History of Art Timeline Dates For All Major Movements, Styles, Schools, Artists Involved in Western Visu al Arts

2.5 Million BCE - Present. Encyclopedia of Irish and World Art - HOMEPAGE 2,500,000 BCE - Present Here is a selected list of all major periods/movements in the history of art sin ce the early Stone Age. Dates given are approximate. The timeline includes: styl es of painting, as well as sculpture, and architecture, plus schools of decorati ve and interior design, and many 20th century forms of contemporary creative exp ression. The names of most major artists are also listed, where appropriate. Thi s is not yet a comprehensive list of all artistic events: rather it is a work in progress. For more specific information about architectural timelines, please s ee the history of architecture. If you feel we have overlooked any major Europea n Old Masters, or famous artists, or artist-groups, seminal paintings, or sculpt ures, please tell us. Date Event 2.5 million BCE to 800 BCE PREHISTORY For a chronological list of important dates concerning prehistoric art and cultu re, from the Lower Paleolithic era of the Pliocene Epoch, plus the Middle and Up per Paleolithic of the Pleistocene Epoch, and the Mesolithic and Neolithic eras of the Holocene, along with the Bronze and Iron Age, see Prehistoric Art Timelin e. Includes details of the earliest examples of Stone Age art, such as petroglyp hs, cupules, cave painting and famous venus figurines. Also includes dates of an cient art from Egyptian, Minoan and Mycenean civilizations. 800 BCE - 400 CE 800 - 323 BCE

750 BCE 700 - 500 BCE 750 BCE 550 BCE 539 BCE 535 BCE 500 BCE 450 BCE 447 BCE 450 BCE 400 BCE 350 BCE 340 BCE 330 BCE 300 BCE - 400 CE 246 - 208 BCE 232 BCE 206 BCE 180 BCE 150 BCE 42 BCE 27 BCE 79 CE 113

200 313 329 395 410-450 ------------------------------------------------------------------------The Period of Classical Antiquity -------------------------------------------------------------------------Era of Greek art. (Fresco murals, encaustic panel paintings, sculpture, ceramics flourish) Greek sculpture (the main surviving artform) is usually divided into these style s: Daedalic (650-600), Archaic (600-500); Early Classical (500-450), High Classi cal (450-400), Late Classical (400-323) Hellenistic Period (323-27). Also: Archa ic Painting, Greek Classical Painting and Hellenistic Painting. For architectura l designs, see Greek Architecture. Foundation of ancient Rome. Etruscan Kings rule. Etruscan civilization. First use of Greek alphabet. Famous Romanian wood sculpture: Thinker from Cernavoda. Ancient Persians conquer Mesopotamia. Build Persepolis. High point of Greek black-figure style of ceramic pottery. Soon followed by redfigure. Democracy in Athens. Celtic La Tne art style begins. Roman Republic starts. Greek sculptor Polykleitos creates Doryphoros statue. Construction of the Parthenon begins. Finished 432. Famous Greek bronze sculpture: Discus Thrower (by Myron). Famous Etruscan works: Capitoline Wolf and Chimera of Arezzo. Greek sculptor Praxiteles produces Aphrodite of Knidos and Hermes. Famous Greek sculpture: Boy From Antikythera. Rise of Alexander the Great (d.323) Era of Roman art. Heavily influenced by Hellenistic (Greek) painting & sculpture . Creation of Chinese Terracotta Army Warriors. Famous Greek sculpture: Dying Gaul. Start of Chinese Han Dynasty (ends 220 CE) during which the first porcelain was made. Famous Greek sculpted frieze: Altar of Zeusat Pergamon. Famous Greek statue: Venus di Milo(by Alexandros of Antioch). Famous Greek sculpture: Laocoon (by sculptors Hagesandrus, Polydorus, Athenodoru s) Beginning of Roman Empire. Vesuvius errupts, destroying Pompeii. Famous Roman relief sculpture monument, Trajan's Column. Christian mural paintings in catacombs of Rome. Period of Late Roman Art. Colossal Head of Constantine. Edict of Milan legitimizes Christianity. St Peter's Basilica in Rome completed. See also Roman Architecture. Roman Empire officially splits into West (Rome/Ravenna) and East (Byzantium). Fall of Rome to repeated invasions by Visigoths and Vandals. 450-1050 500-1200 532-7 550-800 700-50 700-900 780-900

800 1050-1400 1050-1150 1080 1150-1450

1250-1400 1304-1310 1333-1400 1346 1387 ------------------------------------------------------------------------The Period of the Dark Ages -------------------------------------------------------------------------Era of Byzantine art. Panel painting, Orthodox icons and mosaic art flourish. Construction of Hagia Sophia in Byzantium/Constantinople. See Byzantine Architec ture. Era of Irish monastic art. Celtic/Saxon Illuminated Gospel Manuscripts. Cathach of Colmcille (560 CE), Book of Durrow (670), Book of Kells (c.800). Oils (walnut, linseed) first used for oil-resin varnishes, and for painting on s tone & glass. Early form of porcelain ceramics appear in China during the Tang Dynasty (c.600900 CE). Medieval Christian artworks appear during Pre-Romanesque Era of Carolingian Rena issance under Charlemagne I, Otto I. Byzantine art combines with Western Christi an themes to create Illuminated Bible texts. Charlemagne builds famous Palatine Chapel in Aachen. -------------------------------------------------------------------------The European Revival -------------------------------------------------------------------------Era of Romanesque style of architecture. Religious murals, stained glass. Cathed rals built at Angoulme, Essen, Mainz, Worms; Pisa (leaning tower) plus Cluny Abbe y Church. Bayeaux Tapestry, most famous piece of tapestry art commissioned by Odo of Bayea ux. Era of Gothic art and Gothic architecture. Many Gothic cathedrals designed: (eg. St. Denis (1140), Notre Dame (1160), Chartres (1194), Reims (1211), Canterbury (1100), Westminster Abbey (1245), Cologne, w. pointed arches, flying buttresses, huge stained glass windows. New panel paintings (tempera on wood), and illumina ted texts (opaque paint on vellum). Oil paints first used for painting on panel. Era of Proto-Renaissance art/architecture, influenced by International Gothic st yle. Giotto paints fresco bible scenes in Cappella degli Scrovegni in Padua (Arena Ch apel). Zen Ink-Painting dominates Japanese art. See also Chinese painters. Arrival of the Black Death plague. Wipes out one third of European population. Medici Family Bank founded in Florence. 1400-1530

1426 1434

1444 1485 1490 1495 1501-4 1503-6 1506 1508-12 1509-13

1400-onwards 1432 1433-4 1435-40 1500-10 1450

1490-1520 1500-20 1517 ------------------------------------------------------------------------The Renaissance (North of Italy, known as the Northern Renaissance) ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Italian Early Renaissance (1400-90); The three main centres of the Italian Renaissance, were Florence, Rome and Venic e. Famous painting: The Expulsion of Adam and Eve from Paradise by Masaccio. Dome of Florence cathedral designed by Filippo Brunellesci. Famous bronze sculpture: David by sculptor Donatello. Famous mythological painting: The Birth of Venus by Sandro Botticelli. Famous example of perspective: Lamentation Over the Dead Christ by Mantegna. Italian High Renaissance (1490-1530) Famous history painting: The Last Supper by Leonardo Da Vinci. Michelangelo, greatest sculptor in the history of sculpture, creates David in Fl orence. Famous portrait: Mona Lisa (La Gioconda) by Leonardo Da Vinci. Vatican Museums open with a display of the sculpture, Laocoon and His Sons. Work begins on redesign and rebuilding of St. Peter's Basilica, Rome. Michelangelo paints the Genesis Old Testament Sistine Chapel frescoes. Raphael works on paintings for the papal apartments. See Raphael Rooms (Vatican) . Northern Renaissance Differences in climate, religion, geography and culture between Italy and Northe rn Europe leads to differences in how the Renaissance develops north of Italy. FLANDERS and HOLLAND (1430-1580) Technical improvements in oil paints hasten their adoption by Dutch Old Masters.

The technique then spreads to Italy, and is taken up by Leonardo Da Vinci and o thers. Famous polyptych altarpiece, by Jan Van Eyck: The Ghent Altarpiece. Jan Van Eyck paints masterpieces: The Arnolfini Wedding; Man in a Red Turban (14 33) Famous painting: Descent from the Cross (The Deposition) by Roger Van der Weyden . Moralizing fantasy paintings by Hieronymus Bosch. (eg. The Garden of Earthly Del ights). GERMANY (1450-1550) Invention of the screw printing press by the German Johann Gutenberg, along with an oil-based ink, metal prism matrices, punch-stamped typeface molds and a func tional metal alloy to mold the type. Astonishingly, only minor improvements were made to Gutenberg's press design until about 1800. Tilman Riemenschneider creates greatest religious wood sculpture. Albrecht Durer, greatest artist & printmaker of Northern Renaissance, flourishes . Martin Luther starts the Reformation. See also: Renaissance Architecture. 1530-1600 1534-41 1545 1550 1550 1561 1577 1580 1581 1583 1600-1700

1656-67 1667 1700-70 1707 1744 1750-1800

1764 1766 1768 1789 1793

1799 1799 1800 1800-50 1803 1810-40 1819 1830 1830-70

1836 1840 1841 1848 1850-67 1850-present

1855 1859 ------------------------------------------------------------------------Era of Mannerism. Links High Renaissance and the Baroque eras. Michelangelo paints The Last Judgement biblical frescoes in the Sistine Chapel. Council of Trent: Church in Rome launches Counter-Reformation. Fine arts and arc hitecture used by Catholic religion to promote its authority and public appeal. The artists Titian and Tintoretto both active in Mannerist Venice Renaissance. The eminent Renaissance art critic Giorgio Vasari, publishes his Lives of the Ar tists. Foundation of the Academy of Art in Florence (Accademia dell'Arte del Disegno) t he first official school of drawing in Europe to promote what is now called Acad emic Art. Greek mannerist artist El Greco establishes himself in Spain as religious painte r. Foundation of the Academy of Art in Rome (Accademia di San Luca). Foundation of the Uffizi Gallery in Florence. Mannerist sculptor Giambologna creates his famous Rape of the Sabines. Era of Baroque Art and Baroque Architecture, noted for its grandeur. Its bold dr amatic and often colourful paintings (by Baroque painters Caravaggio, Rubens, Ve lazquez) and portraits (by Van Dyck), as well as sculpture by Bernini, are used by secular rulers to buttress their absolutism, and by the Catholic Church as a form of propaganda. Baroque art in Protestant countries takes a more middle-clas s down-to-earth style, focusing on highly realistic portable artworks enhancing the status of the owner: such as personal portraits, still life & landscape, of the Dutch Realist School led by Jan Vermeer, and by Rembrandt. Bernini designs the grand theatrical approaches to St Peter's to overawe visitor s. Rise of French tapestry art with the foundation of Gobelin Factory under Charles Le Brun.

Era of Rococo Art and interior architectural design. Light, whimsical, decorativ e style reflecting the decadence of the French Kings, and reaction against Baroq ue gravity. Tiepolo, Watteau, Boucher & Fragonard are the main artists. See Roco co Architecture. Ceramicist Ehrenfried von Tschirnhaus and alchemist Johann Friedrich Bottger dis cover a formula (using feldspathic rock) for true porcelain ceramics in Meissen, Germany. Foundation of Sotheby's art auctioneers by Samuel Baker. Era of Neoclassicism, a reaction against the frivolity of the French court. Prom oted a return to the values and steadfast nobility of Classical Greece and Rome. Neoclassical artists included painters Goya, Ingres and Jacques-Louis David, sc ulptors Houdon, Canova and Thorvaldsen. Neoclassical architectural designs (buil dings decorated by columns of Greek-style pillars, and topped with classical Ren aissance domes) dominate Europe and spread to America (eg. US Capitol building). Catherine the Great establishes The Hermitage Museum in St Petersburg. Foundation of Christie's art auctioneers by James Christie the Elder, in London. Foundation of the Royal Academy of Arts in London. Beginning of the French Revolution. Opening of the Louvre Museum , one of the world's greatest art museums. Napoleon seizes power in France. Invention of lithography (using a matrix of fine-grained limestone) by the Austr ian printer Alois Senefelder. Mid-point of English Figurative Painting 18th/19th Century, soon to be followed by the influential English School of landscape painting. Era of Romanticism in art, encouraged by the heroic ideals of the French Revolut ion. French Romantics led by Eugene Delacroix. Other leading artists included Wi lliam Blake, Caspar David Friedrich, JMW Turner, Thomas Cole and John Constable. Invention of machine made paper (made from linen and cotton rags) by the Frenchm an Nicholas Louis Robert. German painters Friedrich Overbeck and Franz Pforr form the Nazarenes movement. Anti-classicism, inspired by Catholicism, they revived the art of fresco paintin g. Completion of the Prado Museum in Madrid. Famous painting: Liberty Leading the People, by Delacroix. Barbizon 'School': Group of French landscape painters working near Fontainebleau . Led by Theodore Rousseau, the Barbizon School made landscape as important as p ortraiture and genre painting, paving the way for Impressionism, the supreme ple in-air painting movement. Other members included Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot and Honor Daumier. Other landscape plein-air painting schools emerge in Pont-Aven & Concarneau. Opening of the Alte Pinakothek museum in Munich. Invention of the revolving perfecting press by American Richard March Hoe, (foll owed in 1846 by the first rotary press) and the manufacture of paper from wood p ulp. Collapsible tin paint tube invented by painter John Rand. Boosts plein air paint ing. Romantic Pre-Raphaelite art movement founded by Dante Gabriel Rossetti, London. High point of Orientalism, a painting school celebrating the exotic Near and Mid dle East. Members included: Jean-Auguste Ingres, Sir David Wilkie, Eugene Fromen tin. The emergence of Realism, the progressive movement in art and literature. Spurni ng the ideal, Realists, such as Jean-Francois Millet and Gustave Courbet, sought to depict the truth: in particular, the everyday social truths of the new indus trial age. Realism continues to spawn new approaches to the depiction of reality in the 20th century. Gustave Courbet paints The Painter's Studio for display at his own exhibition: L e Ralisme. Invention of photo-lithography by the French lithographer, Firmin Gillot, follow ed in 1872 by his son's invention of zincography, combining photography with etc hing.

1860-1979 1860-1900

1862-3 c.1869-90

1877 1884 1885-90 1885-1900 1890-1910

1897 1898 1900-present

1900-07

1908-1913 1908-14

1914-18

Mid-1920s-30s

1920s-30s

1920s-30s 1925-35 1936-45

1937 1940s-50s

1950s-60s

1960s-70s ------------------------------------------------------------------------The Age of Modern Art -------------------------------------------------------------------------Lesser known modern art movements of the mid-late 19th century included: Macchia ioli a Florentine style of anti-academy Impressionism (1860-90); Japonism, popul ar in UK and France (1875-1900); French Naturalism (Bande Noire, Brittany) inspi red by Emil Zola (1880s-90s); Naive Art, exemplified by Henri Rousseau (1895-194 0); Symbolism, an intellectual rather than visual form of painting (1886-1900); Les Nabis, a mystical religious school of decorative art which spanned painting, tapestry, mosaics, fans, ceramics, and book illustration (1890s); Verismo, an I talian school of raw realism, led by Telemaco Signorini. (1890-1900); Intimisme, a style of intimate genre-painting exemplified by Edouard Vuillard (1890s-1900s

). Edouard Manet paints Djeuner Sur L'Herbe then Olympia, in the style of Goya (The Nude Maja 1800), causing a scandal in the French Salon. Era of French Impressionism, the name given by French critic Louis Leroy in 1874 to the works of Claude Monet, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Alfred Sisley, Camille Pis sarro and others, after seeing Monet's painting Impression: Sunrise at the first Impressionist show. Impressionists focused on the depiction of outdoor light, a lthough within a decade most of them (including Degas) had turned to painting in doors or in studios. France's greatest modern sculptor Auguste Rodin shows The Age of Bronze at the S alon. Later Rodin masterpieces include: The Gates of Hell (1880-1917), The Burgh ers of Calais (1884-86) and The Kiss (1888). The Pointillist neo-Impressionist artist Georges Seurat creates Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte, employing the optical colour-theory of Divisi onism. The prolific period of the Dutch Expressionist Vincent Van Gogh, which includes his masterpieces: Vase With Twelve Sunflowers (1888), Wheatfield with Crows (189 0), Portrait of Dr. Gachet I and II (1890), Starry Night (1889) and others. Era of Post-Impressionism, led by Paul Cezanne, Paul Gauguin, Georges Seurat, He nri de Toulouse-Lautrec and Vincent Van Gogh. Highpoint of Arts and Crafts Movem ent. Emergence of Secession and Art Nouveau, two general art movements which sought t o break away from the traditions of the official academies. They also sought to unite the fine arts of painting and sculpture and architecture with the applied arts of design and decoration. Their avant-garde exhibitions caused great contro versy. In Vienna, where it was known as Jugenstil or Sezessionstil, the breakawa y was led by Gustav Klimt. A later member was Egon Schiele, known for his distur bing portraits and Art Nouveau cityscapes. National Gallery of British Art founded in London, popularly known as the Tate G allery. Death of Aubrey Beardsley, the brilliant 25-year old Art Nouveau illustrator. The emergence of Expressionism. The expressionist art school/style begins with V an Gogh (d.1890), includes Edvard Munch (eg. The Scream, 1893), and the French F auvism movement (1898-1908) led by Henri Matisse; also the Parisian/Italian pain ter Amedeo Modigliani. German Expressionism, a major offshoot, included: The Bri dge (Die Brucke) (1905-13) founded by Karl Schmidt-Rottluff and Ernst Ludwig Kir chner, was an influential expressionist group based in Dresden. The Blue Rider ( Der Blaue Reiter) (1909-14) expressionist group was formed in Munich, the home o f the avant-garde Neue Kunstler Vereiningung (New Artist Association) by the Rus sian born Wassily Kandinsky. New Objectivity (Die Neue Sachlichkeit), was a 1920 s German Expressionist group led by painters Otto Dix and Max Beckmann. Pablo Picasso. Early career: characterized by his Blue Period (c.1901-4), Rose P eriod (c.1905-7), African Period (c. 1907). During the latter, he created Les De moiselles d'Avignon, a landmark painting in the development of modern art which signalled a radical departure from the artistic ideas of the preceding ages and heralded the coming of a new artistic movement (Cubism) as well as the birth of modern abstract art. The Ashcan School founded. It comprised a small number of painters who chronicle d everyday life in New York City during the pre-war period, producing realistic and unvarnished pictures and etchings of urban streetscapes and genre scenes. Picasso combines with Georges Braque to invent the revolutionary art movement ca lled Cubism, (overturning conventional ideas of perspective and form) which emer ges in 3 stages: Prototype Cubism (c.1908-9), Analytical Cubism (c.1909-12), Syn thetic Cubism (c.1912-19). Other leading Cubist painters include Juan Gris and F ernand Leger. The chaos of World War I and the Russian Revolution (1917) shatter many conventi onal ideas in the world of painting and sculpture, leading to numerous avant-gar de movements. These include: Futurism (1909-15), which promoted a worship of mac hinery and modernity; Orphism or Simultanism (1912-13), founded by French artist Robert Delaunay, which explored the colour phenomena perceived in nature; Rayon

ism/Rayism (1912-13), Russian style of painting dominated by pictorialized 'rays of light', invented by Mikhail Larionov, Vorticism (1913-15) the first UK style to embrace Cubist ideas; Dada (1916-24) which used banal imagery to shock; Supr ematism (1913-20s) a Russian abstract art movement led by Natalie Goncharova and Kasimir Malevich; Constructivism (1917-21) a Russian avant-garde architectural art style; the Bauhaus Design School (1919-33) founded by Walter Gropius; De Sti jl (1917-31), the highly influential Dutch 'school' of geometric abstract art an d design led by Theo Van Doesburg and Piet Mondrian, also known as Neo-Plasticis m. All these styles were labelled 'degenerate' (entartete kunst) by the Nazis. In America, the era of New Realism, as personnified by Edward Hopper (1882-1967) . In addition, another style known as Social Realism portrays the everyday hards hips of the Depression era. Best known Social Realists include Ben Shahn, Jack L evine and Jacob Lawrence: all strongly influenced by the earlier Ashcan School o f New York City. In Europe, the era of Surrealism: a movement emerging out of Cubism, Dada, Freud and Communist philosophy, which aimed to fuse the conscious with the unconsciou s to create a 'super-reality'. Led by Andre Breton, Rene Magritte and Salvador D ali. A parallel art movement to Surrealism was Magic Realism, whose paintings ar e anchored in everyday reality, but with overtones of fantasy. The name was coin ed by the German art historian and critic Franz Roh in 1925, in a book entitled Nach Expressionismus: Magischer Realismus. High point of Art Deco, a style of design for furniture, jewellery, textiles and interior decor. The term was coined from the title of the seminal design exhibi tion in Paris, Exposition Internationale des Arts Decoratifs et Industriels Mode rnes. The period of Socialist Realism: a form of public propaganda art instituted by J oseph Stalin during the era of forced industrialization in Soviet Russia. Chaos and war undermines the primacy of Paris as the world centre of art, a titl e which soon devolves upon New York. In London (1938), a left-wing modern realis t group of artists establish The Euston Road School, advocating the portrayal of traditional subjects in a realist manner, to make art more understandable and s ocially relevant. Pablo Picasso paints his monumental monochrome masterpiece Guernica. New York supercedes Paris as the centre of innovation in art, Abstract Expressio nism emerges as the dominant new style. Leading lights include the so-called act ion painters led by Jackson Pollock, his wife Lee Krasner and Willem De Kooning, and Colour-Field painters, such as Mark Rothko, Barnett Newman and Clyfford Sti ll. In Europe, this type of Neo-Expressionism focused on the isolation of man (f igurative style) as in the works of Alberto Giacometti and Francis Bacon, althou gh hyper-modern movements like Spatialism (Italy) also appeared, prefacing later Performance and environmental/land artworks. The era of Pop-Art, championed by Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein, Jasper Johns an d Robert Rauschenburg. Pop-Artists employ contemporary iconic images in an antiart approach, giving commonplace articles artistic status. Meanwhile, Op-Art bec omes the avant-garde form of abstract art. The advent of Photorealism (sometimes referred to as superrealism), a form of me ticulous photo-like realism, championed by Richard Estes (street scenes with ela borate window reflections) and Chuck Close (b.1940) who specializes in huge, nec k-up portraiture. John Doherty is Ireland's best known photorealist artist. 1980-present

2000 2004 2006 2008

2009 ------------------------------------------------------------------------The Age of Postmodernism -------------------------------------------------------------------------From roughly this point onwards, Modern Art (c.1860-1979) or 'Modernism' becomes superceded by what art-historians like to call 'Post-Modernism'. In a nutshell, Modernism (ie. the main movements which emerged during the period 1860-mid 1960 s) asserted the supremacy of a particular style or interpretation of reality, no rmally considerably at odds with the prevailing academic tradition. In contrast, contemporary art movements take the view that the 'substance' of Modernism has performed no better, and must be dumped in favour of greater style. Post-moderni sm thus represents the triumph of style over substance. Post-modernist art typic ally employs new media and materials, stresses the importance of 'communication' from artist to audience and seeks to renew the big question: 'what is art?' Muc h of this is reflected in contemporary art forms such as Assemblage, Conceptual Art, Installation, Video art, Performance, and Happenings, as well as the works of such showmen as Damien Hirst, Gilbert and George, the environmental 'artists' Christo and Joanne-Claude, and the nude installationist Spencer Tunick. While t he ephemeral nature of this contemporary art is fully consistent with global tre nds of instant gratification, one wonders whether today's artists will be rememb ered 50, 100 or 500 years from now, and if not, whether this reflects adversely on the theory and practice of art in the 21st century. Growth of digital art, such as Giclee Prints. Garon la Pipe (1905) by Pablo Picasso sells at Sotheby's New York for $104.2 mill ion, making it the highest priced painting ever sold at auction. No 5 (1948) by Jackson Pollock, sells privately for $140 million, making it the most expensive painting ever sold. For more, see: Top 10 Most Expensive Painting s. Triptych (1976) by Francis Bacon sells at Sotheby's New York for $86.3 million, becoming the most expensive post-war work of art sold at auction, and the highes t priced work by an Irish artist. In the same year Damien Hirst sells works wort h 111 million at Sotheby's in London, while the list of top 20 contemporary artis ts is dominated by the Chinese. While prices for contemporary art plummet, Warhol's 1963 silkscreen print Eight Elvises, reportedly sells for $100 million to anonymous buyer. For a brief timeline of visual arts in Ireland, see: History of Irish Art. For more about the historical heritage and culture of Ireland, see: Irish Art: V isual Arts Ireland.