I’m actually supposed to be doing work now, but it’s boring so instead here is a timeline of art movements! Please feel free to add to the list and descriptions when you are free, so we can all refer to it in future. You can edit the post itself. Anyway the descriptions are off my memory (which is often faulty) so please correct the post if you see something wrong.

As you will find out, I got tired of doing this at approximately Post-Impressionism, so please add on from there.

A short and concise of Western art movements since forever:

Medieval art (200 – 1430)

  • Used tempera that dried really really fast
  • Weird proportions

Renaissance (1300 – 1602)

  • Human potential, idealised forms, use of myths to showcase humanism
  • Proportion
  • Leonardo da Vinci, Sandro Botticelli, Michelangelo

Baroque (1630 – 1730)

  • DRAMA, heightened emotions, illusions
  • Use of contraposto (S-curves) for action and dynamism, lots of drapery, trompe l’oeil
  • Bernini, Rembrandt, Peter Paul Rubens, Caravaggio (his name reminds me of Carvanha)

Rococo (1720 – 1780)

  • Swirly decoration, frivolous and pornographic paintings of rich people having fun
  • Watteau, Boucher

Neo-Classicism (1750 – 1830)

  • Morals! Patriotism! Revolution! No more decadent lifestyles!
  • Copied from Greek Classical sculptures, stiff poses, dramatic lighting
  • Jacques-Louis David, Ingres

Romanticism (1790 – 1880)

  • Extreme emotions, especially faced with overwhelming nature, against scientific rational thought
  • Exotic locations, magnificent landscapes
  • Francisco Goya, J.M.W. Turner (namesake of Turner Prize), John Constable, Géricault, Delacroix

Photography invented in 1825

Realism (1830 – 1870)

  • Miserable lives of everyday common people
  • Naturalistic, no drama
  • Gustave Courbet, Jean-Baptiste-Siméon Chardin, Millet, Repin (Communist, kitsch according to Clement Greenberg)

Modern art descends upon us

Impressionism (1863 – 1890)

  • Capturing the moment, light, en plein air
  • Painterly, daubs of pure colour next to each other, paint applied impasto, cropping
  • Monet, Edgar Degas, Cezanne, Pissaro, Renoir, Sisley, Manet

Post-Impressionism (1886 – 1905)

  • Impressionistic style but with more meaning
  • Vincent van Gogh: swirly brushstrokes to convey state of mind and emotions
  • Paul Cezanne: restore order and structure
  • Paul Gauguin: primitivism, Tahitian women
  • Henry Matisse: Fauvism (the wild beasts!)
  • Seurat: Pointillism

Expressionism (1905 – 1930)

  • Die Brück
  • Der Blau Reiter

Cubism (1907 – 1914)

  • Analytic
  • Synthetic
  • Picasso (Les Demoiselles d’Avignon), Braque

Futurism (1910 – 1930)

Dada (1916 – 1930)

  • Against contemporary values of art (‘anti-Art’)
  • Deliberately does not appeal to sense of aesthetics
  • Guillaume Apollinaire, Marcel Duchamp, Max Ernst, George Grosz, Tristan Tzara, Man Ray

De Stilj aka Neoplasticism (1917 – 1931)

  • Spiritual harmony through pure abstractions, essentials of form and colour
  • Horizontal and vertical lines, primary colours, black and white
  • Piet Mondrian, Theo van Doesburg

Surrealism (1920s – )

  • My goodness it’s not over yet
  • Elements of surprise, unusual juxtapositions, subconscious
  • Automatism, collage, frottage (texture rubbings), exquisite corpse
  • Giorgio de Chirico, Salvador Dali, Rene Magritte, Alberto Giacometti

Constructivism (1920s – )

Art Deco (1920s – 1930s)

Abstract Expressionism (1940s – )

  • Spontaneous, expressive, subconscious creation
  • Jackson Pollock: action painting
  • Mark Rothko: colour field painting
  • Willem de Kooning: violent and grotesque

Pop Art (mid-1950s – )

  • Popular culture, mass-production, banal, kitschy
  • Andy Warhol, Richard Hamilton, Roy Lichtenstein, Tom Wesselmann, David Hockney

Minimalism (1960 – )

Contemporary Art

Postmodernism (present)

Fluxus Art (early-1960s – late-1970s)

Performance Art (present)

Conceptual Art (1960s – )

Photorealism (late-1960s – early-1970s)

Installation Art (1970s – )

There you go! Please add to this list when you are free! I shall sticky it on the sidebar (if I can) for easy reference.

Cheers! tigershark