Chapter 3

The Major Artistic Periods and Movements

In This Chapter

Identifying the difference between a movement and a period

Exploring the main art periods

Delving into the major art movements

Art history is divided into periods and movements. In this chapter, I take you chronologically through these divisions, giving you a quick-reference description of the major ones.

Understanding the Differences between a Period and a Movement

Art movements and art periods represent the art of a group of artists over a specific time period. The difference between a period and a movement has to do with duration and intention.

Art movements

An art movement is launched intentionally by a small group of artists who want to promote or provoke change. A movement is usually associated with an art style and often an ideology. Like the women’s movement or the civil rights movement, an art movement may push for a new perspective on specific issues. For example, members of the movement may oppose war or a particular political system. Sometimes they write manifestos that spell out their goals and hold movement meetings.

Typically, the artists in a movement hang out together and show their work in group exhibitions. Their art shares stylistic features and focuses on similar subjects.

Art periods

An art period is usually not driven by conscious choice on the part of artists. Periods typically outlast movements and develop gradually due to widespread cultural or political pressures.

Often, an art period is based on a parallel historical era. For example, Early Christian art refers to art made during the early Christian era. The artists painted Christian subjects and shared a set of religious beliefs. But they didn’t write manifestos or hold meetings in which they discussed ideology and stylistic guidelines. Art historians group their art together because they lived at the same time, painted similar subjects, and were driven by a similar spirit — the spirit of their religion, culture, and age.

An Overview of the Major Periods

An art period can last anywhere from 20,000 years to 50 years, depending on the rate of cultural change. Cave art began around 30,000 B.C. and ended with the Paleolithic period, or Old Stone Age, between 10,000 B.C. and 8,000 B.C., depending on where you lived with respect to the receding Ice Age. In those days, culture changed about as fast as a glacier melts — and this was before global warming. The Neoclassical period, on the other hand, only lasted about 65 years, from 1765 to 1830. The Industrial Revolution accelerated the rate of social and cultural change after the mid-18th century.

Sometimes the distinction between a period and a movement is fuzzy. The High Renaissance — which some people call a subperiod within the 150-year Renaissance, and others call a movement — only lasted from 1495 to 1520 because two of the three principal High Renaissance artists died in 1519 and 1520. (You can’t have a movement — or a period! — with only one guy, even if it’s Michelangelo!)

Mannerism, too, was once considered a period, but is now widely viewed as a movement that started in the mid-1520s with works by Rosso Fiorentino, Pontormo, and Parmigianino. The thing is, these artists didn’t call themselves Mannerists — they thought their artfulness and style were just extensions of what Raphael and others would have done in the High Renaissance. Conscious or not, they inaugurated a “manner” of artwork, together with Michelangelo, that was stylistically different and became a movement.

Prehistoric period (30,000 B.C.– 2500 B.C.)

The prehistoric art period corresponds with the Old Stone Age and New Stone Age, when people used stone tools, survived by hunting and gathering (in the Old Stone Age) or agriculture (in the New Stone Age), and didn’t know how to write.

Although they couldn’t write, Old and New Stone Agers definitely knew how to paint and sculpt. In the Old Stone Age (the Paleolithic period), artists painted pictures of animals on cave walls and sculpted animal and human forms in stone. Their art seems to have been part of a magical or shamanistic ritual — an early form of visualization — to help them hunt. Even the act of painting was probably part of these rituals.

Painting went downhill during the New Stone Age (the Neolithic period), despite the fact that they had better stone tools, herds of domesticated animals, and permanent year-round settlements. But architecture really got off the ground with massive tombs like Stonehenge, temples, and the first towns.

Mesopotamian period (3500 B.C.–500 B.C.)

The Mesopotamian period covers several civilizations:

The Sumerians, who invented writing (known as cuneiform) and monotheistic (one-god) religion (Abraham was a Sumerian)

The Akkadians

The Assyrians

The Babylonians

Mesopotamian art is usually war art, propaganda art, or religious and tomb art. Though each civilization contributed different features to Mesopotamian culture — the warlike Assyrians developed visual narrative, for example — the art developed in the same region (the land between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers), and the different peoples who ruled the area influenced each other. Mesopotamian art is often macho, but also refined, and sometimes comic and highly imaginative.

Egyptian period (3100 B.C.–332 B.C.)

Egyptian art could be called the “art of the dead,” because most Egyptian art was made for the tomb. The Egyptian style is symmetrical, rigid but elegant, for the most part unchanging, highly colorful, and symbolic. Egyptian artists also used visual narrative, but their picture stories were less dramatic and realistic than the art in Mesopotamia (see the preceding section).

Minoan, Ancient Greek, and Hellenistic art

Because of the conquests of Alexander the Great (356 B.C.–323 B.C.) and the later Roman love affair with Greek culture, the art produced in the city-states of Ancient Greece spread from to the British Isles to India, changing the world forever. The earlier Minoans influenced Greek culture, but their achievements were small in comparison.

Minoan period (1900 B.C.–1350 B.C.)

Minoan culture and art had a short life compared to Egyptian and Mesopotamian art. Minoan art is playful and focuses on life, sport, religious rituals, and daily pleasures. It is the first art to truly celebrate day-to-day life.

Ancient Greek period (c. 850 B.C.–323 B.C.)

Greek art is divided into the archaic (old-fashioned) and classical periods and moves increasingly toward realism. The Greeks invented techniques like red-figure painting, the contrapposto pose (see Chapter 7), and perspective to allow artists to represent the world realistically. But as real looking as classical Greek art is, it is also idealized (made to look better than real life). Greek statues don’t have pot bellies, zits, or receding hairlines. Art of the classical period (when Greek art peaked) is known for its otherworldly calm and beauty.

Hellenistic period (323 B.C.–30 B.C.)

The Hellenistic period begins with Alexander the Great’s death and ends with Cleopatra’s snakebite suicide. It is Greek art stripped of much of its idealism (though not in all cases). Most Hellenistic statues are still physically perfect, but instead of being imperturbably serene, they can express anger, bitter sorrow, or intense fear. The Hellenistic period was the first time these emotions were dramatically and realistically portrayed in art.

Etruscan and Roman art

You could call Etruscan and Roman art copycat culture. Each borrowed extensively from the Greeks, but each contributed something of its own.

Etruscan period (8th century B.C.–4th century B.C.)

The Etruscans who lived in Etruria (modern-day Tuscany) didn’t leave much architecture behind them, and the Romans who conquered them built over most of their settlements. But the Romans didn’t disturb Etruscan tombs. So we know Etruscan life mainly through their tomb art, which was a surprisingly happy affair — apparently, the early Etruscans viewed death as a pleasant continuation of life.

Roman period (300 B.C.– A.D. 476)

The Romans also copied the Greeks. But art historians don’t call the Roman period a Greek replay. Like the Etruscans, the Romans didn’t merely imitate — they added something to the Greek style. In architecture, the Romans contributed the Roman arch, an invention that helped them to build the biggest system of roads and aqueducts the world has ever seen. In painting and sculpture, the Romans took realism even farther than the Hellenistic Greeks. The busts of senators and early emperors look middle-aged, tough, and worldly.

Byzantine and Islamic art

Byzantine art is Christian art of the Eastern Roman Empire after the fall of Rome in A.D. 476. Islamic art and architecture spread across the Near East, North Africa, and Spain following the wave of Islamic conquests between A.D. 632 and A.D. 732.

Byzantine period (A.D. 500– A.D. 1453)

Byzantine art is a marriage of late Roman splendor, Greek artistic traditions, and Christian subject matter. Byzantine art is symbolic and less naturalistic than the Greek and Roman art that inspired it. It points to the hereafter rather than the here and now.

The most popular form of painting in the Byzantine period was icon painting. Icons (holy images of Jesus, Mary, and the saints) were used in prayer. Byzantine artists also liked to work in mosaic (pictures made with tiny pieces of cut stone or glass).

Islamic period (7th century–)

Like Moses, Mohammed condemned graven images, so there aren’t many representations of human beings in Islamic art. The Middle Eastern and North African countries that converted to Islam were also the guardians of the most sophisticated knowledge of mathematics and geometry. Some of this knowledge seems to have filtered into the artwork. Islamic artists often incorporate incredibly intricate and colorful patterns in carpets, manuscripts, ceramics, and architecture.

Medieval period (500–1400)

Medieval art is mostly Christian art created in Europe after the fall of Rome and before the Renaissance. Its most familiar art forms are stained-glass windows, illuminated manuscripts, silver and golden reliquaries (elaborate containers for holy relics — bones and other body parts of saints), architectural reliefs, and Romanesque and towering Gothic cathedrals. Medieval art is steeped in mysticism and symbolism, with a focus on the Christian afterlife.

Renaissance period

Renaissance means “rebirth.” In the Renaissance period, artists returned to classical models in painting, sculpture, and architecture. Christian religious art still dominated the market, but the stories and images in the art tended to celebrate man and things of this world. The rising value of the individual led to many portrait commissions, a genre (class of art) that had become all but extinct in medieval art. With such a here-and-now focus, realism became as important as symbolism. To make paintings and sculptural reliefs look three-dimensional (like windows opening onto the real world), Renaissance artists worked out the mathematical laws of perspective.

High Renaissance (1495–1520)

Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, and Raphael defined the movement known as the High Renaissance even though their artwork sometimes looks very different from each other’s. All three strove for perfection and often found it in stable, geometrically shaped compositions.

The High Renaissance ideal is “high” because these three artists portrayed idealized subjects, even if the subject was a restless and youthful warrior like Michelangelo’s immortal David. An aura of beauty and calm is the hallmark of High Renaissance art.

Mannerism (1530–1580)

After mastering nature, artists began to intentionally distort it. Mannerist artists elongated human figures, created contorted postures, and distorted landscapes, which were often charged with symbolism and erotic or spiritual energy. Art was no longer a window into an idealized version of the real world, but a window into the fruitful and fanciful imaginations of artists.

Baroque and Rococo art

Baroque artists traded the geometrical composure of the Renaissance for drama that involved the viewer. Rococo art dropped the drama of Baroque art while taking its ornamental side to extremes.

Baroque period (1600–1750)

Baroque developed during the Counter-Reformation (the 16th-century Catholic Church reform effort) and became a propaganda weapon in the religious wars between Catholicism and Protestantism in the 16th and 17th centuries. The Catholic Church wanted art to have a direct and powerful emotional appeal that would grab the attention of ordinary people and bind them to the Catholic faith. Baroque cathedrals stuffed with dramatic sculptures and paintings filled the bill.

In Protestant lands, Baroque artists went out of their way to downplay the importance of saints, preferring more symbolic subjects for moral painting like landscapes charged with meaning, genre scenes (pictures of everyday events that read like fables), and paintings of fruit that suggest the temporariness of life on earth. Kings and princes also enlisted Baroque artists to celebrate their wealth and power.

Rococo period (1715–1760s)

Rococo is Baroque art on a binge. This was an art favored by kings, princes, and prelates who had too much money to spend. The ornamental quality of Rococo painting, relief, sculpture, and architecture is often more important than the subject matter.

Neoclassicism and Romanticism

Neoclassicism and Romanticism occurred during the Enlightenment and the American, French, and Industrial revolutions. In a sense, Neoclassicism and Romanticism were not only periods but movements. Some conscious choices were made by Neoclassical and Romantic artists: They chose their style of art usually to convey a political and/or spiritual message.

Neoclassicism (1765–1830)

Neoclassicism (neo means “new”) is yet another return to Greco-Roman classicism. It is a dignified art that depicts men and women of the period as if they were Greek gods and heroes. Their poses and often grandiose gestures are larger than life.

Romanticism (late 1700s–early 1800s)

Romantic artists shunned the Industrial Revolution, attacked the excesses of kings, and championed the rights of the individual. Some took refuge in nature; others sought an invigorating mixture of fear and awe in sublime landscapes and seascapes. Imagination with a capital I and Nature with a capital N were the wellsprings of their unbridled creativity.

An Overview of the Major Movements

When the trend toward “movements” kicked in, periods pretty much got pushed out of the picture. Since the 19th century, the direction of art is no longer dictated by church or state, but by the artists themselves.

Realism (1840s–1880s)

Realists reasserted the integrity of the physical world by stripping it of what they viewed as Romantic dreaminess or fuzziness. They painted life with a rugged honesty — or at least they claimed to.

The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood (1848–1890s) and the Arts and Crafts movement (1850s–1930s)

In the mid-19th century, the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood in England created an art designed to counter the negative effects of the Industrial Revolution: gritty cities, poverty, and so on. They rejected the materialistic society fed by the Industrial Revolution and backpedaled to the mysticism of the Middle Ages, often depicting Arthurian romances and other medieval legends in their paintings and stained-glass windows. The Arts and Crafts movement, founded by William Morris, one of the Pre-Raphaelites, preferred the hands-on medieval workshop to the sweatshops of capitalism. They favored handmade furniture and decorative arts produced in small workshops and artist colonies.

Impressionism (1869–late 1880s)

The Impressionists painted slices of everyday life in natural light: people on a picnic, a walk in the park, an outdoor summer dance. But Impressionist art doesn’t freeze life the way a classical painting does. Instead, by capturing the subtle changes of atmosphere and shifting light, Impressionist paintings convey the fleeting quality of life.

Post-Impressionism (1886–1892)

Post-Impressionism is not a movement, per se, but a classification of a group of diverse artists like Vincent van Gogh and Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec who painted in the wake of Impressionism.

Fauvism and Expressionism

Both of these early 20th-century movements pushed art in the direction of abstraction by simplifying or distorting form and by using expressive rather than naturalistic colors.

Fauvism (1905–1908)

Fauvism was a short-lived movement headed by Henri Matisse and André Derain. The Fauves simplified form by stylizing it. They also flattened perspective, which made their paintings look less like windows into the world and more like wallpaper. The leading Fauve, Henri Matisse, believed that art should be inspiring and decorative, fun to look at. Fauve art does have a wallpaper appeal. It’s art you could hang in a child’s playroom — if your kid weren’t clamoring for Big Bird and Elmo.

Expressionism (1905–1933)

Expressionism is two German movements: Die Brücke (The Bridge) and Der Blaue Reiter (The Blue Rider). Each of these movements had slightly different goals, but they employed similar techniques and painted similar subjects.

Expressionist artists distort the exterior of people and places to express the interior. On an Expressionist canvas, a scream distorts not just the face but the whole body. Similarly the madness inside an insane asylum twists the architecture itself so that it, too, looks “mad.”

Cubism and Futurism

Both Cubism and Futurism fractured physical reality into bite-size units, but for very different reasons.

Cubism (1908–1920s)

Cubism could be called the artsy side of Einstein’s theory of relativity. All is relative; what you see depends upon your point of view. Georges Braque and Pablo Picasso invented Cubism so people could observe all views of a person or an object at once, from any angle.

Futurism (1909–1940s)

Unlike most art movements, instead of turning their backs on the machine age, the Futurists embraced technology, speed, and, unfortunately, violence and Fascism. They felt Fascism was the only type of government that could carry out the cultural housecleaning they believed that society needed. Their movement was based mostly in Italy and pre-Revolution Russia.

Dada and Surrealism

World War I caused unprecedented destruction and misery in Europe. Disillu- sioned artists reacted by rejecting the traditional values and art forms of the culture that they believed triggered the war.

Dada (1916–1920)

The madness of World War I spawned Dada, which started in neutral Switzerland and quickly spread across Europe. Their “art” was to mock the prevailing culture, including mainstream art, with demonstrations, “actions,” and mock-art. The Dadaists assumed that rational thinking had caused the war; therefore, the antidote to war must be irrational thinking.

Surrealism (1924–1940s)

Surrealism was inspired by Dada and Freud’s theories of the unconscious. Like the Dadaists, the Surrealists (many of whom had been Dadaists) hoped to fix humanity by snubbing the rational world. But instead of mocking earlier art and art traditions like the Dadaists, they sought ways to get in touch with the deeper, instinctual reality of one’s unconscious. They painted their dreams, practiced free association, and mixed up the rational order of life in their art by juxtaposing objects that don’t normally or rationally fit together: a vacuum cleaner plugged into a tree, a locomotive driving out of a fireplace, a melting clock hanging from a dead tree branch.

Suprematism, Constructivism, and De Stijl: Nonobjective Art

Fauvism, Cubism, Dada, and Surrealism freed artists to explore reality in nontraditional ways. The Suprematism, Constructivism, and De Stijl art movements side-stepped representational art completely, moving into the realm of pure abstraction, or nonobjective art.

Suprematism (1913–1934)

The leader of Suprematism, Kazimir Malevich, strove to free feeling from form, disassociate it from representational art. He believed that photographic realism — like you see in the Mona Lisa — places a wall between the observer and the essential feeling that the artist is trying to express. He believed that most people only see the picture and don’t experience the “inner feeling.” So he stripped away the representation or picture to liberate the feeling.

Constructivism (1914–1934)

Constructivist Russian artists refused to make art for galleries or museums. They wanted to create a practical art that ordinary workers could use and that represented the modern utopia that Socialism was supposedly creating.

De Stijl (1917–1931)

De Stijl is artistic geometry, achieved with a few shapes and the primary colors — red, blue, and yellow — along with black and white. The head of the De Stijl movement, Piet Mondrian, believed that there are two types of beauty: subjective (which he linked to the world of the senses) and objective (which he considered universal and abstract). De Stijl artists wanted to depict the objective type of beauty, so they avoided photographic representation (realism) because it awakens subjective feelings.

Abstract Expressionism (1946–1950s)

After World War II, it was as if American artists dropped a bomb on German Expressionism, splattering the representational side of it and leaving only the naked expression. In German Expressionism, emotion distorted the face of reality (the way human faces are distorted by extreme feelings, but are still recognizable). In Abstract Expressionism, emotion distorts the face of reality beyond all recognition. One of the most famous American Abstract Expressionists, Jackson Pollock, achieved this effect by throwing paint on his canvases.

Pop Art (1960s)

In the early ’60s, Pop Art artists decided to co-opt the new styles of advertising, the fantasies of stardom, and the hunger for ever-new stuff that characterizes post–World War II America. Their art is sometimes hard to distinguish from the movies and ads they borrowed from.

Conceptual art, performance art, and feminist art (late 1960s–1970s)

In the late 1960s, the art world fractured into so many minor movements that tracking them all is difficult. In one of the most radical of these movements, artists believed that they didn’t need to produce any artwork at all (rather like Dada) but simply generate concepts or ideas. In reality, this conceptual art, as it’s known, is often a type of performance or “happening” that can be very spontaneous and audience-driven. Sometimes it’s simply writing on a wall. One early conceptual artist camped out with a coyote for a week in an art gallery to get people thinking about the treatment of Native Americans. Feminist art is linked with conceptual art in that it focuses on the inequalities faced by women and tries to provoke change. The movement has no set style. It might include a painting on canvas or a group of women dressed up in gorilla costumes crashing a public event to pass out pamphlets.

Postmodernism (1970–)

Postmodern means life “after Modernism.” And Modernism refers to art made between about 1890 and 1970. Postmodernist thinkers view contemporary society as a fragmented world that has no coherent center, no absolutes, no cultural baseline. But it is often built on the past, which has all these qualities in abundance.

How do you capture the mosaic of the mixed-up Postmodern world on canvas or in a building? Postmodernist artists and architects sometimes do it by borrowing from the past and by mixing old styles until they wind up with a new style that reflects contemporary society.