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Period: 31,000 BCE to 310 BCE
Ancient Egypt
Ancient Egyptians also decorated the walls of their temples and tombs by carving scenes of daily life, hieroglyphics, and religious deities, or gods. Similar drawings have also been found drawn with ink on Egyptian papyrus, a paper-like material made from the papyrus plant that grew along the Nile River. Egyptian drawings use a flat, linear style. -
Period: 30,000 BCE to 10,000 BCE
Pre-historic
People have been drawing since the beginning of human history. The earliest drawings were found on the cave walls of Altamira, Spain and Lascaux, France, northern Spain and southern France. Other early drawings were scratched, carved or painted onto primitive tools. -
Period: 700 BCE to 480 BCE
Ancient Greece
The vases and pottery that were drawn or painted on by Ancient Greeks exhibit their graceful, decorative use of drawing. The Greeks use drawing to depict scenes of battles and myths. -
Period: 400 to 1400
Middle Ages
Monks used art to illustrate Bibles and prayer books for royal and wealthy families. Drawing was primarily a preparatory stage in creating paintings, rather than a finished product. People would draw their preparations for paintings on wood, slate or wax, since parchment and animal hides were expensive. They also kept model books, where they would store images of the human figure or subjects from nature to copy their own work rather than using a live model each time. -
Period: 1300 to
Renaissance
Artists and scientists became increasingly concerned with creating realistic depictions of the natural world. New methods of using softer materials, such as chalk and charcoal for the greater variety of effects and textures, were increasingly used by artists such as Michelangelo and da Vinci. Art became more popular due to the material availability. As art commissions became popular, artists began using their personal monograms on their work. -
Period: to
Baroque Period
During this time, artists began using watercolor and ink washes. A new technique called open composition, a style in which the piece of art seems to burst through the canvas itself, became popular. Rembrandt van Rijn became one of the world’s greatest draftsman for his ability to convey form, movement, and emotion with only a few, simple lines. Sketchbooks became increasingly used due to advancements that created cheaper supplies. -
Period: to
1800’s and 1900’s
Pencils were first manufactured early in the 1800’s and quickly became the most preferred drawing tools. Ingres and Goya were the principle artists spearheading the use of the pencil and became known for capturing movement of everyday scenes, ballet dancers, horse races and even dreams. -
Period: to
Impressionism
Characterized by relatively small, thin, yet visible brush strokes, open composition, emphasis on accurate depiction of light in its changing qualities (often accentuating the effects of the passage of time), ordinary subject matter, inclusion of movement as a crucial element of human perception and experience, and unusual visual angles. Impressionism originated with a group of Paris-based artists whose independent exhibitions brought them to prominence during the 1870s and 1880s. -
Period: to
Expressionism
A modernist movement, initially in poetry and painting, originating in Germany. Its typical trait is to present the world solely from a subjective perspective, distorting it radically for emotional effect in order to evoke moods or ideas. Expressionist artists have sought to express the meaning of emotional experience rather than physical reality. -
Period: to
Cubism
An early-20th-century avant-garde art movement that revolutionized European painting and sculpture, and inspired related movements in music, literature and architecture. Cubism has been considered the most influential art movement of the 20th century. The term is broadly used in association with a wide variety of art produced in Paris, Montmartre and Montparnasse or near Paris, Puteaux.