MODULE 1

LESSON4: ART HISTORY

Art History Timeline

                                 by Jesse Bryant Wilder
 
The history of art is immense, the earliest cave paintings pre-date writing by almost
27,00 years! If you’re interested in art history, the first thing you should do is to take a look at
this table which briefly outlines the artists, traits, works and events that make up major art
periods and how art developed to present day:
 

Art Characteristics Chief Artists Historical Events

Periods/Movements and Major
Works

Ice Age ends (10,000

B.C.-8,000 B.C.); New
Stone Age (30,000 Cave painting, Lascaux Cave Stone Age and first
B.C. -2500 fertility goddesses, Painting, Woman permanent settlements
B.C.) megalithic of Willendorf, (8,000 B.C.-2500 B.C.)
structures Stonehenge

Sumerians invent
writing (3400 B.C.);
Hammurabi writes his
Mesopotamian (3500 Warrior art and Standard of Ur, law code (1780 B.C.);
B.C.-539 B.C.) narration in stone Gate of Ishtar, Abraham founds
relief Stele of monotheism
Hammurabi’s
Code

Narmer unites
Upper/Lower Egypt
(3100 B.C.); Rameses
Egyptian  Art with an afterlife Imhotep, Step II battles the Hittites
(3100 B.C.-30 B.C.) focus; pyramids and Pyramid, Great (1274 B.C.); Cleopatra
tomb painting Pyramids, Bust of dies (30 B.C.)
Nefertiti

Athens defeats Persia

at Marathon (490
Greek idealism; B.C.); Peloponnesian
Greek and Hellenistic balance, perfect Parthenon, Wars (431 B.C.-404
(850 B.C.-31 B.C.) proportions; Myron, Phidias, B.C.); Alexander the
architectural orders Polykleitos, Great’s conquests
(Doric, Ionic, Praxiteles (336 B.C.-323 B.C)
Corinthian)
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LESSON4: ART HISTORY
Julius Caesar
assassinated (44
B.C.); Augustus
Roman Roman realism: Augustus of proclaimed Emperor
(500 B.C.-A.D. 476) practical and down Primaporta, (27 B.C.); Diocletian
to earth; the arch Colloseum, splits Empire (A.D.
Trajan’s Column, 292);
Pantheon Rome falls

Birth of Buddha (563

B.C.); Silk Road open
(1st century B.C.);
Indian, Chinese and Serene, Meditative Gu Kaizhi, Li Buddhism spreads to
Japanese art, and Arts of the Cheng, Guo Xi, China (1st-2nd
(653 B.C.-A.D. 1900) Floating World Hokusai, centuries A.D.) and
Hiroshige Japan (5th
century A.D.)

Justinian partly
restores
Western Roman
Empire (A.D. 533-
Byzantine and Islamic Heavenly Byzantine Hagia Sophia, A.D.562); Iconoclasm
(A.D. 476-A.D. 4153) mosaics; Islamic Andrei Rublev, Controversy (A.D.
architecture and Mosque of 726-A.D. 843); Birth of
amazing maze-like Cordoba, The Islam (A.D. 610) and
design Alhambra Muslim Conquests
(A.D. 632-A.D. 732)

Viking Raids (793-

1066); Battle of
Hastings (1066);
St. Sernin, Crusades I-IV (1095-
Middle Ages (500- Celtic Art, Durham 1204); Black Death
1400) Carolingian Cathedral, (1347-1351); Hundred
Renaissance, Chartres, Years’ War (1337-
Romanesque, Cimabue, Duccio, 1453)
Gothic Giotto

Gutenberg invents
movable type (1447);
Ghiberti’s Doors, Turks conquer
Early and High Rebirth of Classical Brunelleschi, Constantinople
Renaissance (1400- culture Donatello, (1453); Columbus
1550) Botticelli, lands in New World
Leonardo, (1492); Martin Luther
Michelangelo, starts Reformation
Raphael (1517)

Council of Trent and

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LESSON4: ART HISTORY
Counter-Reformation
The Renaissance Bellini, Giorgione, (1545-1563);
Venetian and spreads north-ward Titian, Durer, Copernicus proves the
Northern to France, the Low Bruegel, Bosch, Earth revolves around
Renaissance (1430- Countries, Poland, Jan van Eyck, the Sun (1543)
1550) Germany, and Rogier van der
England Weyden

 Mannerism (1527- Art that breaks the Tintoretto, El Magellan

1580) rules; artifice over Greco, circumnavigates the
nature Pontormo, globe (1520-1522)
Bronzino, Cellini

    Baroque (1600- Splendor and Reubens, Thirty Years’ War

1750) flourish for God; art Rembrandt, between Catholiccs
as a weapon in the Caravaggio, and Protestants
religious wars Palace of (1618-
Versailles 1648)

Enlightenment (18th
century); Industrial
Neoclassical (1750- Art that recaptures David, Ingres, Revolution (1760-
1850) Greco-Roman Greuze, Canova 1850)
grace and grandeur

American Revolution
(1775-1783); French
Revolution (1789-
Romanticism The triumph of Caspar Friedrich, 1799); Napoleon
(1780-1850) imagination and Gericault, crowned emperor of
individuality Delacroix, Turner, France (1803)
Benjamin West

Realism  Celebrating working Corot, Courbet, European democratic

(1848-1900) class and peasants; Daumier, Millet revolutions of 1848
en plein air,
rustic painting

Franco-Prussian War
(1870-1871);
Impressionism Capturing fleeting Monet, Manet, Unification of
(1865-1885) effects of natural Renoir, Pissari, Germany (1871)
light Cassatt, Morisot,
Degas
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LESSON4: ART HISTORY
Belle Epoque (late
19th
Post-Impressionism A soft revolt against Van Gogh, century Golden Age);
(1885-1910) Impressionism Gauguin, Japan defeats Russia
Cezanne, Seurat (1905)

Fauvism and Harsh colors and Matisse, Kirchner, Boxer Rebellion in

Expressionism flat surfaces Kandinsky, Marc China (1900); World
(1900-1935) (Fauvism); Chagall War (1914-1918)
emotion distorting
film

Cubism, Futurism, Pre and Post World Picasso, Braque, Russian Revolution
Supremativism, War 1 art Leger, Boccioni, (1917); American
Constructivism,  experiments: new Severini, Malevich women franchised (!
De Stijl forms to express 920)
(1905-1920) modern life

Disillusionment after
World War I; The
Ridiculous art, Duchamp, Dali, Great Depression
Dada and Surrealism painting dreams Ernst, Magritte, de (1929-1938); World
(1917-1950) and exploring Chirico, Kahlo War II (1939-1945)
unconscious and Nazi horrors;
atomic bombs
dropped
on Japan (1945)

Cold War and Vietnam

War (U.S. enters
Abstract Post-World War II; Gorky, Pollock, de 1965);
Expressionism pure abstraction Kooning, Rothko, U.S.S.R suppresses
(1940s-1950s) and expression Warhol, Hungarian revolt
And without form; Lichtenstein (1956)
Pop Art (1960s) popular art absorbs Czechoslovakian
consumerism revolt (1968)

Nuclear freeze
movement; Cold War
Postmodernism and Art without a center Gerhard Richter, fizzles; Communism
Deconstructivism and reworking and Cindy Sherman, collapses in Eastern
(1970) mixing past styles Anselm Kiefer, Europe and U.S.S.R.
Frank Gehry, (1989-1991)
Zaha Hadid
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LESSON4: ART HISTORY
Focus on the characteristics and chief events under each art period and movement. 
 
With groups, create an art history timeline. Answer the following questions:

1. If you were to go back in time, what era or movement would you like to live? Why?
2. Whose artist would you like to meet? Why?
Self-assessment questions:
1. Who are the artists and their works that made up major art periods?
2. How would you describe the era or movement?
3. How does art evolve to present day?