehashes of the past dominated the world of architecture and applied arts. Associations between styles and building types appeared, for example: Egyptian for prisons, Gothic for churches, or Renaissance Revival for banks and exchanges. These choices were the result of other associations: the with death and eternity, the Middle Ages with Christianity, or the Medici family with the rise of banking and modern commerce. Sometimes, these styles were also seen in a nationalistic way, on the idea that architecture might represent the glory of a nation. Some of them were seen as 'national styles', like the Gothic Revival in the UK and the German states or the Romanian Revival in Romania. Augustus Pugin called the Gothic style the 'absolute duty' (2025). 9780500252512, Thames & Hudson. ISBN 9780500252512 of the English architect, despite the fact that the style is of French origin. This way, architecture and the applied arts were used to grant the aura of a highly idealized glorious past. Some architects and designers associated historic styles, especially the medieval ones, with an idealized fantasy organic life, which they put in comparison with the reality of their time. Despite revivalism being so prevalent, this doesn't mean that there was no originality in these works. Architects, ébénistes and other craftsmen, especially during the second half of the 19th century, created mixes of styles, by extracting and interpreting elements specific to certain eras and areas. This practice is known as eclecticism. This stylistic development occurred during a period when the competition of World's Fairs motivated many countries to invent new industrial methods of creation. (probably Swietenia mahagoni), with applied and inlaid silver; 90.2 x 50.2 x 37.5 cm; Metropolitan Museum of Art]] Realism (c. 1830–1890) Realism emerged in the mid-nineteenth century, c. 1840, and had counterparts in sculpture, literature, and drama, often referred to as Naturalism in literature. In nineteenth-century painting, the term Realism refers more to the subject matter depicted than to the style or technique. Realist paintings typically represent ordinary places and people engaged in everyday activities, as opposed to grand, idealized landscapes, mythological gods, biblical subjects, and historical figures and events that had often dominated painting in western culture. Courbet said "I cannot paint an angel because I have never seen one". Realism was also in part a reaction to the often dramatic, exotic, and emotionally charged work of romanticism. The term realism is applied relative to the idealized imagery of neo-classicism and the romanticized imagery of romanticism. Artists such as Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot and Honoré Daumier had loose associations with realism, as did members of the Barbizon School, particularly Jean-François Millet, but it was perhaps Gustave Courbet who was the central figure in the movement, self identifying as a realist, advocating realism, and influencing younger artists such as Édouard Manet. One significant aspect of realism was the practice of painting landscapes en plein air and its subsequent influence on impressionism. Beyond France, realism is exemplified by artists such as Wilhelm Leibl in Germany, Ford Madox Brown in England, and Winslow Homer in the United States. Art historian H. H. Arnason wrote, "The chronological sequence of neo-classicism, romanticism, and realism is, of course, only a convenient stratification of movements or tendencies so inextricably bound up with one another and with the preceding movements that it is impossible to tell where one ended and another began", and this becomes even more pertinent and complex as one follows all of the movements and "isms" into the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Courbet LAtelier du peintre.jpg| The Painter's Studio; by Gustave Courbet; 1854–1855; oil on canvas; 3.59 x 5.98 m; Musée d'Orsay (Paris) Jean-François Millet - Gleaners - Google Art Project 2.jpg| The Gleaners; by Jean-François Millet; 1857; oil on canvas; 0.84 x 1.12 m; Musée d'Orsay Honoré Daumier, The Third-Class Carriage - The Metropolitan Museum of Art.jpg| The Third-Class Carriage; by Honoré Daumier; 1862–1864; oil on canvas; 65.4 x 90.2 cm; Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York City) Adolph Menzel - Eisenwalzwerk - Google Art Project.jpg| The Iron Rolling Mill; by Adolph von Menzel; 1875; oil on canvas; 153 x 253 cm; Alte Nationalgalerie (Berlin, Germany) (2025). 9786060063926, rao. ISBN 9786060063926 Сбор угля бедными на выработанной шахте.jpg| The Poor, Picking up Pieces of Coal; by Nikolay Kasatkin; 1894; oil on canvas; 80 x 107 cm; Russian Museum (Saint Petersburg, Russia) Impressionism (c. 1865–1885) Impressionism emerged in France, under the influences of Realism, the Barbizon School, and en plein air painters like Eugène Boudin, Camille Corot, Charles-Francois Daubigny, and Johan Barthold Jongkind. Starting in the late 1850s, several of the impressionists had made acquaintances and friendships as students in Paris, notably at the free Académie Suisse and Charles Gleyre's studio. Their progressive work was frequently rejected by the conservative juries of the prestigious Académie des Beaux Arts salons, a forum where many artist turned to establish their reputations, and many of the young artist were included in a highly publicized, but much ridiculed Salon des Refusés in 1863. In 1874 they formed the Société Anonyme Coopérative des Artistes Peintres, Sculpteurs, Graveurs, independent of the academy, and mounted the first of several impressionist exhibitions in Paris, through to 1886 when their eighth and final exhibition was held. Important figures in the movement included Frédéric Bazille, Gustave Caillebotte, Mary Cassatt, Paul Cézanne, Edgar Degas, Armand Guillaumin, Édouard Manet, Claude Monet, Berthe Morisot, Camille Pissarro, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, and Alfred Sisley. Although impressionism was primarily a movement of painters, Degas and Renoir also produced sculptures and others like Auguste Rodin and Medardo Rosso are sometimes linked to impressionism. By 1885 impressionism had achieved some prominence, and yet a younger generation were already pushing the limits beyond impressionism. Artist from Russia, Australia, America and Latin America soon adopted impressionist styles. A few of the original impressionist continued producing significant work into the 1910s and 1920s. Although not unprecedented, many of the techniques used were in contrast to traditional methods. Paintings were often completed in hours or days with wet paint applied to wet paint (opposed to wet on dry paint, completed in weeks and months). Rather than applying glazes and mixed colors, pure colors were often applied side by side, in thick, opaque, impasto strokes; blending in the eye of the viewer when observed from a distance. Black was used very sparingly, or not at all, and defining lines replaced with nuanced strokes of color forming the subjects, contours, and shapes. Art historian H. W. Janson said "instead of adding to the illusion of real space, it strengthens the unity of the actual painted surface." Impressionist paintings typically depict landscapes, portraits, still lifes, domestic scenes, daily leisure and nightlife, all treated in a realist manner. Compositions were often based on unusual perspectives, appearing spontaneous and candid. The paintings were usually void of didactic, symbolic, or metaphoric meanings, and rarely addressed the biblical, mythological, and historical subjects that were so highly regarded by the academies or the darker and psychological interest explored by the symbolist. The nuances of light, shadow, atmosphere, and reflections of colors from surfaces were examined, sometimes emphasizing changes of these elements in time. The painting itself was the subject of the painting. It was art for art's sake, an idea that had been floating around for a few of decades but it perhaps reached a new high and consistency in impressionism. Edgar Degas - At the Races in the Countryside - Google Art Project.jpg| At the Races in the Countryside; by Edgar Degas; 1869; oil on canvas; 36.5 x 56 cm; Museum of Fine Arts (Boston, US) Claude Monet, 1873-74, Boulevard des Capucines, oil on canvas, 80.3 x 60.3 cm, Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City.jpg| Boulevard des Capucines; by Claude Monet; 1873; oil on canvas; 80.5 x 60.2 cm; Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art (Kansas City, Missouri, US) Camille Pissarro - Gelée blanche, ancienne route d´Ennery, Pontoise - 1873.jpg| Hoarfrost: Old Road to Ennery, Pontoise; by Camille Pissarro; 1873; oil on canvas; 64.7 x 92.6 cm; Musée d'Orsay (Paris) Alfred Sisley, L'automne - Bords de la Seine pres Bougival (Autumn - Banks of the Seine near Bougival), 1873.jpg| Banks of the Seine near Bougival; by Alfred Sisley; 1873; oil on canvas; 46.2 x 62.1 cm; Montreal Museum of Fine Arts (Montreal, Canada) Pierre-Auguste Renoir 023.jpg| La Loge; Pierre-Auguste Renoir; 1874; oil on canvas; 80 x 63.4 cm; Courtauld Gallery (London) Gustave Caillebotte - The Floor Planers - Google Art Project.jpg| The Floor Scrapers; by Gustave Caillebotte; 1875; oil on canvas; 1 x 1.54 m; Musée d'Orsay Gustave Caillebotte - Paris Street; Rainy Day - Google Art Project.jpg| Paris Street; Rainy Day; by Gustave Caillebotte; 1877; oil on canvas; 212.2 × 276.2 cm; Art Institute of Chicago Berthe Morisot - Jour d'été, 1879.jpg| Summer's Day; by Berthe Morisot; 1879; oil on canvas; 45.7 cm × 75.2 cm; National Portrait Gallery (London) Edouard Manet, A Bar at the Folies-Bergère.jpg| A Bar at the Folies-Bergère; by Édouard Manet; 1881–1882; oil on canvas; 96 × 130 cm.; Courtauld Institute of Art (London) Nicolae Grigorescu - Car cu boi (8).jpg| Ox-Drawn Cart; by Nicolae Grigorescu; 1899; oil on canvas; 66 x 81 cm; National Museum of Art of Romania (Bucharest, Romania) Symbolism (c. 1860–1915) Symbolism emerged in France and Belgium in the 3rd quarter of the nineteenth century and spread throughout Europe in the 1870s, and later to America to a lesser extent. It evolved from romanticism without a clear or defining demarcation point, although poetry, literature, and specifically the publication of Charles Baudelaire's Les Fleurs du mal ( The Flowers of Evil) in 1857 were significant in the development of symbolism. It had international expression in poetry, literature, drama, and music. In architecture, the applied arts, and decorative arts symbolism closely paralleled and overlapped into Art Nouveau. Symbolism is often inextricably linked to other contemporary art movements, surfacing and finding expression within other styles like Post-Impressionism, Les Nabis, the Decadent Movement, the Fin-de Siecle, Art Nouveau, The Munich Secession, The Vienna Secession, Expressionism, and even the Pre-Raphaelites, which had formed before and influenced symbolism as well. Artist as diverse as James McNeill Whistler, Eugène Carrière, Ferdinand Hodler, Fernand Khnopff, Giovanni Segantini, Lucien Lévy-Dhurmer, Jean Delville, and James Ensor all had varying degrees of association with symbolism. Art historian Robert L. Delevoy wrote "Symbolism was less a school than the atmosphere of a period." It quickly began to fade with the onset of Fauvism, Cubism, Futurism and had largely dissipated by the outbreak of the First World War, however it did find some sustained development and relevance in the Metaphysical art, which in turn had a profound influence on surrealism. The subjects, themes, and meanings of symbolist art are frequently veiled and obscure, but at its best still manage to resonate deeply on psychological or emotional levels. The subjects are often presented as metaphors or allegories, aiming to evoke highly subjective, personal, introspective emotions and ideas in the viewer, without clearly defining or addressing the subject directly. The poet Stéphane Mallarmé wrote "depict not the thing but the effect it produces" and "To name an object is to suppress three quarters of the pleasure of the poem which is made to be understood little by little". The English painter George Frederic Watts stated "I paint ideas, not things." Head of Orpheus.jpg| Thracian Girl with Head of Orpheus on his Lyre; by Gustave Moreau; 1865; oil; 154 × 99.5 cm; Musée d'Orsay (Paris) La vision après le sermon (Paul Gauguin).jpg| Vision After the Sermon (Jacob Wrestling with the Angel); 1888; oil on canvas; 73 x 92 cm; Scottish National Gallery (Edinburgh, Scotland) Edvard Munch, 1893, The Scream, oil, tempera and pastel on cardboard, 91 x 73 cm, National Gallery of Norway.jpg| The Scream; by Edvard Munch; 1893; tempera and crayon on cardboard; 91 x 73.5 cm; National Gallery (Oslo, Norway) Redon - Green Death c. 1905.jpg| Green Death; by Odilon Redon; 1905; oil on canvas; 54.9 x 46.3 cm; Museum of Modern Art Odilon Redon - The Cyclops, c. 1914.jpg| The Cyclops; by Odilon Redon; 1914; oil on cardboard on panel; 64 x 51 cm; Kröller-Müller Museum (Otterlo, the Netherlands) Post-Impressionism (c. 1885–1910) Post-Impressionism is a rather imprecise term applied to a diverse generation of artists. In its strictest sense, it pertains to four highly influential artists: Paul Cézanne, Paul Gauguin, Georges Seurat, and Vincent van Gogh. Each passed through an impressionist phase, but ultimately emerged with four very original but different styles. Collectively, their work anticipated, and often directly influenced, much of the avant-garde art that appeared before the First World War including fauvism, cubism, expressionism, and early abstraction. Cézanne (particularly influential on cubism) and Van Gogh worked in relative isolation, away from Paris, at critical points in their careers, while Seurat and Gauguin worked in groups, more collaboratively, at key points in their development. Another important artist of the period is Toulouse-Lautrec, an influential painter as well as graphic artist. In a broader sense, post-impressionism includes a generation of predominantly French and Belgian artists who worked in a range of styles and groups. Most had come under the sway of impressionism at some point, but pushed their work beyond it into a number of factions as early as the mid-1880s, sometimes as a logical development of impressionism, other times as a reaction against it. Post-Impressionists typically depicted impressionist subjects, but the work, particularly synthetism, often contained symbolism, spiritualism, and moody atmospheres that rarely appeared in impressionism. Unnatural colors, patterns, flat plains, odd perspectives and viewpoints pushed to extremes, all moved the center of modernism a step closer to abstraction with a standard for experimentation. Neo-Impressionism (Divisionism or Pointillism, c. 1884–1894) explored light and color based on scientific color theories, creating mosaics of brush strokes in pure colors, sometimes laid out in rhythmic patterns with lines influenced by Art Nouveau. The leading artists were Georges Seurat and Paul Signac, others include Henri-Edmond Cross, Maximilien Luce, Albert Dubois-Pillet, and for a period Pissarro and Van Gogh. It was influential on fauvism, and elements of the style appeared in expressionism, cubism, and early abstraction. Synthetism (Cloisonnism c. 1888–1903) Cloisonnism was conceived by Émile Bernard and immediately taken up and developed by Paul Gauguin and others while at an artists' colony in Pont-Aven (Brittany, France). The style resembled cloisonné enamel or stained glass, with flat, bold colors outlined in black or dark colors. Synthetism, exemplified in the work of Gauguin and Paul Sérusier, is slightly a broader term with less emphasis on dark outlines and cloisonné qualities. Other artist include Cuno Amiet, Louis Anquetin, Charles Filiger, Jacob Meyer de Haan, Charles Laval, and Armand Seguin. Their work greatly influenced fauvism and expressionism. Les Nabis (c. 1890–1905: Hebrew for prophets or illuminati) was a larger movement in France and Belgium that eclectically drew on progressive elements in synthetism, neo-impressionism, symbolism, and Art Nouveau. Perhaps more influential than the art, were the numerous theories, manifestoes, and infectious enthusiasm for the avant-garde, setting the tone for the proliferation of movements and "isms" in the first quarter of the 20th century. La Revue Blanche often published Les Nabis and symbolist content. The work of Édouard Vuillard, and Pierre Bonnard, ca. 1890–1910 is exemplary of Les Nabis, though both evolved in their styles and produced significant work into the 1940s. Other artist include Maurice Denis, Maxime Dethomas, Meyer de Haan, Henri-Gabriel Ibels, Georges Lacombe, Aristide Maillol, Paul Ranson, Ker-Xavier Roussel, Armand Séguin, Paul Sérusier, Félix Vallotton, Jan Verkade, and others. Van Gogh - Starry Night - Google Art Project.jpg| The Starry Night; by Vincent van Gogh; 1889; oil on canvas; height: 73.7 cm; Museum of Modern Art (New York City) Signac - Portrait de Félix Fénéon.jpg| Félix Fénéon; by Paul Signac; 1890; oil on canvas; 73.5 x 92.5 cm; Museum of Modern Art (New York City) Eh quoi! Tu es jaloux? by Paul Gauguin.jpg| Aha Oe Feii? (Are You Jealous?); by Paul Gauguin; 1892; oil on canvas; 68 x 92 cm; Pushkin Museum (Moscow, Russia) Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, At the Moulin Rouge.jpg| At the Moulin Rouge; by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec; 1892/1895; oil on canvas, 1.23 × 1.41 m; Art Institute of Chicago Paul Cézanne, French - The Large Bathers - Google Art Project.jpg| The Bathers; by Paul Cézanne; 1898–1905; oil on canvas; 210.5 cm × 250.8 cm; Philadelphia Museum of Art (Philadelphia, US) Early 20th century The history of 20th-century art is a narrative of endless possibilities and the search for new standards, each being torn down in succession by the next. The art movements of Fauvism, Expressionism, Cubism, abstract art, and Surrealism led to further explorations of new creative styles and manners of expression. Increasing globalization interaction during this time saw an equivalent influence of other cultures into Western art, such as Pablo Picasso being influenced by Iberian sculpture, African art and Primitivism. Japonism, and Japanese (which had themselves been influenced by Western Renaissance draftsmanship) had an immense influence on Impressionism and subsequent artistic developments. The influential example set by Paul Gauguin's interest in Oceanic art and the sudden popularity among the Connoisseur in early 20th century Paris of newly discovered African fetish sculptures and other works from non-European cultures were taken up by Picasso, Henri Matisse, and many of their colleagues. Later in the 20th century, Pop Art and Abstract Expressionism came to prominence. Art Nouveau (c. 1890–1914) Art Nouveau () was an international and widespread art and design movement that emerged in the final decades of the 19th century until the First World War in 1914. It was catapulted into international prominence with the 1900 Exposition Universelle in Paris. Developing almost simultaneously in parts of Europe and the US, it was an attempt to create a unique and modern form of expression that evoked the spirit of the new century. It manifested in painting, illustration, sculpture, jewellery, metalwork, glass, ceramics, textiles, graphic design, furniture, architecture, costume design and fashion. Art Nouveau artists aimed to raise the status of craft and design to the level of fine art. The movement is highly associated with sinuous organic forms, such as flowers, vines and leaves, but also insects and animals, through the works of artists like Alphonse Mucha, Victor Horta, Hector Guimard, Antoni Gaudí, René Lalique, Otto Eckmann or Émile Gallé. Art Nouveau designs and buildings can often be asymmetrical. Although there are identifying characteristics, the style also displayed many regional and national interpretations. Despite being a short-lived fashion, it paved the way for the modern architecture and design of the 20th century. It was the first architectural style without historic precedent, the 19th century being notorious for a practice known as Historicism, which is the use of visual styles that consciously echo the style of a previous artistic era. Between 1870 and 1900, a crisis of historicism occurred, during which the historicist culture was critiqued, one of the voices being Friedrich Nietzsche in 1874, who diagnosed 'a malignant historical fervour' as one of the crippling symptoms of a modern culture burdened by archaeological study and faith in the laws of historical progression. Despite this, Art Nouveau was also heavily influenced by styles from the past such as Celtic art, Gothic art and Rococo art, and also by the Arts and Crafts movement, Aestheticism, Symbolism and especially by Japanese art. (2025). 9780192842220, Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780192842220 Fauvism (c. 1898–1909) Fauvism emerged from post-impressionism, gradually developing into the first major movement of the 20th century. Its genesis was in 1895 when Henri Matisse, the oldest and central figure, entered the studio of Gustave Moreau at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts. There he met Georges Rouault, Charles Camoin, Henri Manguin, and Albert Marquet. Marquet said "As early as 1898 Matisse and I were working in what was later to be called the Fauve manner. The first exhibitions at the Indepéndants in which we were, I believe, the only ones to paint in pure tones, go back to 1901." By 1902–03 the circle of like-minded artist had grown to include Georges Braque, André Derain, Raoul Dufy, Othon Friesz, Jean Metzinger, Jean Puy, Louis Valtat, Kees van Dongen, and Maurice de Vlaminck. During this period a number of influential retrospective exhibitions were held in Paris: Seurat (1900, 1905), Van Gogh (1901, 1905), Toulouse-Lautrec (1902), Gauguin (1906), Cézanne (1907), all relatively unknown to the public at that time. Matisse and Derain collected African carvings, a novel but growing curiosity of the time. Matisse spent the summer of 1904 in Saint-Tropez painting with the neo-impressionist Paul Signac and Henri-Edmond Cross, followed in 1905 by Camoin, Manguin, and Marquet. The artists exhibited regularity at the Salon des Indepéndants and the Salon d'Automne 1903–1908 and in 1905 their work created a sensation and a scandal. Matisse stated "We were exhibiting at the Salon d'Automne, Derain, Manguin, Marquet, Puy, and a few others were hung together in one of the larger galleries. In the center of this room the sculptor Albert Marque exhibited a bust of a child very much in the Italian style. Louis Vauxcelles art entered the room and said, Well! well! Donatello in the mist of wild beasts! Donatello." The movement had not been perceived as an entity by the public, but once published the name stuck. Unlike the impressionist and their long struggle for acceptance, the avant-garde had an eager audience by 1906–1907 and the fauvist were attracting collectors from America to Russia. However fauvism largely dissolved in 1908, as cubism appeared, most of the artist began exploring other styles and moving in different directions. Only Matisse and Dufy continued to explore fauvism into the 1950s.Diehl, Gaston (1972) The Fauves: Library of Great Art Movements. Harry N. Abrams, Inc., Publishers, New York. 168 pp. Jacobus, J. (1973) Matisse: Library of Great Painters. Harry N. Abrams, Inc., Publishers, New York, 184 pp. The fauvist painted landscapes en plein air, interiors, figures, and still lifes, following examples of realism, impressionism, and post-impressionism. They applied paint with loose brushstrokes, in thick, unnatural, often contrasting, vibrant colors, at times straight from the tube. Gauguin's influence, with his exploration of the expressive values and spatial aspects of patterning with flat, pure colors, as well as his interest in primitivism were significant, as was neo-impressionism. Matisse explained – for a long time color served as a complement of design, the painters of the Renaissance constructed the picture by line, adding local color afterwards – writing: "From Delacroix to Van Gogh and chiefly to Gauguin, by way of the Impressionist, who cleared the ground, and Cézanne, who gave the final impulse and introduced colored volumes, we can follow this rehabilitation of color's function, this restoration of its emotive power." Fauvism was the culmination in a shift, from drawing and line as the fundamental foundations of design in painting to color, and they depicted their subjects on the verge of abstraction. Matisse-Woman-with-a-Hat.jpg| Woman with a Hat; by Henri Matisse; 1905; oil on canvas; 80.7 x 59.7 cm; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (San Francisco, US) Fauvism Landscape; by Louis Valtat; oil on canvas, Speed Art Museum, Louisville, Kentucky II.jpg| Fauve Landscape; by Louis Valtat; 1905–1906; oil on canvas; Speed Art Museum (Louisville, Kentucky, US) Derain CharingCrossBridge.png| Charing Cross Bridge, London; by André Derain; 1906; oil on canvas, 80.3 × 100.3 cm.; National Gallery of Art (Washington, D.C., US) LA CIOTAT.PNG| La Ciotat; by Othon Friesz; 1907; oil on canvas, 65.7 by 81 cm.; unknown collection Expressionism (c. 1905–1930) ; 1913; oil on canvas; 1.21 x 0.91 m; Museum of Modern Art (New York City)]] Expressionism was an international movement in painting, sculpture, the graphic arts, poetry, literature, theater, film, and architecture. Some associate the Second Viennese School and other music of the period with the movement. Most historians place the beginning of expressionism in 1905 with the founding of the Die Brücke in Dresden, Germany. However, several artists were producing influential work that was in the spirit of expressionism c. 1885–1905 including Lovis Corinth, James Ensor, Käthe Kollwitz, Paula Modersohn-Becker, Edvard Munch, Emil Nolde, and Christian Rohlfs among others. Many of these artists later exhibited and associated with various expressionist groups. Expressionist painting is characterized by loose, spontaneous, frequently thick, impasto brushwork. It often conveyed how the artist felt about their subject, opposed to what it looked like, putting intuition and gut feelings over realistic representations or art theories. Expressionism was frequently infused with an angst or joy, and an overall engagement with contemporary life and social issues that was often absent from fauvism's focus on design and color applied to neutral subjects. are particularly noteworthy in expressionism. Expressionism can sometimes overlap and integrate with other styles and movements, such as symbolism, fauvism, cubism, futurism, abstraction, and dada. Several groups and factions of expressionists appeared at various times and places. Die Brücke (The Bridge: 1905 -1913) aspired to connect "all revolutionary and surging elements." It was founded by four architectural students Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Erich Heckel, Karl Schmidt-Rottluff, and Fritz Bleyl. Sharing a studio in Dresden they produced paintings, carvings, prints, and organized exhibitions, separating in the summer to work independently. Their first exhibit was in 1905, later joined by Emil Nolde and Max Pechstein in 1906, and Otto Mueller in 1910 among others. Influences included Gothic art, primitivism, Art Nouveau, and developments in Paris, particularly Van Gogh and fauvism. The group shifted to Berlin in 1911 and later dissolved in 1913. Der Blaue Reiter (The Blue Rider: 1911–1914), founded by Wassily Kandinsky and Franz Marc, was a relatively informal group that organized exhibitions of art from Paris and Europe, as well their own. It was one in a series of increasingly progressive groups splitting from the Art Academy in Munich including The Munich Secession in 1892 (realist and impressionist), Phalanx in 1901 (postimpressionist), Neue Kunstler Vereiningung in 1909, and The Blue Rider in 1911. Artist associated with the latter two groups included the David Burliuk brothers, Heinrich Campendonk, Alexej von Jawlensky, Paul Klee, August Macke, Gabriele Münter, and Marianne von Werefkin. The euphonious almanac Der Blaue Reiter, a collection of influential essays, and Kandinsky's Concerning the Spiritual in Art with his ideas on non-objective art were both published in 1912. The Blue Rider ended with the outbreak of World War I in which Macke and Marc both died. Other artists such as Oskar Kokoschka, Egon Schiele, and Richard Gerstl emerged in Austria. French artist Georges Rouault and Chaïm Soutine had affinities with the movement. Sculptors include Ernst Barlach, Wilhelm Lehmbruck, Gerhard Marcks, and William Wauer. Architects associated with expressionism include Max Berg, Hermann Finsterlin, Johann Friedrich Höger, Michel de Klerk, Erich Mendelsohn, Hans Poelzig, Hans Scharoun, Rudolf Steiner, and Bruno Taut. Der Sturm (The Storm 1910–1932) was a magazine with much expressionist content founded by Herwarth Walden, with an associated gallery in Berlin opened in 1912 and a theater company and school opened in 1918. Films regarded as expressionistic, some considered as classics, include The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (Robert Wiene, 1920), Nosferatu (F. W. Murnau, 1922), and Metropolis (Fritz Lang, 1927). After World War I a tendency to withdraw from the avant-garde by many artist occurred, seen in the work of the original fauvists during the 1920s, Picasso and Igor Stravinsky neoclassical periods, and De Chirico's late work. This tendency was called New Objectivity (ca. 1919–1933) in Germany, and in contrast to the nostalgic nature of this work elsewhere, it was characterized by disillusionment and ruthless social criticisms. New objectivity artists mostly emerged from expressionist and dada milieus including Otto Dix, Christian Schad, Rudolf Schlichter, Georg Scholz, and Jeanne Mammen. Max Beckmann and George Grosz also had some association with new objectivity for a period. Although not intrinsically expressionistic, the Staatliches Bauhaus (School of Building: 1919–1933) was an influential German school merging crafts, decorative, and fine arts. Moving from Weimar, to Dessau, to Berlin, it changed and evolved in focus with time. Directors included architects Walter Gropius (1919–1928), Hannes Meyer (1928–1930), and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe (1930–1933). At various points the faculty included Josef Albers, Theo van Doesburg, Lyonel Feininger, Johannes Itten, Paul Klee, Wassily Kandinsky, El Lissitzky, Gerhard Marcks, László Moholy-Nagy, Oskar Schlemmer. Bauhaus architects greatly influenced the International Style, which was characterized by simplified forms, a lack of ornamentation, a union of design and function, and the idea that mass production could be compatible with personal artistic vision. As the Nazi Party rose to power, modern art was dubbed "degenerate art" and the Bauhaus was closed in 1933, subduing modernism in Germany for several years. Edvard Munch, 1893, The Scream, oil, tempera and pastel on cardboard, 91 x 73 cm, National Gallery of Norway.jpg| The Scream; by Edvard Munch; 1893; tempera and crayon on cardboard; 91 x 73.5 cm; National Gallery of Norway (Oslo) Franz Marc 028.jpg| Tower of Blue Horses; by Franz Marc; 1912; ink and guache on card; 14.3 x 9.4 cm; Bavarian State Painting Collections (Munich, Germany) Wassily Kandinsky Composition VII.jpg| Composition VII; by Wassily Kandinsky; 1913; oil on canvas; 2 x 3 m; Tretyakov Gallery (Moscow, Russia) Einsteinturm 7443a.jpg|The Einstein Tower (Potsdam, near Berlin, Germany), 1920–1924, by Erich Mendelsohn Paul klee actors mask 1924.jpg| Actor's Mask; by Paul Klee; 1924; oil on canvas mounted on board; 36.7 x 33.8 cm; Museum of Modern Art (New York City) Cubism (c. 1907–1914) Cubism consisted in the rejection of perspective, which leads to a new organisation of space where viewpoints multiply producing a fragmentation of the object that renders the predilection for form over the content of the representation obvious. Pablo Picasso, Georges Braque and other Cubist artists, were inspired by the sculptures of Iberia, African art and Oceanic art exhibited in the Louvre and the ethnographic museum in the Trocadéro, and which were being offered at flee markets and in sale rooms. 'A Picasso studies an object the way a surgeon dissects a corpse,' wrote the critic and poet Guillaume Apollinaire in 1913. Five years earlier, Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque – friends, colleagues and rivals – had begun to reject perspectival realism for a form of artistic autopsy: an utterly revolutionary painting style that looked inside and around objects, presenting them analytically, objectively and completely impersonally. Les Demoiselles d'Avignon.jpg| Les Demoiselles d'Avignon; by Pablo Picasso; 1907; oil on canvas; 2.43 × 2.3 m; Museum of Modern Art Georges Braque, 1909-10, Pitcher and Violin, oil on canvas, 116.8 x 73.2 cm, Kunstmuseum Basel.jpg| Violin and Pitcher; by Georges Braque; 1909–1910; oil on canvas; 1.17 x 0.73 cm; Kunstmuseum Basel (Basel, Switzerland) Robert Delaunay - Eiffel Tower - 1911 - Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum.jpg| The Eiffel Tower; by Robert Delaunay; 1911; oil on canvas; 2.02 x 1.38 m; Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum (New York City) 1914 Gris Le Petit Déjeuner.jpg| Breakfast; by Juan Gris; 1914; gouache, oil and crayon on cut-and-pasted printed paper on canvas; 80.9 x 59.7 cm; Museum of Modern Art (New York City) Art Deco (c. 1920–1940) Art Deco appeared in France as a style of luxury and modernity. Soon, it spread quickly throughout the world, most dramatically in America, becoming more streamlined through the 1930s. The style was named after the International Exhibition of Modern Decorative and Industrial Arts held in Paris in 1925. Its exuberance and fantasy captured the spirit of the 'roaring 20s' and provided an escape from the realities of the Great Depression during the 1930s. It had ancient Greek, Roman art, African art, Aztec and Japanese art influences, but also Futurism, Cubism and Bauhaus ones. It sometimes blended with the Egyptian Revival style, due to the discovery in 1922 of the Tomb of Tutankhamun and the Egyptomania that it caused. Two examples of this are Le Louxor Cinema in Paris, 1919–1921, by Henri Zipcy, and the Egyptian Theatre in DeKalb (Illinois, US), 1929–1930, by Elmer F. Behrns. In decorative arts, including architecture, low-relief designs, and angular patterns and shapes were used. Predominant materials include chrome plating, brass, polished steel and aluminum, inlaid wood, stone and stained glass. Some of the most important Art Deco artists are the Paris-based Polish painter Tamara de Lempicka, the Ukrainian-born French poster artist Adolphe Jean-Marie Mouron, known as Cassandre, and the French furniture designer and interior decorator Émile-Jacques Ruhlmann. Surrealism (c. 1924–1966) Surrealism emerged as a faction of Dada, formally announcing its inception in 1924 with André Breton's Manifesto of Surrealism. Originally a literary group of poets and writers in Paris, it soon developed into an international movement that included painters, sculptors, photographers, and filmmakers. A Second Manifeste du Surréalisme was published in 1929. Surrealism did not have significant expression in applied or decorative arts, architecture, or music, although a few isolated examples could be identified (e.g. chess sets, furniture, and Las Pozas). The small and short lived Metaphysical art (c. 1910–1921), with Giorgio de Chirico as its principal figure, was highly influential on surrealism. The surrealist explored a myriad of innovative techniques, some had recently been developed in Cubism and Dada, others were new, including collage, found objects, assemblage, random chance, rayographs (photograms), painting on sand, dripping and flinging paint, decalcomania, frottage, fumage, and raclage. Two fundamental approaches predominate surrealist art. Automatism dominated in the early years which can be seen in the work of artist like André Masson and Joan Miró. Other artists, swayed by work of Giorgio de Chirico, used more traditional methods and mediums to illustrate unfiltered thoughts and incongruous juxtapositions, including Salvador Dalí and René Magritte. Significant artist include Jean Arp, Hans Bellmer, Victor Brauner, Luis Buñuel, Joseph Cornell, Óscar Domínguez, Max Ernst, Wifredo Lam, Yves Tanguy, Man Ray, Alberto Giacometti, Méret Oppenheim, and Roberto Matta. Other important artist informally accosted with surrealism include Marcel Duchamp, Pablo Picasso, and Frida Kahlo. Surrealist ideas and theories were discussed in a successive series of journals, La Révolution Surréaliste (1924–1929), Le Surrealisme au service de la revolution (1930–1933), Minotaure (1933–1939), VVV (1942–1944). The automatic paintings produced by André Masson and Joan Miró, as well as latecomers to surrealism like Roberto Matta and Arshile Gorky had a considerable influence on the abstract expressionist in the late 1940s. With a measure of Dada's irreverence and contempt for the traditional political, religious, and bourgeois values of western culture that they believed had led the world into the First World War (Breton and other founding members were veterans); the surrealist explored the possibilities that had been opened up by Sigmund Freud regarding the subconscious mind: "Pure psychic automatism, by which one intends to express verbally, in writing or by any other method, the real functioning of the mind. Dictation by thought, in the absence of any control exercised by reason, and beyond any aesthetic or moral preoccupation." Surrealism sought to express pure thought, unfiltered and uncensored by political, religious, moral, or rational principles. Mid and late 20th century As Europe struggled to recover from World War II, America moved into a position of political, economic and cultural strength. During the 1940s and 1950s, Abstract Expressionism emerged as the first specifically American art movement to have an international impact. In consequence, the art world's focus shifted from Europe to New York. Abstract Expressionists were a small group of loosely associated artists who had similar outlooks but different approaches. They were influenced by Surrealism, and believed in spontaneity, freedom of expression and abandonment of the themes of American life that had characterized national art of recent decades. One of the most famous representatives of this movement was Jackson Pollock, known for his painting made by pouring, flicking and dripping paint on to huge canvases on the ground. Other artists include Willem de Kooning, Franz Kline, Robert Motherwell, Barnett Newman, Mark Rothko and Clyfford Still. After World War II, consumerism and the mass media surged, and as a result, Pop art developed in both London and New York. In a London exhibition in 1956, the word 'Pop' was used in a collage created by Richard Hamilton (1922–2011) made of American magazines. Pop art was a reaction against Abstract Expressionism, and interpreted ideas of pop culture. In celebrating and commenting on consumerism, pop artists, as they became known, produced colorful images based on advertising, the media and shopping, featuring film stars, comic strips, flags, packaging and food – things that everyone, rather than just a highbrow few, could relate to. The term Minimalism was not new, but it gained momentum in the 1960s, specifically describing a style of art characterized by detached restraint. Originating in New York, it was a reaction against Abstract Expressionism, but it also embraced Constructivist ideas that art should be made of modern materials. Thus, Minimalist artists, primarily sculptors, often used non-traditional materials and production methods, often employing industrial or specialist fabricators to produce works to their specifications. The term was chiefly used to describe a group of American sculptors who re-evaluated the space around them, aiming to challenge assumptions and present familiar objects in new ways. Their artworks don't have any symbolism or hidden meaning, as they try to enable viewers to re-evaluate art and space around forms. Unlike a figural sculpture on which the viewer focuses to the exclusion of the room in which it stands, Minimalist art becomes one with its space. By focusing on the effects of context and the theatricality of the viewing experience, Minimalism exerted an indirect but powerful influence on later developments in Conceptual art and Performance art, as well as providing a foil for the rise of Postmodernism. Despite developing almost 50 years after Marcel Duchamp's ideas, Conceptual art showed that art does not always have to be judged aesthetically. It was never a single, cohesive movement, but an umbrella term that now covers several types of art and emerged more or less concurrently in America and Europe, first defined in New York. Conceptual artists promote the art of ideas, or concepts, suggesting that they can be more valid in the modern world than technical skill or aesthetics. No matter the art media of an artwork, it is considered as no more than a vehicle for presenting the concept. At its most extreme, Conceptual art foregoes the physical object completely, using verbal or written message to convey the idea. Traditionally, many creative acts such as sewing, weaving, and quilting have been considered as women's work, described as , and denied the cachet and public recognition of so-called Fine art such as sculpture and painting. Many artists have now challenged this hierarchy by either expanding the scope of a fine art such as sculpture, by creating using unconventional materials and practices, or by reclaiming and redefining the materials and methods of so-called craftwork, publicly exhibiting their work in museums and galleries and thus elevating the status of the decorative and applied arts.Ferren Gipson (2025). 9780711264656, Frances Lincoln. ISBN 9780711264656 Artists of the twentieth and twenty first centuries effecting this radical change include Maria Martinez, Anni Albers, Lucie Rie, Lenore Tawney, Louise Bourgeois, Miriam Schapiro, Faith Ringgold, Magdalena Abakanowicz, Sheila Hicks, Marva Lee Pitchford-Jolly, Judy Chicago, and Dindga McCannon. IKB 191.jpg| IKB 191; by Yves Klein; 1962 Keith Haring Berlin-Tiergarten.jpg| The Boxers; by Keith Haring; 1987 Barcelona (3392396182).jpg| El Cap de Barcelona; by Roy Lichtenstein; 1991–1992 See also History of animation History of Asian art History of film History of literature History of music History of nude art History of painting History of photography History of poetry History of theatre History of video games List of art movements List of French artistic movements Periods in Western art history Timeline for invention in the arts Timeline of art Women artists Notes Sarane Alexandrian (1980). 9780517541067, Crown. ISBN 9780517541067 H. H. Arnason (1977). 9780133903515, Prentice-Hall. . ISBN 9780133903515 José María de Azcárate (1983). 9788420714080, Anaya. ISBN 9788420714080 (2025). 9780714857428, Phaidon. ISBN 9780714857428 Maria Blunden (1976). 9780847800476, Skira. ISBN 9780847800476 (2025). 9780714151052, The British Museum. ISBN 9780714151052 (2025). 9781910350492, Royal Academy of Arts. . ISBN 9781910350492 Jean Cassou (1979). 9780890097069, Chartwell Books. ISBN 9780890097069 Jean Clay (1973). 9780399110399, Chartwell Books Inc.. ISBN 9780399110399 (1978). 9780890095447, Chartwell Books Inc. ISBN 9780890095447 Douglas Cooper (1966). 9780810905122, H.N. Abrams. . ISBN 9780810905122 Pierre Courthion (1979). 9780810902022, H.N. Abrams. ISBN 9780810902022 Pierre Courthion (1988). 9780810915190, H.N. Abrams. . ISBN 9780810915190 Brian Croke (2025). 9789004112759, Brill. . ISBN 9789004112759 Jean Luc Daval (1979). 9780847802128, Skira. . ISBN 9780847802128 Jean-Luc Daval (1980). 9780847803347, Skira. . ISBN 9780847803347 Robert L. Delevoy (1978). 9780847801411, Skira. ISBN 9780847801411 Paolo Delogu (2025). 9780715630792, Bristol Classical Press. . ISBN 9780715630792 (2025). 9780500293225, Thames & Hudson. ISBN 9780500293225 Wolf Dieter Dube (1983). 9780847804948, Skira. . ISBN 9780847804948 Helen C. Evans (2025). 9781588391148, Metropolitan Museum of Art/Yale University Press. . ISBN 9781588391148 Sarah Faunce (1993). 9780810931824, H.N. Abrams. ISBN 9780810931824 André Fermigier (1969). 9780810900417, Harry N. Abrams. ISBN 9780810900417 Diane Fortenberry (2025). 9780714875026, Phaidon Press. . ISBN 9780714875026 J. C. Harle (1994). 9780300062175, Yale University Press. ISBN 9780300062175 (2025). 9781780679686, Laurence King Publishing. ISBN 9781780679686 (2025). 9781786273703, Laurence King Publishing. ISBN 9781786273703 (2025). 9781780671635, Laurence King. ISBN 9781780671635 (2025). 9781788401760, Cassell Illustrated. ISBN 9781788401760 Anthony F. Janson (1977). 9780133893045, Prentice-Hall. ISBN 9780133893045 Marcel Jean (1980). 9780670142354, Viking Press. ISBN 9780670142354 (2025). 9780500291481, Thames & Hudson. ISBN 9780500291481 Eugénie de Keyser (1965). 9780320063497, World Publishing Company, Cleveland. . ISBN 9780320063497 Ernst Kitzinger (1977). 9780571111541, Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9780571111541 Michael Kulikowski (2025). 9780195336931, Oxford University Press. . ISBN 9780195336931 (1966). 9782736901707, Zodiaque. . ISBN 9782736901707 René Passeron (1975). 9780890096642, Chartwell. ISBN 9780890096642 Gaëtan Picon (1977). 9780847800414, Rizzoli International. ISBN 9780847800414 Lionel Richard (1978). 9780890096659, Chartwell. . ISBN 9780890096659 (2025). 9780500291481, Thames & Hudson. ISBN 9780500291481 William Rubin (1968). 9780810900608, H.N. Abrams. ISBN 9780810900608 Uwe M. Schneede (1974). 9780810904996, H.N. Abrams. ISBN 9780810904996 Meyer Schapiro (1962). 9780810900523, Abrams. . ISBN 9780810900523 Rolf Toman (2025). 9783829015752, Könemann. ISBN 9783829015752 Jeanine Warnod (1989). 051757277X, Crown Publishers. 051757277X Kurt Weitzmann (1981). 9780860780878, Variorum Reprints. ISBN 9780860780878 Kurt Weitzmann (1982). 9780237456450, Evans Brothers. ISBN 9780237456450 Further reading Graham-Dixon Andrew (2025). 9780241257104, Dorling Kindersley Limited. ISBN 9780241257104 Julian Bell (2025). 9780500287545, Thames & Hudson. ISBN 9780500287545 (1996). 9780894682506, National Gallery of Art. ISBN 9780894682506 (2025). 9781770130401, Juta and Company Ltd. . ISBN 9781770130401 (1993). 9780198143864, Oxford University Press. . ISBN 9780198143864 Jean-Paul Bouillon (1985). 9782605000692, Skira. . ISBN 9782605000692 Ovidiu Drimba (1985). 9789734401185, Editura Științifică și Enciclopedică. ISBN 9789734401185 Philip K. Hitti (2025). 9781137039828, Palgrave Macmillan. . ISBN 9781137039828 (2025). 9781856693141, Laurence King. . ISBN 9781856693141 (2025). 9781856694513, Laurence King. . ISBN 9781856694513 John Keay (2025). 087113800X, Grove Press. . 087113800X Lloyd Robert Laing (2025). 9780750928731, Sutton Pub. . ISBN 9780750928731 (1995). 9789068317275, Peeters Publishers. . ISBN 9789068317275 Andrew MacKenzie (1986). 9780709027249, Hale. ISBN 9780709027249 Lindsay Mattinson (2025). 9781782747482, Amber Books. ISBN 9781782747482 M. Ruth Megaw (2025). 050028265X, Thames & Hudson. . 050028265X Jane McIntosh (2025). 9781576079072, ABC-CLIO. . ISBN 9781576079072 Molina, Antonio Luis Ramos. La magia de la química fotográfica: El quimigrama. Conceptos, técnicas y procedimientos del quimigrama en la expresión artística, In: Tesis Doctoral, Universidad de Granada 2018. Harry Mountain (1998). 9781581128895, Universal Publishers. ISBN 9781581128895 John Onians (2025). 9781856693776, Laurence King Publishing. ISBN 9781856693776 (1986). 9780870994708, Metropolitan Museum of Art. . ISBN 9780870994708 Nikolaus Pevsner (2025). 9780300105711, Yale University Press. ISBN 9780300105711 (1981). 9780394500928, Random House. ISBN 9780394500928 Jacques Thuillier (2025). 9782080125354, Flammarion. ISBN 9782080125354 External links "Art: The history of ideas in literature and the arts in aesthetic theory and literary criticism" – The Dictionary of the History of Ideas Art History resources Ars Summum Project Timelines Timeline of Art History from Metropolitan Museum of Art Page 1 of 1 1 Page 1 of 1 1](http://www.upcscavenger.com/wiki/JEAN LOUIS THÉODORE GÉRICAULT - La Balsa de la Medusa (Museo del Louvre, 1818-19).jpg/){kind=link}
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![Realism (c. 1830–1890) Realism emerged in the mid-nineteenth century, c. 1840, and had counterparts in sculpture, literature, and drama, often referred to as Naturalism in literature. In nineteenth-century painting, the term Realism refers more to the subject matter depicted than to the style or technique. Realist paintings typically represent ordinary places and people engaged in everyday activities, as opposed to grand, idealized landscapes, mythological gods, biblical subjects, and historical figures and events that had often dominated painting in western culture. Courbet said "I cannot paint an angel because I have never seen one". Realism was also in part a reaction to the often dramatic, exotic, and emotionally charged work of romanticism. The term realism is applied relative to the idealized imagery of neo-classicism and the romanticized imagery of romanticism. Artists such as Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot and Honoré Daumier had loose associations with realism, as did members of the Barbizon School, particularly Jean-François Millet, but it was perhaps Gustave Courbet who was the central figure in the movement, self identifying as a realist, advocating realism, and influencing younger artists such as Édouard Manet. One significant aspect of realism was the practice of painting landscapes en plein air and its subsequent influence on impressionism. Beyond France, realism is exemplified by artists such as Wilhelm Leibl in Germany, Ford Madox Brown in England, and Winslow Homer in the United States. Art historian H. H. Arnason wrote, "The chronological sequence of neo-classicism, romanticism, and realism is, of course, only a convenient stratification of movements or tendencies so inextricably bound up with one another and with the preceding movements that it is impossible to tell where one ended and another began", and this becomes even more pertinent and complex as one follows all of the movements and "isms" into the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Courbet LAtelier du peintre.jpg| The Painter's Studio; by Gustave Courbet; 1854–1855; oil on canvas; 3.59 x 5.98 m; Musée d'Orsay (Paris) Jean-François Millet - Gleaners - Google Art Project 2.jpg| The Gleaners; by Jean-François Millet; 1857; oil on canvas; 0.84 x 1.12 m; Musée d'Orsay Honoré Daumier, The Third-Class Carriage - The Metropolitan Museum of Art.jpg| The Third-Class Carriage; by Honoré Daumier; 1862–1864; oil on canvas; 65.4 x 90.2 cm; Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York City) Adolph Menzel - Eisenwalzwerk - Google Art Project.jpg| The Iron Rolling Mill; by Adolph von Menzel; 1875; oil on canvas; 153 x 253 cm; Alte Nationalgalerie (Berlin, Germany) (2025). 9786060063926, rao. ISBN 9786060063926 Сбор угля бедными на выработанной шахте.jpg| The Poor, Picking up Pieces of Coal; by Nikolay Kasatkin; 1894; oil on canvas; 80 x 107 cm; Russian Museum (Saint Petersburg, Russia) Impressionism (c. 1865–1885) Impressionism emerged in France, under the influences of Realism, the Barbizon School, and en plein air painters like Eugène Boudin, Camille Corot, Charles-Francois Daubigny, and Johan Barthold Jongkind. Starting in the late 1850s, several of the impressionists had made acquaintances and friendships as students in Paris, notably at the free Académie Suisse and Charles Gleyre's studio. Their progressive work was frequently rejected by the conservative juries of the prestigious Académie des Beaux Arts salons, a forum where many artist turned to establish their reputations, and many of the young artist were included in a highly publicized, but much ridiculed Salon des Refusés in 1863. In 1874 they formed the Société Anonyme Coopérative des Artistes Peintres, Sculpteurs, Graveurs, independent of the academy, and mounted the first of several impressionist exhibitions in Paris, through to 1886 when their eighth and final exhibition was held. Important figures in the movement included Frédéric Bazille, Gustave Caillebotte, Mary Cassatt, Paul Cézanne, Edgar Degas, Armand Guillaumin, Édouard Manet, Claude Monet, Berthe Morisot, Camille Pissarro, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, and Alfred Sisley. Although impressionism was primarily a movement of painters, Degas and Renoir also produced sculptures and others like Auguste Rodin and Medardo Rosso are sometimes linked to impressionism. By 1885 impressionism had achieved some prominence, and yet a younger generation were already pushing the limits beyond impressionism. Artist from Russia, Australia, America and Latin America soon adopted impressionist styles. A few of the original impressionist continued producing significant work into the 1910s and 1920s. Although not unprecedented, many of the techniques used were in contrast to traditional methods. Paintings were often completed in hours or days with wet paint applied to wet paint (opposed to wet on dry paint, completed in weeks and months). Rather than applying glazes and mixed colors, pure colors were often applied side by side, in thick, opaque, impasto strokes; blending in the eye of the viewer when observed from a distance. Black was used very sparingly, or not at all, and defining lines replaced with nuanced strokes of color forming the subjects, contours, and shapes. Art historian H. W. Janson said "instead of adding to the illusion of real space, it strengthens the unity of the actual painted surface." Impressionist paintings typically depict landscapes, portraits, still lifes, domestic scenes, daily leisure and nightlife, all treated in a realist manner. Compositions were often based on unusual perspectives, appearing spontaneous and candid. The paintings were usually void of didactic, symbolic, or metaphoric meanings, and rarely addressed the biblical, mythological, and historical subjects that were so highly regarded by the academies or the darker and psychological interest explored by the symbolist. The nuances of light, shadow, atmosphere, and reflections of colors from surfaces were examined, sometimes emphasizing changes of these elements in time. The painting itself was the subject of the painting. It was art for art's sake, an idea that had been floating around for a few of decades but it perhaps reached a new high and consistency in impressionism. Edgar Degas - At the Races in the Countryside - Google Art Project.jpg| At the Races in the Countryside; by Edgar Degas; 1869; oil on canvas; 36.5 x 56 cm; Museum of Fine Arts (Boston, US) Claude Monet, 1873-74, Boulevard des Capucines, oil on canvas, 80.3 x 60.3 cm, Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City.jpg| Boulevard des Capucines; by Claude Monet; 1873; oil on canvas; 80.5 x 60.2 cm; Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art (Kansas City, Missouri, US) Camille Pissarro - Gelée blanche, ancienne route d´Ennery, Pontoise - 1873.jpg| Hoarfrost: Old Road to Ennery, Pontoise; by Camille Pissarro; 1873; oil on canvas; 64.7 x 92.6 cm; Musée d'Orsay (Paris) Alfred Sisley, L'automne - Bords de la Seine pres Bougival (Autumn - Banks of the Seine near Bougival), 1873.jpg| Banks of the Seine near Bougival; by Alfred Sisley; 1873; oil on canvas; 46.2 x 62.1 cm; Montreal Museum of Fine Arts (Montreal, Canada) Pierre-Auguste Renoir 023.jpg| La Loge; Pierre-Auguste Renoir; 1874; oil on canvas; 80 x 63.4 cm; Courtauld Gallery (London) Gustave Caillebotte - The Floor Planers - Google Art Project.jpg| The Floor Scrapers; by Gustave Caillebotte; 1875; oil on canvas; 1 x 1.54 m; Musée d'Orsay Gustave Caillebotte - Paris Street; Rainy Day - Google Art Project.jpg| Paris Street; Rainy Day; by Gustave Caillebotte; 1877; oil on canvas; 212.2 × 276.2 cm; Art Institute of Chicago Berthe Morisot - Jour d'été, 1879.jpg| Summer's Day; by Berthe Morisot; 1879; oil on canvas; 45.7 cm × 75.2 cm; National Portrait Gallery (London) Edouard Manet, A Bar at the Folies-Bergère.jpg| A Bar at the Folies-Bergère; by Édouard Manet; 1881–1882; oil on canvas; 96 × 130 cm.; Courtauld Institute of Art (London) Nicolae Grigorescu - Car cu boi (8).jpg| Ox-Drawn Cart; by Nicolae Grigorescu; 1899; oil on canvas; 66 x 81 cm; National Museum of Art of Romania (Bucharest, Romania) Symbolism (c. 1860–1915) Symbolism emerged in France and Belgium in the 3rd quarter of the nineteenth century and spread throughout Europe in the 1870s, and later to America to a lesser extent. It evolved from romanticism without a clear or defining demarcation point, although poetry, literature, and specifically the publication of Charles Baudelaire's Les Fleurs du mal ( The Flowers of Evil) in 1857 were significant in the development of symbolism. It had international expression in poetry, literature, drama, and music. In architecture, the applied arts, and decorative arts symbolism closely paralleled and overlapped into Art Nouveau. Symbolism is often inextricably linked to other contemporary art movements, surfacing and finding expression within other styles like Post-Impressionism, Les Nabis, the Decadent Movement, the Fin-de Siecle, Art Nouveau, The Munich Secession, The Vienna Secession, Expressionism, and even the Pre-Raphaelites, which had formed before and influenced symbolism as well. Artist as diverse as James McNeill Whistler, Eugène Carrière, Ferdinand Hodler, Fernand Khnopff, Giovanni Segantini, Lucien Lévy-Dhurmer, Jean Delville, and James Ensor all had varying degrees of association with symbolism. Art historian Robert L. Delevoy wrote "Symbolism was less a school than the atmosphere of a period." It quickly began to fade with the onset of Fauvism, Cubism, Futurism and had largely dissipated by the outbreak of the First World War, however it did find some sustained development and relevance in the Metaphysical art, which in turn had a profound influence on surrealism. The subjects, themes, and meanings of symbolist art are frequently veiled and obscure, but at its best still manage to resonate deeply on psychological or emotional levels. The subjects are often presented as metaphors or allegories, aiming to evoke highly subjective, personal, introspective emotions and ideas in the viewer, without clearly defining or addressing the subject directly. The poet Stéphane Mallarmé wrote "depict not the thing but the effect it produces" and "To name an object is to suppress three quarters of the pleasure of the poem which is made to be understood little by little". The English painter George Frederic Watts stated "I paint ideas, not things." Head of Orpheus.jpg| Thracian Girl with Head of Orpheus on his Lyre; by Gustave Moreau; 1865; oil; 154 × 99.5 cm; Musée d'Orsay (Paris) La vision après le sermon (Paul Gauguin).jpg| Vision After the Sermon (Jacob Wrestling with the Angel); 1888; oil on canvas; 73 x 92 cm; Scottish National Gallery (Edinburgh, Scotland) Edvard Munch, 1893, The Scream, oil, tempera and pastel on cardboard, 91 x 73 cm, National Gallery of Norway.jpg| The Scream; by Edvard Munch; 1893; tempera and crayon on cardboard; 91 x 73.5 cm; National Gallery (Oslo, Norway) Redon - Green Death c. 1905.jpg| Green Death; by Odilon Redon; 1905; oil on canvas; 54.9 x 46.3 cm; Museum of Modern Art Odilon Redon - The Cyclops, c. 1914.jpg| The Cyclops; by Odilon Redon; 1914; oil on cardboard on panel; 64 x 51 cm; Kröller-Müller Museum (Otterlo, the Netherlands) Post-Impressionism (c. 1885–1910) Post-Impressionism is a rather imprecise term applied to a diverse generation of artists. In its strictest sense, it pertains to four highly influential artists: Paul Cézanne, Paul Gauguin, Georges Seurat, and Vincent van Gogh. Each passed through an impressionist phase, but ultimately emerged with four very original but different styles. Collectively, their work anticipated, and often directly influenced, much of the avant-garde art that appeared before the First World War including fauvism, cubism, expressionism, and early abstraction. Cézanne (particularly influential on cubism) and Van Gogh worked in relative isolation, away from Paris, at critical points in their careers, while Seurat and Gauguin worked in groups, more collaboratively, at key points in their development. Another important artist of the period is Toulouse-Lautrec, an influential painter as well as graphic artist. In a broader sense, post-impressionism includes a generation of predominantly French and Belgian artists who worked in a range of styles and groups. Most had come under the sway of impressionism at some point, but pushed their work beyond it into a number of factions as early as the mid-1880s, sometimes as a logical development of impressionism, other times as a reaction against it. Post-Impressionists typically depicted impressionist subjects, but the work, particularly synthetism, often contained symbolism, spiritualism, and moody atmospheres that rarely appeared in impressionism. Unnatural colors, patterns, flat plains, odd perspectives and viewpoints pushed to extremes, all moved the center of modernism a step closer to abstraction with a standard for experimentation. Neo-Impressionism (Divisionism or Pointillism, c. 1884–1894) explored light and color based on scientific color theories, creating mosaics of brush strokes in pure colors, sometimes laid out in rhythmic patterns with lines influenced by Art Nouveau. The leading artists were Georges Seurat and Paul Signac, others include Henri-Edmond Cross, Maximilien Luce, Albert Dubois-Pillet, and for a period Pissarro and Van Gogh. It was influential on fauvism, and elements of the style appeared in expressionism, cubism, and early abstraction. Synthetism (Cloisonnism c. 1888–1903) Cloisonnism was conceived by Émile Bernard and immediately taken up and developed by Paul Gauguin and others while at an artists' colony in Pont-Aven (Brittany, France). The style resembled cloisonné enamel or stained glass, with flat, bold colors outlined in black or dark colors. Synthetism, exemplified in the work of Gauguin and Paul Sérusier, is slightly a broader term with less emphasis on dark outlines and cloisonné qualities. Other artist include Cuno Amiet, Louis Anquetin, Charles Filiger, Jacob Meyer de Haan, Charles Laval, and Armand Seguin. Their work greatly influenced fauvism and expressionism. Les Nabis (c. 1890–1905: Hebrew for prophets or illuminati) was a larger movement in France and Belgium that eclectically drew on progressive elements in synthetism, neo-impressionism, symbolism, and Art Nouveau. Perhaps more influential than the art, were the numerous theories, manifestoes, and infectious enthusiasm for the avant-garde, setting the tone for the proliferation of movements and "isms" in the first quarter of the 20th century. La Revue Blanche often published Les Nabis and symbolist content. The work of Édouard Vuillard, and Pierre Bonnard, ca. 1890–1910 is exemplary of Les Nabis, though both evolved in their styles and produced significant work into the 1940s. Other artist include Maurice Denis, Maxime Dethomas, Meyer de Haan, Henri-Gabriel Ibels, Georges Lacombe, Aristide Maillol, Paul Ranson, Ker-Xavier Roussel, Armand Séguin, Paul Sérusier, Félix Vallotton, Jan Verkade, and others. Van Gogh - Starry Night - Google Art Project.jpg| The Starry Night; by Vincent van Gogh; 1889; oil on canvas; height: 73.7 cm; Museum of Modern Art (New York City) Signac - Portrait de Félix Fénéon.jpg| Félix Fénéon; by Paul Signac; 1890; oil on canvas; 73.5 x 92.5 cm; Museum of Modern Art (New York City) Eh quoi! Tu es jaloux? by Paul Gauguin.jpg| Aha Oe Feii? (Are You Jealous?); by Paul Gauguin; 1892; oil on canvas; 68 x 92 cm; Pushkin Museum (Moscow, Russia) Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, At the Moulin Rouge.jpg| At the Moulin Rouge; by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec; 1892/1895; oil on canvas, 1.23 × 1.41 m; Art Institute of Chicago Paul Cézanne, French - The Large Bathers - Google Art Project.jpg| The Bathers; by Paul Cézanne; 1898–1905; oil on canvas; 210.5 cm × 250.8 cm; Philadelphia Museum of Art (Philadelphia, US) Early 20th century The history of 20th-century art is a narrative of endless possibilities and the search for new standards, each being torn down in succession by the next. The art movements of Fauvism, Expressionism, Cubism, abstract art, and Surrealism led to further explorations of new creative styles and manners of expression. Increasing globalization interaction during this time saw an equivalent influence of other cultures into Western art, such as Pablo Picasso being influenced by Iberian sculpture, African art and Primitivism. Japonism, and Japanese (which had themselves been influenced by Western Renaissance draftsmanship) had an immense influence on Impressionism and subsequent artistic developments. The influential example set by Paul Gauguin's interest in Oceanic art and the sudden popularity among the Connoisseur in early 20th century Paris of newly discovered African fetish sculptures and other works from non-European cultures were taken up by Picasso, Henri Matisse, and many of their colleagues. Later in the 20th century, Pop Art and Abstract Expressionism came to prominence. Art Nouveau (c. 1890–1914) Art Nouveau () was an international and widespread art and design movement that emerged in the final decades of the 19th century until the First World War in 1914. It was catapulted into international prominence with the 1900 Exposition Universelle in Paris. Developing almost simultaneously in parts of Europe and the US, it was an attempt to create a unique and modern form of expression that evoked the spirit of the new century. It manifested in painting, illustration, sculpture, jewellery, metalwork, glass, ceramics, textiles, graphic design, furniture, architecture, costume design and fashion. Art Nouveau artists aimed to raise the status of craft and design to the level of fine art. The movement is highly associated with sinuous organic forms, such as flowers, vines and leaves, but also insects and animals, through the works of artists like Alphonse Mucha, Victor Horta, Hector Guimard, Antoni Gaudí, René Lalique, Otto Eckmann or Émile Gallé. Art Nouveau designs and buildings can often be asymmetrical. Although there are identifying characteristics, the style also displayed many regional and national interpretations. Despite being a short-lived fashion, it paved the way for the modern architecture and design of the 20th century. It was the first architectural style without historic precedent, the 19th century being notorious for a practice known as Historicism, which is the use of visual styles that consciously echo the style of a previous artistic era. Between 1870 and 1900, a crisis of historicism occurred, during which the historicist culture was critiqued, one of the voices being Friedrich Nietzsche in 1874, who diagnosed 'a malignant historical fervour' as one of the crippling symptoms of a modern culture burdened by archaeological study and faith in the laws of historical progression. Despite this, Art Nouveau was also heavily influenced by styles from the past such as Celtic art, Gothic art and Rococo art, and also by the Arts and Crafts movement, Aestheticism, Symbolism and especially by Japanese art. (2025). 9780192842220, Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780192842220 Fauvism (c. 1898–1909) Fauvism emerged from post-impressionism, gradually developing into the first major movement of the 20th century. Its genesis was in 1895 when Henri Matisse, the oldest and central figure, entered the studio of Gustave Moreau at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts. There he met Georges Rouault, Charles Camoin, Henri Manguin, and Albert Marquet. Marquet said "As early as 1898 Matisse and I were working in what was later to be called the Fauve manner. The first exhibitions at the Indepéndants in which we were, I believe, the only ones to paint in pure tones, go back to 1901." By 1902–03 the circle of like-minded artist had grown to include Georges Braque, André Derain, Raoul Dufy, Othon Friesz, Jean Metzinger, Jean Puy, Louis Valtat, Kees van Dongen, and Maurice de Vlaminck. During this period a number of influential retrospective exhibitions were held in Paris: Seurat (1900, 1905), Van Gogh (1901, 1905), Toulouse-Lautrec (1902), Gauguin (1906), Cézanne (1907), all relatively unknown to the public at that time. Matisse and Derain collected African carvings, a novel but growing curiosity of the time. Matisse spent the summer of 1904 in Saint-Tropez painting with the neo-impressionist Paul Signac and Henri-Edmond Cross, followed in 1905 by Camoin, Manguin, and Marquet. The artists exhibited regularity at the Salon des Indepéndants and the Salon d'Automne 1903–1908 and in 1905 their work created a sensation and a scandal. Matisse stated "We were exhibiting at the Salon d'Automne, Derain, Manguin, Marquet, Puy, and a few others were hung together in one of the larger galleries. In the center of this room the sculptor Albert Marque exhibited a bust of a child very much in the Italian style. Louis Vauxcelles art entered the room and said, Well! well! Donatello in the mist of wild beasts! Donatello." The movement had not been perceived as an entity by the public, but once published the name stuck. Unlike the impressionist and their long struggle for acceptance, the avant-garde had an eager audience by 1906–1907 and the fauvist were attracting collectors from America to Russia. However fauvism largely dissolved in 1908, as cubism appeared, most of the artist began exploring other styles and moving in different directions. Only Matisse and Dufy continued to explore fauvism into the 1950s.Diehl, Gaston (1972) The Fauves: Library of Great Art Movements. Harry N. Abrams, Inc., Publishers, New York. 168 pp. Jacobus, J. (1973) Matisse: Library of Great Painters. Harry N. Abrams, Inc., Publishers, New York, 184 pp. The fauvist painted landscapes en plein air, interiors, figures, and still lifes, following examples of realism, impressionism, and post-impressionism. They applied paint with loose brushstrokes, in thick, unnatural, often contrasting, vibrant colors, at times straight from the tube. Gauguin's influence, with his exploration of the expressive values and spatial aspects of patterning with flat, pure colors, as well as his interest in primitivism were significant, as was neo-impressionism. Matisse explained – for a long time color served as a complement of design, the painters of the Renaissance constructed the picture by line, adding local color afterwards – writing: "From Delacroix to Van Gogh and chiefly to Gauguin, by way of the Impressionist, who cleared the ground, and Cézanne, who gave the final impulse and introduced colored volumes, we can follow this rehabilitation of color's function, this restoration of its emotive power." Fauvism was the culmination in a shift, from drawing and line as the fundamental foundations of design in painting to color, and they depicted their subjects on the verge of abstraction. Matisse-Woman-with-a-Hat.jpg| Woman with a Hat; by Henri Matisse; 1905; oil on canvas; 80.7 x 59.7 cm; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (San Francisco, US) Fauvism Landscape; by Louis Valtat; oil on canvas, Speed Art Museum, Louisville, Kentucky II.jpg| Fauve Landscape; by Louis Valtat; 1905–1906; oil on canvas; Speed Art Museum (Louisville, Kentucky, US) Derain CharingCrossBridge.png| Charing Cross Bridge, London; by André Derain; 1906; oil on canvas, 80.3 × 100.3 cm.; National Gallery of Art (Washington, D.C., US) LA CIOTAT.PNG| La Ciotat; by Othon Friesz; 1907; oil on canvas, 65.7 by 81 cm.; unknown collection Expressionism (c. 1905–1930) ; 1913; oil on canvas; 1.21 x 0.91 m; Museum of Modern Art (New York City)]] Expressionism was an international movement in painting, sculpture, the graphic arts, poetry, literature, theater, film, and architecture. Some associate the Second Viennese School and other music of the period with the movement. Most historians place the beginning of expressionism in 1905 with the founding of the Die Brücke in Dresden, Germany. However, several artists were producing influential work that was in the spirit of expressionism c. 1885–1905 including Lovis Corinth, James Ensor, Käthe Kollwitz, Paula Modersohn-Becker, Edvard Munch, Emil Nolde, and Christian Rohlfs among others. Many of these artists later exhibited and associated with various expressionist groups. Expressionist painting is characterized by loose, spontaneous, frequently thick, impasto brushwork. It often conveyed how the artist felt about their subject, opposed to what it looked like, putting intuition and gut feelings over realistic representations or art theories. Expressionism was frequently infused with an angst or joy, and an overall engagement with contemporary life and social issues that was often absent from fauvism's focus on design and color applied to neutral subjects. are particularly noteworthy in expressionism. Expressionism can sometimes overlap and integrate with other styles and movements, such as symbolism, fauvism, cubism, futurism, abstraction, and dada. Several groups and factions of expressionists appeared at various times and places. Die Brücke (The Bridge: 1905 -1913) aspired to connect "all revolutionary and surging elements." It was founded by four architectural students Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Erich Heckel, Karl Schmidt-Rottluff, and Fritz Bleyl. Sharing a studio in Dresden they produced paintings, carvings, prints, and organized exhibitions, separating in the summer to work independently. Their first exhibit was in 1905, later joined by Emil Nolde and Max Pechstein in 1906, and Otto Mueller in 1910 among others. Influences included Gothic art, primitivism, Art Nouveau, and developments in Paris, particularly Van Gogh and fauvism. The group shifted to Berlin in 1911 and later dissolved in 1913. Der Blaue Reiter (The Blue Rider: 1911–1914), founded by Wassily Kandinsky and Franz Marc, was a relatively informal group that organized exhibitions of art from Paris and Europe, as well their own. It was one in a series of increasingly progressive groups splitting from the Art Academy in Munich including The Munich Secession in 1892 (realist and impressionist), Phalanx in 1901 (postimpressionist), Neue Kunstler Vereiningung in 1909, and The Blue Rider in 1911. Artist associated with the latter two groups included the David Burliuk brothers, Heinrich Campendonk, Alexej von Jawlensky, Paul Klee, August Macke, Gabriele Münter, and Marianne von Werefkin. The euphonious almanac Der Blaue Reiter, a collection of influential essays, and Kandinsky's Concerning the Spiritual in Art with his ideas on non-objective art were both published in 1912. The Blue Rider ended with the outbreak of World War I in which Macke and Marc both died. Other artists such as Oskar Kokoschka, Egon Schiele, and Richard Gerstl emerged in Austria. French artist Georges Rouault and Chaïm Soutine had affinities with the movement. Sculptors include Ernst Barlach, Wilhelm Lehmbruck, Gerhard Marcks, and William Wauer. Architects associated with expressionism include Max Berg, Hermann Finsterlin, Johann Friedrich Höger, Michel de Klerk, Erich Mendelsohn, Hans Poelzig, Hans Scharoun, Rudolf Steiner, and Bruno Taut. Der Sturm (The Storm 1910–1932) was a magazine with much expressionist content founded by Herwarth Walden, with an associated gallery in Berlin opened in 1912 and a theater company and school opened in 1918. Films regarded as expressionistic, some considered as classics, include The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (Robert Wiene, 1920), Nosferatu (F. W. Murnau, 1922), and Metropolis (Fritz Lang, 1927). After World War I a tendency to withdraw from the avant-garde by many artist occurred, seen in the work of the original fauvists during the 1920s, Picasso and Igor Stravinsky neoclassical periods, and De Chirico's late work. This tendency was called New Objectivity (ca. 1919–1933) in Germany, and in contrast to the nostalgic nature of this work elsewhere, it was characterized by disillusionment and ruthless social criticisms. New objectivity artists mostly emerged from expressionist and dada milieus including Otto Dix, Christian Schad, Rudolf Schlichter, Georg Scholz, and Jeanne Mammen. Max Beckmann and George Grosz also had some association with new objectivity for a period. Although not intrinsically expressionistic, the Staatliches Bauhaus (School of Building: 1919–1933) was an influential German school merging crafts, decorative, and fine arts. Moving from Weimar, to Dessau, to Berlin, it changed and evolved in focus with time. Directors included architects Walter Gropius (1919–1928), Hannes Meyer (1928–1930), and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe (1930–1933). At various points the faculty included Josef Albers, Theo van Doesburg, Lyonel Feininger, Johannes Itten, Paul Klee, Wassily Kandinsky, El Lissitzky, Gerhard Marcks, László Moholy-Nagy, Oskar Schlemmer. Bauhaus architects greatly influenced the International Style, which was characterized by simplified forms, a lack of ornamentation, a union of design and function, and the idea that mass production could be compatible with personal artistic vision. As the Nazi Party rose to power, modern art was dubbed "degenerate art" and the Bauhaus was closed in 1933, subduing modernism in Germany for several years. Edvard Munch, 1893, The Scream, oil, tempera and pastel on cardboard, 91 x 73 cm, National Gallery of Norway.jpg| The Scream; by Edvard Munch; 1893; tempera and crayon on cardboard; 91 x 73.5 cm; National Gallery of Norway (Oslo) Franz Marc 028.jpg| Tower of Blue Horses; by Franz Marc; 1912; ink and guache on card; 14.3 x 9.4 cm; Bavarian State Painting Collections (Munich, Germany) Wassily Kandinsky Composition VII.jpg| Composition VII; by Wassily Kandinsky; 1913; oil on canvas; 2 x 3 m; Tretyakov Gallery (Moscow, Russia) Einsteinturm 7443a.jpg|The Einstein Tower (Potsdam, near Berlin, Germany), 1920–1924, by Erich Mendelsohn Paul klee actors mask 1924.jpg| Actor's Mask; by Paul Klee; 1924; oil on canvas mounted on board; 36.7 x 33.8 cm; Museum of Modern Art (New York City) Cubism (c. 1907–1914) Cubism consisted in the rejection of perspective, which leads to a new organisation of space where viewpoints multiply producing a fragmentation of the object that renders the predilection for form over the content of the representation obvious. Pablo Picasso, Georges Braque and other Cubist artists, were inspired by the sculptures of Iberia, African art and Oceanic art exhibited in the Louvre and the ethnographic museum in the Trocadéro, and which were being offered at flee markets and in sale rooms. 'A Picasso studies an object the way a surgeon dissects a corpse,' wrote the critic and poet Guillaume Apollinaire in 1913. Five years earlier, Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque – friends, colleagues and rivals – had begun to reject perspectival realism for a form of artistic autopsy: an utterly revolutionary painting style that looked inside and around objects, presenting them analytically, objectively and completely impersonally. Les Demoiselles d'Avignon.jpg| Les Demoiselles d'Avignon; by Pablo Picasso; 1907; oil on canvas; 2.43 × 2.3 m; Museum of Modern Art Georges Braque, 1909-10, Pitcher and Violin, oil on canvas, 116.8 x 73.2 cm, Kunstmuseum Basel.jpg| Violin and Pitcher; by Georges Braque; 1909–1910; oil on canvas; 1.17 x 0.73 cm; Kunstmuseum Basel (Basel, Switzerland) Robert Delaunay - Eiffel Tower - 1911 - Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum.jpg| The Eiffel Tower; by Robert Delaunay; 1911; oil on canvas; 2.02 x 1.38 m; Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum (New York City) 1914 Gris Le Petit Déjeuner.jpg| Breakfast; by Juan Gris; 1914; gouache, oil and crayon on cut-and-pasted printed paper on canvas; 80.9 x 59.7 cm; Museum of Modern Art (New York City) Art Deco (c. 1920–1940) Art Deco appeared in France as a style of luxury and modernity. Soon, it spread quickly throughout the world, most dramatically in America, becoming more streamlined through the 1930s. The style was named after the International Exhibition of Modern Decorative and Industrial Arts held in Paris in 1925. Its exuberance and fantasy captured the spirit of the 'roaring 20s' and provided an escape from the realities of the Great Depression during the 1930s. It had ancient Greek, Roman art, African art, Aztec and Japanese art influences, but also Futurism, Cubism and Bauhaus ones. It sometimes blended with the Egyptian Revival style, due to the discovery in 1922 of the Tomb of Tutankhamun and the Egyptomania that it caused. Two examples of this are Le Louxor Cinema in Paris, 1919–1921, by Henri Zipcy, and the Egyptian Theatre in DeKalb (Illinois, US), 1929–1930, by Elmer F. Behrns. In decorative arts, including architecture, low-relief designs, and angular patterns and shapes were used. Predominant materials include chrome plating, brass, polished steel and aluminum, inlaid wood, stone and stained glass. Some of the most important Art Deco artists are the Paris-based Polish painter Tamara de Lempicka, the Ukrainian-born French poster artist Adolphe Jean-Marie Mouron, known as Cassandre, and the French furniture designer and interior decorator Émile-Jacques Ruhlmann. Surrealism (c. 1924–1966) Surrealism emerged as a faction of Dada, formally announcing its inception in 1924 with André Breton's Manifesto of Surrealism. Originally a literary group of poets and writers in Paris, it soon developed into an international movement that included painters, sculptors, photographers, and filmmakers. A Second Manifeste du Surréalisme was published in 1929. Surrealism did not have significant expression in applied or decorative arts, architecture, or music, although a few isolated examples could be identified (e.g. chess sets, furniture, and Las Pozas). The small and short lived Metaphysical art (c. 1910–1921), with Giorgio de Chirico as its principal figure, was highly influential on surrealism. The surrealist explored a myriad of innovative techniques, some had recently been developed in Cubism and Dada, others were new, including collage, found objects, assemblage, random chance, rayographs (photograms), painting on sand, dripping and flinging paint, decalcomania, frottage, fumage, and raclage. Two fundamental approaches predominate surrealist art. Automatism dominated in the early years which can be seen in the work of artist like André Masson and Joan Miró. Other artists, swayed by work of Giorgio de Chirico, used more traditional methods and mediums to illustrate unfiltered thoughts and incongruous juxtapositions, including Salvador Dalí and René Magritte. Significant artist include Jean Arp, Hans Bellmer, Victor Brauner, Luis Buñuel, Joseph Cornell, Óscar Domínguez, Max Ernst, Wifredo Lam, Yves Tanguy, Man Ray, Alberto Giacometti, Méret Oppenheim, and Roberto Matta. Other important artist informally accosted with surrealism include Marcel Duchamp, Pablo Picasso, and Frida Kahlo. Surrealist ideas and theories were discussed in a successive series of journals, La Révolution Surréaliste (1924–1929), Le Surrealisme au service de la revolution (1930–1933), Minotaure (1933–1939), VVV (1942–1944). The automatic paintings produced by André Masson and Joan Miró, as well as latecomers to surrealism like Roberto Matta and Arshile Gorky had a considerable influence on the abstract expressionist in the late 1940s. With a measure of Dada's irreverence and contempt for the traditional political, religious, and bourgeois values of western culture that they believed had led the world into the First World War (Breton and other founding members were veterans); the surrealist explored the possibilities that had been opened up by Sigmund Freud regarding the subconscious mind: "Pure psychic automatism, by which one intends to express verbally, in writing or by any other method, the real functioning of the mind. Dictation by thought, in the absence of any control exercised by reason, and beyond any aesthetic or moral preoccupation." Surrealism sought to express pure thought, unfiltered and uncensored by political, religious, moral, or rational principles. Mid and late 20th century As Europe struggled to recover from World War II, America moved into a position of political, economic and cultural strength. During the 1940s and 1950s, Abstract Expressionism emerged as the first specifically American art movement to have an international impact. In consequence, the art world's focus shifted from Europe to New York. Abstract Expressionists were a small group of loosely associated artists who had similar outlooks but different approaches. They were influenced by Surrealism, and believed in spontaneity, freedom of expression and abandonment of the themes of American life that had characterized national art of recent decades. One of the most famous representatives of this movement was Jackson Pollock, known for his painting made by pouring, flicking and dripping paint on to huge canvases on the ground. Other artists include Willem de Kooning, Franz Kline, Robert Motherwell, Barnett Newman, Mark Rothko and Clyfford Still. After World War II, consumerism and the mass media surged, and as a result, Pop art developed in both London and New York. In a London exhibition in 1956, the word 'Pop' was used in a collage created by Richard Hamilton (1922–2011) made of American magazines. Pop art was a reaction against Abstract Expressionism, and interpreted ideas of pop culture. In celebrating and commenting on consumerism, pop artists, as they became known, produced colorful images based on advertising, the media and shopping, featuring film stars, comic strips, flags, packaging and food – things that everyone, rather than just a highbrow few, could relate to. The term Minimalism was not new, but it gained momentum in the 1960s, specifically describing a style of art characterized by detached restraint. Originating in New York, it was a reaction against Abstract Expressionism, but it also embraced Constructivist ideas that art should be made of modern materials. Thus, Minimalist artists, primarily sculptors, often used non-traditional materials and production methods, often employing industrial or specialist fabricators to produce works to their specifications. The term was chiefly used to describe a group of American sculptors who re-evaluated the space around them, aiming to challenge assumptions and present familiar objects in new ways. Their artworks don't have any symbolism or hidden meaning, as they try to enable viewers to re-evaluate art and space around forms. Unlike a figural sculpture on which the viewer focuses to the exclusion of the room in which it stands, Minimalist art becomes one with its space. By focusing on the effects of context and the theatricality of the viewing experience, Minimalism exerted an indirect but powerful influence on later developments in Conceptual art and Performance art, as well as providing a foil for the rise of Postmodernism. Despite developing almost 50 years after Marcel Duchamp's ideas, Conceptual art showed that art does not always have to be judged aesthetically. It was never a single, cohesive movement, but an umbrella term that now covers several types of art and emerged more or less concurrently in America and Europe, first defined in New York. Conceptual artists promote the art of ideas, or concepts, suggesting that they can be more valid in the modern world than technical skill or aesthetics. No matter the art media of an artwork, it is considered as no more than a vehicle for presenting the concept. At its most extreme, Conceptual art foregoes the physical object completely, using verbal or written message to convey the idea. Traditionally, many creative acts such as sewing, weaving, and quilting have been considered as women's work, described as , and denied the cachet and public recognition of so-called Fine art such as sculpture and painting. Many artists have now challenged this hierarchy by either expanding the scope of a fine art such as sculpture, by creating using unconventional materials and practices, or by reclaiming and redefining the materials and methods of so-called craftwork, publicly exhibiting their work in museums and galleries and thus elevating the status of the decorative and applied arts.Ferren Gipson (2025). 9780711264656, Frances Lincoln. ISBN 9780711264656 Artists of the twentieth and twenty first centuries effecting this radical change include Maria Martinez, Anni Albers, Lucie Rie, Lenore Tawney, Louise Bourgeois, Miriam Schapiro, Faith Ringgold, Magdalena Abakanowicz, Sheila Hicks, Marva Lee Pitchford-Jolly, Judy Chicago, and Dindga McCannon. IKB 191.jpg| IKB 191; by Yves Klein; 1962 Keith Haring Berlin-Tiergarten.jpg| The Boxers; by Keith Haring; 1987 Barcelona (3392396182).jpg| El Cap de Barcelona; by Roy Lichtenstein; 1991–1992 See also History of animation History of Asian art History of film History of literature History of music History of nude art History of painting History of photography History of poetry History of theatre History of video games List of art movements List of French artistic movements Periods in Western art history Timeline for invention in the arts Timeline of art Women artists Notes Sarane Alexandrian (1980). 9780517541067, Crown. ISBN 9780517541067 H. H. Arnason (1977). 9780133903515, Prentice-Hall. . ISBN 9780133903515 José María de Azcárate (1983). 9788420714080, Anaya. ISBN 9788420714080 (2025). 9780714857428, Phaidon. ISBN 9780714857428 Maria Blunden (1976). 9780847800476, Skira. ISBN 9780847800476 (2025). 9780714151052, The British Museum. ISBN 9780714151052 (2025). 9781910350492, Royal Academy of Arts. . ISBN 9781910350492 Jean Cassou (1979). 9780890097069, Chartwell Books. ISBN 9780890097069 Jean Clay (1973). 9780399110399, Chartwell Books Inc.. ISBN 9780399110399 (1978). 9780890095447, Chartwell Books Inc. ISBN 9780890095447 Douglas Cooper (1966). 9780810905122, H.N. Abrams. . ISBN 9780810905122 Pierre Courthion (1979). 9780810902022, H.N. Abrams. ISBN 9780810902022 Pierre Courthion (1988). 9780810915190, H.N. Abrams. . ISBN 9780810915190 Brian Croke (2025). 9789004112759, Brill. . ISBN 9789004112759 Jean Luc Daval (1979). 9780847802128, Skira. . ISBN 9780847802128 Jean-Luc Daval (1980). 9780847803347, Skira. . ISBN 9780847803347 Robert L. Delevoy (1978). 9780847801411, Skira. ISBN 9780847801411 Paolo Delogu (2025). 9780715630792, Bristol Classical Press. . ISBN 9780715630792 (2025). 9780500293225, Thames & Hudson. ISBN 9780500293225 Wolf Dieter Dube (1983). 9780847804948, Skira. . ISBN 9780847804948 Helen C. Evans (2025). 9781588391148, Metropolitan Museum of Art/Yale University Press. . ISBN 9781588391148 Sarah Faunce (1993). 9780810931824, H.N. Abrams. ISBN 9780810931824 André Fermigier (1969). 9780810900417, Harry N. Abrams. ISBN 9780810900417 Diane Fortenberry (2025). 9780714875026, Phaidon Press. . ISBN 9780714875026 J. C. Harle (1994). 9780300062175, Yale University Press. ISBN 9780300062175 (2025). 9781780679686, Laurence King Publishing. ISBN 9781780679686 (2025). 9781786273703, Laurence King Publishing. ISBN 9781786273703 (2025). 9781780671635, Laurence King. ISBN 9781780671635 (2025). 9781788401760, Cassell Illustrated. ISBN 9781788401760 Anthony F. Janson (1977). 9780133893045, Prentice-Hall. ISBN 9780133893045 Marcel Jean (1980). 9780670142354, Viking Press. ISBN 9780670142354 (2025). 9780500291481, Thames & Hudson. ISBN 9780500291481 Eugénie de Keyser (1965). 9780320063497, World Publishing Company, Cleveland. . ISBN 9780320063497 Ernst Kitzinger (1977). 9780571111541, Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9780571111541 Michael Kulikowski (2025). 9780195336931, Oxford University Press. . ISBN 9780195336931 (1966). 9782736901707, Zodiaque. . ISBN 9782736901707 René Passeron (1975). 9780890096642, Chartwell. ISBN 9780890096642 Gaëtan Picon (1977). 9780847800414, Rizzoli International. ISBN 9780847800414 Lionel Richard (1978). 9780890096659, Chartwell. . ISBN 9780890096659 (2025). 9780500291481, Thames & Hudson. ISBN 9780500291481 William Rubin (1968). 9780810900608, H.N. Abrams. ISBN 9780810900608 Uwe M. Schneede (1974). 9780810904996, H.N. Abrams. ISBN 9780810904996 Meyer Schapiro (1962). 9780810900523, Abrams. . ISBN 9780810900523 Rolf Toman (2025). 9783829015752, Könemann. ISBN 9783829015752 Jeanine Warnod (1989). 051757277X, Crown Publishers. 051757277X Kurt Weitzmann (1981). 9780860780878, Variorum Reprints. ISBN 9780860780878 Kurt Weitzmann (1982). 9780237456450, Evans Brothers. ISBN 9780237456450 Further reading Graham-Dixon Andrew (2025). 9780241257104, Dorling Kindersley Limited. ISBN 9780241257104 Julian Bell (2025). 9780500287545, Thames & Hudson. ISBN 9780500287545 (1996). 9780894682506, National Gallery of Art. ISBN 9780894682506 (2025). 9781770130401, Juta and Company Ltd. . ISBN 9781770130401 (1993). 9780198143864, Oxford University Press. . ISBN 9780198143864 Jean-Paul Bouillon (1985). 9782605000692, Skira. . ISBN 9782605000692 Ovidiu Drimba (1985). 9789734401185, Editura Științifică și Enciclopedică. ISBN 9789734401185 Philip K. Hitti (2025). 9781137039828, Palgrave Macmillan. . ISBN 9781137039828 (2025). 9781856693141, Laurence King. . ISBN 9781856693141 (2025). 9781856694513, Laurence King. . ISBN 9781856694513 John Keay (2025). 087113800X, Grove Press. . 087113800X Lloyd Robert Laing (2025). 9780750928731, Sutton Pub. . ISBN 9780750928731 (1995). 9789068317275, Peeters Publishers. . ISBN 9789068317275 Andrew MacKenzie (1986). 9780709027249, Hale. ISBN 9780709027249 Lindsay Mattinson (2025). 9781782747482, Amber Books. ISBN 9781782747482 M. Ruth Megaw (2025). 050028265X, Thames & Hudson. . 050028265X Jane McIntosh (2025). 9781576079072, ABC-CLIO. . ISBN 9781576079072 Molina, Antonio Luis Ramos. La magia de la química fotográfica: El quimigrama. Conceptos, técnicas y procedimientos del quimigrama en la expresión artística, In: Tesis Doctoral, Universidad de Granada 2018. Harry Mountain (1998). 9781581128895, Universal Publishers. ISBN 9781581128895 John Onians (2025). 9781856693776, Laurence King Publishing. ISBN 9781856693776 (1986). 9780870994708, Metropolitan Museum of Art. . ISBN 9780870994708 Nikolaus Pevsner (2025). 9780300105711, Yale University Press. ISBN 9780300105711 (1981). 9780394500928, Random House. ISBN 9780394500928 Jacques Thuillier (2025). 9782080125354, Flammarion. ISBN 9782080125354 External links "Art: The history of ideas in literature and the arts in aesthetic theory and literary criticism" – The Dictionary of the History of Ideas Art History resources Ars Summum Project Timelines Timeline of Art History from Metropolitan Museum of Art](http://www.upcscavenger.com/wiki/Musée des arts décoratifs Gründerzeit-Büffet (1).jpg/){kind=link}
