PREHISTORIC, CLASSICAL, AND MEDIEVAL

40,000 B.C.E -1300s

PREHISTORIC

Paleolithic 40,000-12,000 BCE:

Altamira Cave Paintings

Large bull paintings found in the caves of Altamira in Spain-said to be used for coming of age rituals. Cave and rock paintings sometimes contained fertility figurines

Classical

Classical 480-323 BCE:

Kritios Boy - Krito

Art and architecture reflected the Greeks principle of “Ethos” or “inner thought”

Cover Boy or Kritios Boy demonstrates rationality.

As a male nude, his body is idealized, which was a symbol of Greek pride in their ideal civilization.

MEDIEVAL

Gothic 1150-1450:

Relief sculptures

Led by architecture, this movement focused on religious scenes: Old & New Testaments.

Secular Art

Relief Sculpture-the sculpture appearing on the Chartres Cathedral in France during 1520 held great importance.

PREMODERNISM

1300s-1880s

Renaissance

1300s-1700s:

Leonardo Da Vinci

Artists and intellectuals broke out of the middle ages

Rediscovered the art and culture of Greek antiquity.

New proportional techniques were applied

Leonardo Da Vinci painted one of the most famous paintings in art history, titled The Last Supper, in 1498.

Baroque

1600s-1750s

Gian Lorenzo Bernini

Art overemphasized shadow and movement.

Gian Lorenzo Bernini. completed David in 1624.

The sculpture depicts a moment of suspense and movement which reflect the drama of this art.

Realism

1850s-1880s

Gustave Courbet

Focused turned to images reflecting everyday life.

Gustave Courbet painted The Stone Breakers in 1849, which depicts two stone workers uninterested in the viewer.

MODERNISM

1860s-1970s

Impressionism

1860s-1890s:

Claude Monet

Movement started in 19th century France

Artists opted for small but visible brushstrokes with bold colors in order to create an atmospheric effect.

The founder of impressionism was Claude Monet.

Post-Impressionism

1880s-1910s

Georges Seurat

Abstract was pushed further and brushstrokes became even more visible.

Some artist preferred a style with just dots. This was called pointillism. Georges Seurat applied this technique in his piece A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte.

Abstract expressionism

1940s-1960s

Jackson Pollack

This movement was mainly about the physical qualities of the medium.

Jackson Pollack became famous for his “drip paintings”.

This process of splattering paint aloud the viewer to retrace thee steps as he moved.

Pop Art

1950s-1970s

Andy Warhol

Pop Art movement was about taking images of everyday life and putting them onto the platform of high art.

In 1962, Andy Warhol painted 32 canvases depicting the Campbell’s soup can

POSTMODERNISM

1960s-PRESENT

Conceptual

1960s-present:

Joseph Kosuth - One and three chairs

In conceptualism, the main goal is to demonstrate an intangible idea or concept.

Joseph Kosuth’s One and Three Chairs (1965)

The objects placed together causes us to consider the relationships between words, objects and images.

Each object would loose its meaning with out the other two.

Art Activism/Feminist Art

1980s-present

Barbara Kruger - Your Body is a Battleground

The art makes a social statement and promotes change.

Two strong facet of art activism is feminist art and identity politics.

Barbara Kruger, uses images and text to send very direct messages to the viewer.