Written Output Group9
Written Output Group9
Written Output Group9
History shows the intrinsic value of art as a language that narrates the
knowledge, belief, and experience of each generation of mankind, it shows the
foundation of civilization through art, where humanity from the past to the present
stipulates their desire for a better life.
The foundation of art history can be traced back tens of thousands of years to
when ancient civilizations used available techniques and media to depict culturally
significant subject matter. Since these early examples, a plethora of art movements
have followed, each bearing their own distinct styles and characteristics that reflect the
political and social influences of the period from which they emerged. Whether you’re an
aspiring collector or simply appreciate the work of history’s great artists, studying the
major movements of the art history timeline is a worthwhile place to start.
Learning Outcome
b. Classify the various art movement and cite their characteristics such as
historical background, sociopolitical issues, influential persons, prevalent artists, art
forms and media.
c. Present the historical timeline of the arts through the various era and movement, and
Learning Contents
7. NEOCLASISM
9. IMPRESSIONISM
POST-IMPRESSIONISM
NEO-IMPRETIONISM
10. SYMBOLISM, ART NOUVEAU
14. PHOTO-REALISM
refers to the numerous paintings and engravings found in European caves and
shelters dating back to the Ice Age, approximately between 40,000 and 14,000 years
ago. The first painted cave acknowledged as being Paleolithic, meaning from the Stone
Age, was Altamira in Spain. Experts say that the art discovered there was the work of
modern humans (Homo sapiens). Cave art is generally considered to have a symbolic
or 1 religious function, sometimes both. The exact meanings of the images remain
unknown, but some experts think they may have been created within the framework of
shamanic beliefs and practices. One such practice involved going into a deep cave for a
ceremony during which a shaman would enter a trance state and send his or her soul
into the otherworld to make contact with the spirits and try to obtain their benevolence.
Most cave art consists of paintings made with either red or black pigment. The reds
were made with iron oxides (hematite), whereas manganese dioxide and charcoal were
used for the blacks. Engravings were made with fingers on soft walls or with flint tools
on hard surfaces in a number of other caves and shelters.
is famous for its Paleolithic cave paintings, found in a complex of caves 1 in the
Dordogne region of southwestern France, because of their exceptional quality, size,
sophistication and antiquity.
EGYPTIAN ART
Ancient Egyptian art must be viewed from the standpoint of the ancient
Egyptians to understand it. The somewhat static, usually formal, strangely abstract, and
often blocky nature of much Egyptian imagery has, at times, led to unfavorable
comparisons with later, and much more 'naturalistic,' Greek or Renaissance art.
However, the art of the Egyptians 1 served a vastly different purpose than that of these
later cultures.
GREEK ART
The ancient Greeks lived in many lands around the Mediterranean Sea, from
Turkey to the south of France. They had close contacts with other 1 people such as the
Egyptians, Syrians and Persians. The Greeks lived in separate city-states, but shared
the same language and religious beliefs.
ROMAN ART
The first Roman art can be dated back to 509 B.C.E., with the legendary
founding of the Roman Republic, and lasted until 330 C.E. (or much longer, if you
include Byzantine art). Roman art also encompasses a broad spectrum of media
including marble, painting, mosaic, gems, silver and bronze work, and terracotta’s, just
to name a few. The city of Rome was a melting pot, and the Romans had no qualms
about adapting artistic influences from the other Mediterranean cultures that surrounded
and preceded them. For this reason it is common to see Greek, Etruscan and Egyptian
influences throughout Roman art. This is not to say that all of Roman art is derivative,
though, and one of the challenges for specialists is to define what is "Roman" about
Roman art.
MEDIEVAL ART
The medieval period of art history spans from the fall of the Roman Empire in
300 AD to the beginning of the Renaissance in 1400 AD. Medieval art during the Middle
Ages saw many changes up to the emergence of the early Renaissance period. Early
art subjects were initially restricted to the production of Pietistic painting (religious art or
Christian art) in the form of illuminated manuscripts, mosaics and fresco paintings in
churches. There n were no portrait paintings in the art of the Middle Ages. The colors
were generally somewhat muted.
CHINESE PAINTING
The history of Chinese painting can be compared to a symphony. The styles and
traditions in figure, landscape, and bird-and-flower painting have formed themes that
continue to blend to this day into a single piece of music. Painters through the ages
have made up this "orchestra," composing and performing many movements and
variations within this tradition. It was from the Six Dynasties (222-589) to the Tang
dynasty (618- 907) that the foundations of figure painting were gradually established by
such major artists as Gu Kaizhi and Wu Daozi. Landscape painting started to become
popular in the Sui (581- 618) and Tang dynasties by the effort of Zhan Ziqian, Li Sixun,
and Wang Wei. Variations based on geographic o distinctions then took shape in the
Five Dynasties period (907-960). For example, Jing Hao and Guan Tong depicted the
drier and monumental peaks to the north while Dong Yuan and Juran represented the
lush and rolling hills to the south in Jiangnan (south of the Yangtze River). In bird-and-
flower painting, the noble Tang court decorative manner was passed down in Sichuan
through Huang Quan's style, which contrasts with the more relaxed style of Xu Xi in the
Jiangnan area.
RENAISSANCE
means a "rebirth" suggesting that the 15th and 16th centuries marked an
awakening from the "dark ages". During this period, some of history's greatest
intellectuals, authors, statesmen, scientists, and artists flourished, as global discovery
opened up new places and civilizations to European trade. And in this period, the
classical arts of Greece and Rome and its classical standards of paintings, architecture,
and structures were revived.
The most famous person in this period is Leonardo da Vinci. He was an Italian
polymath of the High Renaissance who was active as a painter, draftsman, engineer,
scientist, theorist, sculptor, and architect. He painted the Virgin and Child with Saint
John the Baptist. It depicts the Virgin Mary seated on the knees of her mother, Saint
Anne, while holding the Christ Child as Christ's young cousin, John the Baptist, stands
to the right. The figures are all shown with absolutely perfect ratios and proportions,
reflecting a Renaissance obsession with Classical ideas about beauty from symmetry.
Mary and St. Anne is idealized, but obviously very realistic, shown with incredible
emotion and natural poses.
MANNERISM
is derived from the Italian term maniera which means "style" or "manner" and it
emphasizes "self-conscious artifice above genuine portrayal". Mannerism was born as a
reaction to the harmonious classicism and naturalism of the Renaissance. Whereas
High Renaissance art emphasized proportion, balance and classical beauty, Mannerism
was inclined to exaggerate these qualities with paintings that present asymmetrical or
unnaturally elegant compositions.
Girolamo Francesco Maria Mazzola, also known as Francesco Mazzola or, more
commonly, as Parmigianino is one of the artists in this period. He was an Italian
Mannerist painter and printmaker active in Florence, Rome, Bologna, and his native city
of Parma. He painted the Madonna with the Long Neck showing a beautiful scene of
intimate emotion between mother and child. But, this is pretty different from Leonardo's
artwork. For one, Mary is no longer shown in perfect classical proportions.
BAROQUE
is derived from the Portuguese ‘barocco’ meaning ‘irregular pearl or stone’. This
word refers to something that is detailed and sophisticated. This term was first applied
to arts in 15th century Italy, specifically from 1595 to 1750. This form of art is known to
have emerged as a reaction of the Catholic artists to the newly emerged Protestant
movement. Baroque art is often viewed as a form of art which depicts violence and
darkness.
One of the artists in this period is Johannes Vermeer. He painted the Girl with a
Pearl Earring, which represents a young woman in a dark shallow space, an intimate
setting that draws the viewer's attention exclusively on her. In this painting, Vermeer
used a technique known as camera obscura to create patterns of light and dark in this
painting.
ROCOCO
is derived from the Latin word shell. It was an 18th century artistic style and is
sometimes called the 'late Baroque style'. Rococo style is considered to be a revolt
against the dull and solemn Baroque designs of the royal courts of France in Versailles.
The Rococo style of art is always distinguished by its elegant refinement which involves
different materials like shells, to give away a delicate touch to art.
François Boucher is one of the artists of this period. He painted the Triumph of Venus.
This painting is a celebration of love and lust, the sensuous flesh of the figures rendered
in modulations of creams and pinks. It possesses all of the defining qualities of the
Rococo style of the eighteenth century, cool color palette, the energetic composition,
and the erotic mythological subject matter.
NEOCLASSICISM
is the 18th and 19th century movement that developed in Europe as a reaction
to the excesses of Baroque and Rococo. It is the movement sought to return to the
classical beauty and magnificence of Ancient Greece and the Roman Empire.
One of the artists of this period is Benjamin West. He painted the Death of General
Wolfe that shows the death of Major-General James Wolfe on the Plains of Abraham at
the Battle of Quebec in 1759 during the Seven Years' War, known in the United States
as the French and Indian War. A sense of drama is conveyed as the battle ends with a
singular heroic sacrifice.
ROMANTICISM
is a movement in the arts and literature that originated in the late 18th century,
emphasizing inspiration, subjectivity, and the primacy of the individual. Romanticism is
in general words the opposite of Neoclassicism, it is romantic, passionate, sensitive,
emotional, imaginative, fantastic, and so on. It reflected the revolutionary spirit of the
times, favorite theme was nature as unpredictable and uncontrollable, emphasized
emotional restraint, purity of form and subjects that inspired morality, sought extremes
of emotion.
Example artwork in this period is the Liberty Leading the People by Eugene. It is a
painting usually associated with the July Revolution of 1830 in France. It represents the
struggle of the common people for freedom, but at the same time, she shows the
energy and excitement that was part of a revolution.
REALISM
IMPRESSIONISM
is an art movement that originated in France during the late 19th century as an
artistic reaction to the rapidly changing urban environment. It was an art style that
rejected conventional art styles such as realism and naturalism and introduced a new
form of painting to Europe. Impressionist artists painted contemporary landscapes and
scenes of modern life, especially of bourgeois leisure and recreation, instead of drawing
on past art or historical and mythological narrative for their inspiration. The name
impressionism comes from the title of Claude Monet’s painting Impression, Soleil levant
(Impression, Sunrise) which depicts the port of Le Havre, Monet's hometown.
POST-IMPRESSIONISM
One pioneering artist is Vincent van Gogh. He was a Dutch Post-Impressionist painter
who posthumously became one of the most famous and influential figures in Western
art history. He painted the Starry Night. It depicts the view from the east-facing window
of his asylum room at Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, just before sunrise, with the addition of
an imaginary village. It is dominated by a night sky roiling with chromatic blue swirls, a
glowing yellow crescent moon, and stars rendered as radiating orbs.
POST-IMPRESSIONISM
Artists (both known and unknown) and their great work of arts.
Paul Cézanne
Paul Cézanne was the father of post-Impressionism. He was born on January 19,
1839 and died of pneumonia on October 22, 1906, at the age of 67. He was a Post-
Impressionist painter from France whose work laid the foundation for the transition from
the 19th-century conception of artistic endeavor to a new and radically different world of
art in the 20th century. Cézanne is credited with bridging the gap between late 19th-
century Impressionism and Cubism, a new line of artistic inquiry that emerged in the
early 20th century. Cézanne artwork's often repetitive, exploratory brushstrokes are
distinctive and easily recognizable. He used color planes and small brushstrokes to
create complex fields. Cezanne's paintings reflect his intense study of his subjects.
One of the artwork of Paul Cézanne is the Card Players. It is a series of oil paintings
by the French Post-Impressionist artist Paul Cézanne. Painted during his final period in
the early 1890s. It is one of his most ambitious projects that occupied him for several
years and is now regarded as an important contribution to modern art. There are five
versions in the series, each with a different content and size: one is in a private
collection, the others are in the Musee d'Orsay, the Courtauld Gallery, the Barnes
Foundation, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Each painting in Cezanne's series
depicts two or more Provencal peasants smoking pipes and playing cards in silence.
The subjects are all male and are shown playing cards studiously, eyes cast downward,
intent on the game at hand.
One of the famous artwork of Vincent Van Gogh is the Starry Night. It is an oil-on-
canvas and painted in June 1889, it depicts the view from the east-facing window of his
asylum room at Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, just before sunrise, with the addition of an
imaginary village. It reflects his direct observations of the countryside from his window,
as well as the memories and emotions evoked by this view. It is dominated by a night
sky roiling with chromatic blue swirls, a glowing yellow crescent moon, and stars
rendered as radiating orbs. The Starry Night features short, painterly brushstrokes, an
artificial color palette, and a focus on luminescence.
Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec-Monfa
Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec-Monfa is one of the best-known post-Impressionist
painters and was known for immersing himself in Paris theater life in the late 19th-
century. He was born on November 24, 1864 and died from complications due to
alcoholism and syphilis on September 9, 1901, at the age of 36. He was a French
painter, printmaker, draughtsman, caricaturist, and illustrator who immersed himself in
the colorful and theatrical life of Paris in the late 19th century, resulting in a collection of
enticing, elegant, and provocative images of the times' sometimes decadent affairs. His
drawings of Parisian nightlife in the 1880s inspired his innovative posters of cabaret
singers and entertainers, as well as his now-famous advertisements for the Moulin
Rouge. Their popularity greatly helped his artistic success. He was born into an
aristocratic family and broke both of his thigh bones in a childhood accident. Neither
grew back properly. His legs remained short as an adult, while his torso was normal.
Long periods of recuperation spent drawing led to his decision to become an artist after
moving to Paris and finishing his studies. He created drawings of the characters who
frequented the Montmartre cabarets after discovering them. He was fascinated by the
local prostitutes, spending weeks in brothels documenting their lives candidly. Paintings
and artwork by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec influenced the art world for decades after his
death.
No artist has been as good as Toulouse Lautrec in bringing the Parisien theater
community to life through art, and much of his success was due to his own deep
immersion within this exciting group of people.
Paul Gauguin
Paul Gauguin was a Post-Impressionist artist from France. He was well-known
for his color experimentation and synthesized style. He was born on June 7, 1848, and
died in early May 1903, morally shaky and weakened by drug addiction and frequent
bouts with illness, at the age of 54, from the degenerative effects of syphilis. Gauguin's
experimental use of color and synthetist style, which were distinct from Impressionism,
were unappreciated until after his death. He spent ten years in French Polynesia near
the end of his life. Paintings from this time frame depict local people or landscapes. He
influenced the French avant-garde as well as many modern artists, including Pablo
Picasso and Henri Matisse, and he is well known for his friendship with Vincent and
Theo van Gogh. Gauguin's art gained popularity after his death, partially due to the
efforts of dealer Ambroise Vollard, who organized exhibitions of his work late in his
career and assisted in the organization of two major posthumous exhibitions in Paris. As
a painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramist, and writer, Gauguin was a key figure in the
Symbolist movement. Under the influence of the cloisonnist style, his expression of the
inherent meaning of the subjects in his paintings paved the way for Primitivism and the
return to the pastoral. He was also a well-known artist who used wood engraving and
woodcuts.
A Woman Holding a Fruit, also known as Eu haere ia oe, is a beautiful and critically
acclaimed painting by Paul Gauguin. The artwork was created in 1983 and the direct
translation of the original title is "Where are you going?". The artwork depicts a lush
vision of a South Seas maiden idealized. It also examines the colonial judgments that
the South Seas face. However, true to his nature, Paul Gauguin added some unique
elements to this painting style. The painting is done in a post-impressionist style, with a
flat space and a rhythmic repetition of lines, forms, and color areas. The artwork
appears to be straightforward. Critics, on the other hand, have discovered its complexity
by dissecting its contents and their meanings. A woman is holding fruit in the foreground
of the image. Three other female characters can be seen in the background, one of
whom is holding a baby. The women in the painting have distinct Tahitian features. Paul
Gauguin, a Tahitian artist, uses these contrasting allusions to create a contradiction in
Tahitian culture. Color and vegetation impressions are featured in the painting. It also
depicts the appearances and rituals of Tahitian natives, which Paul used as inspiration
for much of his artwork. "Woman Holding a Fruit," like most of Paul Gauguin's paintings,
was inspired by his time in Tahiti. This work exemplifies Gauguin's fondness for
eroticizing Oceania. Gauguin's first impression of the South Seas during his trip there is
reflected in the painting. Tahiti, according to Paul, embodied the primitive and unspoiled
life he had always imagined, as well as the natural harmony he desired.
Georges Seurat
Georges Seurat was a French post-Impressionist artist. He is known for inventing
the painting techniques of chromoluminarism and pointillism, and he used conté crayon
for rough-surfaced drawings on paper. He was born on December 2, 1859, and died on
March 29, 1891, at the age of 31, in Paris at his parents' home. The cause of his death
is uncertain but have been variously attributed to meningitis, pneumonia, infectious
angina, and diphtheria. Seurat's artistic personality combined sensitivity with a passion
for logical abstraction and mathematical precision. His innovative techniques relied on
the viewer's ability to blend the color spots into a wider range of tones.
NEO-IMPRESSIONISM
Neo-impressionism is the name given to the post-impressionist work of Georges
Seurat, Paul Signac and their followers who, inspired by optical theory, painted using
tiny adjacent dabs of primary colour to create the effect of light
This technique was based on the colour theories of M-E Chevreul, whose De la
loi du contraste simultanée des couleurs (On the law of the simultaneous contrast of
colours) was published in Paris in 1839 and had an increasing impact on French
painters from then on, particularly the impressionists and post-impressionists generally,
as well as the neo-impressionists.
SYMBOLISM
FAUVISM (1900–1935)
Led by Henri Matisse, Fauvism built upon examples from Vincent van Gogh and
George Seurat. As the first avant-garde, 20th-century movement, this style was
characterized by expressive use of intense color, line, and brushwork, a bold sense of
surface design, and flat composition.
As seen in many of the works of Matisse himself, the separation of color from its
descriptive, representational purpose was one of the core elements that shaped this
movement. Fauvism was an important precursor of Cubism and Expressionism.
EXPRESSIONISM (1905–1920)
The roots of Expressionism can be traced to Vincent van Gogh, Edvard Munch,
and James Ensor. Prominent groups including Die Brücke (The Bridge) and Der Blaue
Reiter (The Blue Rider) formed so artists could publish works and express their ideals
collectively.
CUBISM (1907–1914)
Cubism was established by Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque, who rejected
the concept that art should copy nature. They moved away from traditional techniques
and perspectives; instead, they created radically fragmented objects through
abstraction. Many Cubist painters’ works are marked by flat, two-dimensional surfaces,
geometric forms or “cubes” of objects, and multiple vantage points. Often, their subjects
weren’t even discernible.
FUTURISM
Futurism was a modern art movement which started in Italy in the early 20th
century. Futurism celebrated technology, progress, and dynamism of the modern life.
The founder of Futurism was Italian poet Filippo Tommaso Marinetti (1876 – 1944) who
announced the birth of the movement in his Futurist Manifesto published in 1909.
Futurist painters called for art that would capture dynamism, change, and energy of the
modern world.
ABSTRACT OR NON-OBJECTIVE
Abstract and non-objective art have existed as long as art itself. Cave paintings
like those from Lascaux, France are abstract. These flat, simplified animal shapes
would inspire artist thousand of years later, during the twentieth century. The
abstraction lies in the earliest and oldest forms of art are works of abstraction.
To understand abstract and non-objective art, one must first consider
representational art attempts to copy the natural experience of seeing. In the early
twentieth century, abstract art was a response to representational art. Abstraction us
changing the natural way of seeing something. Distorted proportions, unnatural colors
and the simplification of shapes are just a few ways an artist might change how a
certain subject is depicted.
DADAISM
SURREALISM
Surrealism defies logic. Dreams and the working of the subconscious mind
inspire surrealistic (French for “super-realism”) filled with the strange image andbizarre
juxtapositions. Creative thinkers have always toyed with reality but in the early 20 th
century surrealism as a philosophic and cultural movement.
CONSTRUCTIVISM
was a Russian avant-garde art movement that used geometric shapes and
industrial materials. The movement emphasized building and science, rather than
artistic expression, and its goals went far beyond the realm of art. The
Constructivists sought to influence architecture, design, fashion, and all mass-
produced objects.
ABSTRACT EXPRESSIONISM
It is often characterized by gestural brushstrokes or mark-making, and the
impression of spontaneity. It Monumental in scale and ambition, Abstract Expressionist
painting evokes the distinctly American spirit of rugged individualism. Valuing freedom,
spontaneity and personal expression, the movement naturally produced a variety of
technical and aesthetic innovations.
OPTICAL ART
The word optical is used to describe things that relate to how we see. Artists use
shapes, colours and patterns in special ways to create images that look as if they are
moving or blurring.
It help you to make your brain sharper. They make you think hard about how a
certain thing is possible, lead you to understand the working of a human brain, and how
interesting it is.
POP ART
art based on modern popular culture and the mass media, especially as a critical
or ironic comment on traditional fine art values. It calls pop art In reference to its
intended popular appeal and its engagement with popular culture, it was called Pop art.
The three (3) characteristics of it are “appropriating image from mass media elevating
the ordinary, repetition”.
1. Andy Warhol\
2. Roy Lichtenstein
3. James Rosenquist
4. Claes Oldenburg
5. Ed Ruscha
MINIMALISM
It is an extreme type of abstract art that usually is depicted through simplistic
shapes and hard edges, all while exposing the essence of the forms and materials
used. It focuses in geometry, line, and color. Minimalist artwork uses precise, hard-
edged forms, often squares and rectangles, to create nonhierarchical, mathematically
regular compositions.
Describe movements in carious forms of art and design, especially visual art and
music, where the work is stripped down to its most fundamental form. It is identifies with
development in post World War II Western Art. Most strongly with American visual arts
in the late 1960’s and early 1970’s
CONCEPTUAL ART
is an art for which the idea (or concept) behind the work is more important than
the finished art object. It emerged as an art movement in the 1960s and the term usually
refers to art made from the mid 1960s to the mid-1970s. It is characterized by its use of
text, as well as imagery, along with a variety of ephemeral, typically everyday materials
and "found objects.
Conceptual art is a movement that prizes ideas over the formal or visual
components of artworks. An amalgam of various tendencies rather than a tightly
cohesive movement, Conceptualism took myriad forms, such as performances,
happenings, and ephemera.
In conceptual art the idea or concept is the most important aspects of the work.
When artist uses a conceptual form of art, it means that all of the planning and
decisions are made beforehand and the execution is a perfunctory affair. That planning
is, essentially, a set of strategies.
PHOTO REALISM
is a genre of art that encompasses painting, drawing and other graphic media, in
which an artist studies a photograph and then attempts to reproduce the image as
realistically as possible in another medium. Also an artwork so realistic that the
boundaries between reality and imagination. Although the term can be used broadly to
describe artworks in many different media, it is also used to refer specifically to a group
of paintings and painters of the American art movement that began in the late 1960’s
and early 70’s.
INSTALLATION ART
• BODY ART
Land art is made directly in the landscape by sculpting the land itself or by
making structures in the landscape with natural materials. Land art, also known as
earth art, was part of the wider conceptual art movement in the 1960s and 1970s.