Jhan Reach K.
Enago Activity 4 (History Timeline)
CBET 17- 304A
ART HISTORY TIMELINE
The history of art is immense, the earliest cave paintings pre-date writing by almost
27,000 years! If you're interested in art history, the first thing you should do is take a
look at this table which briefly outlines the artists, traits, works, and events that make up
major art periods and how art evolved to present day:
Art Periods/ Characteristics Chief Artists and Historical Events
Movements Major Works
Stone Age Cave painting, Lascaux Cave Ice Age ends (10,000
(30,000 b.c.– fertility goddesses, Painting, Woman b.c.–8,000 b.c.); New
2500 b.c.) megalithic structures of Willendorf, Stone Age and first
Stonehenge permanent settlements
(8000 b.c.–2500 b.c.)
Mesopotamian Warrior art and Standard of Ur, Sumerians invent writing
(3500 b.c.–539 narration in stone Gate of Ishtar, (3400 b.c.); Hammurabi
b.c.) relief Stele of writes his law code (1780
Hammurabi's b.c.); Abraham founds
Code monotheism
Egyptian (3100 Art with an afterlife Imhotep, Step Narmer unites
b.c.–30 b.c.) focus: pyramids and Pyramid, Great Upper/Lower Egypt (3100
tomb painting Pyramids, Bust of b.c.); Rameses II battles
Nefertiti the Hittites (1274 b.c.);
Cleopatra dies (30 b.c.)
Greek and Greek idealism: Parthenon, Athens defeats Persia at
Hellenistic (850 balance, perfect Myron, Phidias, Marathon (490 b.c.);
b.c.–31 b.c.) proportions; Polykleitos, Peloponnesian Wars (431
architectural Praxiteles b.c.–404 b.c.); Alexander
orders(Doric, Ionic, the Great's conquests
Corinthian) (336 b.c.–323 b.c.)
Roman (500 Roman realism: Augustus of Julius Caesar
b.c.– a.d. 476) practical and down to Primaporta, assassinated (44 b.c.);
earth; the arch Colosseum, Augustus proclaimed
Trajan's Column, Emperor (27 b.c.);
Pantheon Diocletian splits Empire
(a.d. 292); Rome falls (a.d.
476)
Indian, Chinese, Serene, meditative Gu Kaizhi, Li Birth of Buddha (563 b.c.);
and art, and Arts of the Cheng, Guo Xi, Silk Road opens (1st
Japanese(653 Floating World Hokusai, century b.c.); Buddhism
b.c.–a.d. 1900) Hiroshige spreads to China (1st–2nd
centuries a.d.) and Japan
(5th century a.d.)
Byzantine and Heavenly Byzantine Hagia Sophia, Justinian partly restores
Islamic (a.d. 476– mosaics; Islamic Andrei Rublev, Western Roman Empire
a.d.1453) architecture and Mosque of (a.d. 533–a.d. 562);
amazing maze-like Córdoba, the Iconoclasm Controversy
design Alhambra (a.d. 726–a.d. 843); Birth
of Islam (a.d. 610) and
Muslim Conquests (a.d.
632–a.d. 732)
Middle Ages Celtic art, St. Sernin, Viking Raids (793–1066);
(500–1400) Carolingian Durham Battle of Hastings (1066);
Renaissance, Cathedral, Notre Crusades I–IV (1095–
Romanesque, Gothic Dame, Chartres, 1204); Black Death (1347–
Cimabue, Duccio, 1351); Hundred Years'
Giotto War (1337–1453)
Early and High Rebirth of classical Ghiberti's Doors, Gutenberg invents
Renaissance culture Brunelleschi, movable type (1447);
(1400–1550) Donatello, Turks conquer
Botticelli, Constantinople (1453);
Leonardo, Columbus lands in New
Michelangelo, World (1492); Martin
Raphael Luther starts Reformation
(1517)
Venetian and The Renaissance Bellini, Giorgione, Council of Trent and
Northern spreads north- ward Titian, Dürer, Counter-Reformation
Renaissance to France, the Low Bruegel, Bosch, (1545–1563); Copernicus
(1430–1550) Countries, Poland, Jan van Eyck, proves the Earth revolves
Germany, and Rogier van der around the Sun (1543
England Weyden
Mannerism Art that breaks the Tintoretto, El Magellan circumnavigates
(1527–1580) rules; artifice over Greco, Pontormo, the globe (1520–1522)
nature Bronzino, Cellini
Baroque (1600– Splendor and flourish Reubens, Thirty Years' War between
1750) for God; art as a Rembrandt, Catholics and Protestants
weapon in the Caravaggio, (1618–1648)
religious wars Palace of
Versailles
Neoclassical Art that recaptures David, Ingres, Enlightenment (18th
(1750–1850) Greco-Roman grace Greuze, Canova century); Industrial
and grandeur Revolution (1760–1850)
Romanticism The triumph of Caspar Friedrich, American Revolution
(1780–1850) imagination and Gericault, (1775–1783); French
individuality Delacroix, Turner, Revolution (1789–1799);
Benjamin West Napoleon crowned
emperor of France (1803)
Realism (1848– Celebrating working Corot, Courbet, European democratic
1900) class and Daumier, Millet revolutions of 1848
peasants;en plein
airrustic painting
Impressionism Capturing fleeting Monet, Manet, Franco-Prussian War
(1865–1885) effects of natural Renoir, Pissarro, (1870–1871); Unification
light Cassatt, Morisot, of Germany (1871)
Degas
Post- A soft revolt against Van Gogh, Belle Époque (late-19th-
Impressionism Impressionism Gauguin, century Golden Age);
(1885–1910) Cézanne, Seurat Japan defeats Russia
(1905)
Fauvism and Harsh colors and flat Matisse, Kirchner, Boxer Rebellion in China
Expressionism surfaces (Fauvism); Kandinsky, Marc (1900); World War (1914–
(1900–1935) emotion distorting 1918)
form
Cubism, Pre– and Post– Picasso, Braque, Russian Revolution
Futurism, World War 1 art Leger, Boccioni, (1917); American women
Supremativism, experiments: new Severini, franchised (1920)
Constructivism, forms to express Malevich
De Stijl (1905– modern life
1920)
Dada and Ridiculous art; Duchamp, Dalí, Disillusionment after
Surrealism(1917– painting dreamsand Ernst, World War I; The
1950) exploring the Magritte, de GreatDepression (1929–
unconscious Chirico, Kahlo 1938); World War II
(1939–1945) and Nazi
horrors; atomic bombs
dropped on Japan (1945)
Abstract Post–World War II: Gorky, Pollock, Cold War and Vietnam
Expressionism pure abstraction and de Kooning, War (U.S. enters 1965);
(1940s–1950s) expression without Rothko, Warhol, U.S.S.R. suppresses
and Pop Art form; popular art Lichtenstein Hungarian revolt (1956)
(1960s) absorbs Czechoslovakian revolt
consumerism (1968)
Postmodernism Art without a center Gerhard Richter, Nuclear freeze movement;
and and reworking and Cindy Sherman, Cold War fizzles;
Deconstructivism mixing past styles Anselm Kiefer, Communism collapses in
(1970– ) Frank Gehry, Eastern Europe and
Zaha Hadid U.S.S.R. (1989–1991)
