-
30,000 BCE
Stone Age (30,000 b.c.–2500 b.c.)
Cave painting, fertility goddesses, megalithic structures
Lascaux Cave Painting, Woman of Willendorf, Stonehenge -
3500 BCE
Mesopotamian (3500 b.c.–539 b.c.)
Warrior art and narration in stone relief
Standard of Ur, Gate of Ishtar, Stele of Hammurabi’s Code -
3100 BCE
Egyptian (3100 b.c.–30 b.c.)
Art with an afterlife focus: pyramids and tomb painting
Imhotep, Step Pyramid, Great Pyramids, Bust of Nefertiti -
850 BCE
Greek and Hellenistic (850 b.c.–31 b.c.)
Greek idealism: balance, perfect proportions; architectural
orders(Doric, Ionic, Corinthian)
Parthenon, Myron, Phidias, Polykleitos, Praxiteles -
653 BCE
Indian, Chinese, and Japanese(653 b.c.–a.d. 1900)
Serene, meditative art, and Arts of the Floating World
Gu Kaizhi, Li Cheng, Guo Xi, Hokusai, Hiroshige -
500 BCE
Roman (500 b.c.– a.d. 476)
Roman realism: practical and down to earth; the arch
Augustus of Primaporta, Colosseum, Trajan’s Column,
Pantheon -
476 BCE
Byzantine and Islamic (a.d. 476–a.d.1453)
Heavenly Byzantine mosaics; Islamic architecture and amazing
maze-like design
Hagia Sophia, Andrei Rublev, Mosque of Córdoba, the
Alhambra -
500
Middle Ages (500–1400)
Celtic art, Carolingian Renaissance, Romanesque, Gothic
St. Sernin, Durham Cathedral, Notre Dame, Chartres, Cimabue,
Duccio, Giotto -
1400
Early and High Renaissance (1400–1550)
Rebirth of classical culture
Ghiberti’s Doors, Brunelleschi, Donatello, Botticelli,
Leonardo, Michelangelo, Raphael -
1430
Venetian and Northern Renaissance (1430–1550)
The Renaissance spreads north- ward to France, the Low
Countries, Poland, Germany, and England
Bellini, Giorgione, Titian, Dürer, Bruegel, Bosch, Jan van
Eyck, Rogier van der Weyden -
1527
Mannerism (1527–1580)
Art that breaks the rules; artifice over nature
Tintoretto, El Greco, Pontormo, Bronzino, Cellini -
Baroque (1600–1750)
Splendor and flourish for God; art as a weapon in the religious
wars
Reubens, Rembrandt, Caravaggio, Palace of Versailles -
Neoclassical (1750–1850)
Art that recaptures Greco-Roman grace and grandeur
David, Ingres, Greuze, Canova -
Romanticism (1780–1850)
The triumph of imagination and individuality
Caspar Friedrich, Gericault, Delacroix, Turner, Benjamin
West -
Realism (1848–1900)
Celebrating working class and peasants; en plein air
rustic painting
Corot, Courbet, Daumier, Millet -
Impressionism (1865–1885)
Capturing fleeting effects of natural light
Monet, Manet, Renoir, Pissarro, Cassatt, Morisot, Degas -
Post-Impressionism (1885–1910)
A soft revolt against Impressionism
Van Gogh, Gauguin, Cézanne, Seurat -
Fauvism and Expressionism (1900–1935)
Harsh colors and flat surfaces (Fauvism); emotion distorting
form
Matisse, Kirchner, Kandinsky, Marc -
Cubism, Futurism, Supremativism, Constructivism, De Stijl (1905–1920)
Pre– and Post–World War 1 art experiments: new
forms to express modern life
Picasso, Braque, Leger, Boccioni, Severini, Malevich -
Dada and Surrealism (1917–1950)
Ridiculous art; painting dreams and exploring the
unconscious
Duchamp, Dalí, Ernst, Magritte, de Chirico, Kahlo -
Abstract Expressionism (1940s–1950s) and Pop Art (1960s)
Post–World War II: pure abstraction and expression
without form; popular art absorbs consumerism
Gorky, Pollock, de Kooning, Rothko, Warhol, Lichtenstein -
Postmodernism and Deconstructivism (1970– )
Art without a center and reworking and mixing past styles
Gerhard Richter, Cindy Sherman, Anselm Kiefer, Frank Gehry,
Zaha Hadid
