Art History
Executive Summary About Art History By Shelley Esaak, About.com
art history
Put on your sensible shoes as we embark on an extremely abbreviated tour of art through the ages.
Art From the Stone Age to the Fall of Rome – 30,000 BC – 400 AD
Prehistoric Eras
30,000-10,000 BC – Paleolithic peoples were strictly hunter-gatherers, and life was tough. Humans made a gigantic leap in abstract thinking and began creating art. Subject matter concentrated on two things: food, as seen in Cave Art, and the necessity to create more humans.
Painting also became more symbolic and abstract.
Ethnographic Art – It should be noted that “stone age” art continued to flourish around the world for a number of cultures, right up to the present. “Ethnographic” is a handy term that here means: “Not going the way of Western art.”
Ancient Civilizations
More importantly, they unified natural and formal elements in art.
3200-1340 BC – Egypt – Art in ancient Egypt was art for the dead. The Egyptians built tombs, pyramids (elaborate tombs), the Sphinx (a tomb) and decorated tombs with colorful pictures of the gods they believed ruled in the afterlife.
800-323 BC – Greece – The Greeks introduced humanistic education, which is reflected in their art.
509 BC-337 AD – The Romans – As they rose to prominence, the Romans first attempted to wipe out Etruscan art, followed by numerous attacks on Greek art. Architecture became monumental, sculptures depicted re-named gods, goddesses and prominent Citizens and, in painting, the landscape was introduced and frescos became enormous.
Medieval to Early Renaissance Art – 400-1400
526-1390 – Byzantine Art
Not an abrupt transition, as the dates imply, the Byzantine style gradually diverged from Early Christian art, just as the Eastern Church grew farther apart form the Western.
622-1492 – Islamic Art
To this day, Islamic art is known for being highly decorative.
375-750 – Migration Art
Art during this period was necessarily small and portable, usually in the form of decorative pins or bracelets. The shining exception to this “dark” age in art occurred in Ireland, which had the great fortune of escaping invasion.
750-900 – The Carolingian Period
900-1002 – The Ottonian Period
This didn’t work out either, but Ottonian art, with its heavy Byzantine influences, breathed new life into sculpture, architecture and metalwork.
1000-1150 – Romanesque Art
For the first time in history, art is described by a term other than the name of a culture or civilization.
1140-1600 – Gothic Art
“Gothic” was first coined to (derogatorily) describe this era’s style of architecture, which chugged on long after sculpture and painting had left its company.
1400-1500 – Fifteenth-Century Italian Art
Artists flocked in for a share of the largess, built, sculpted, painted and began actively questioning “rules” of art. Art, in turn, became noticeably more individualized.
1495-1527 – The High Renaissance
Renaissance artists, after the death of Raphael, continued to refine painting and sculpture but they did not seek a new style of their own.
1325-1600 – The Renaissance in Northern Europe
Art took a back seat to these other happenings, and styles moved from Gothic to Renaissance to Baroque in sort of a non-cohesive, artist-by-artist basis.
1600-1750 – Baroque Art
Humanism, the Renaissance and the Reformation (among other factors) worked together to leave the Middle Ages forever behind, and art became accepted by the masses. If art or architecture could be gilded, embellished or otherwise taken over the “top”, Rococo ferociously added these elements. As a period, it was (mercifully) brief.
1750-1880 – Neo-classicism vs. Romanticism
Of the two, Romanticism had far more impact on the course of art from this time forward.
Realistic art increasingly detached itself from form, and embraced light and color.
1860s-1880 – Impressionism
Where Realism moved away from form, Impressionism threw form out the window. Mission accomplished, art was free to spread out now in any way it chose.
Modern Art – 1880-Present
The Impressionists changed everything when their art was accepted.
1885-1920 – Post-impressionism
Meanwhile, in Italy, Futurism was formed. What began as a literary movement moved into a style of art that embraced machines and the industrial age.
1945-Present – Abstract Expressionism
World War II (1939-1945) interrupted any new movements in art, but art came back with a vengeance in 1945.
Late 1950s-Present – Pop and Op Art
In a reaction against Abstract Expressionism, Pop Art glorified the most mundane aspects of American culture and called them art. It was fun art, though. In the last thirty-odd years, art has changed at lightning speed. We’ve seen the advent of performance art, conceptual art, digital art and shock art, to name but a few new offerings
The visual arts are art forms that focus on the creation of works which are primarily visual in nature, such as traditional plastic arts (drawing, painting, sculpture, architecture, and printmaking), modern visual arts (photography, video, and filmmaking), and design and crafts. Many artistic disciplines (performing arts, language arts, textile arts, and culinary arts) involve aspects of the visual arts as well as other types, so these definitions are not strict.
stamps and stamping ink. The same decoration is on the backside of the frame as well. The background behind the fairy was painted and covered with tissue paper. I glued the whole sandwich together, tucking the little Tyvec flap between the layers, creating a fold-out page for my especially beautiful fairy.
Then I used different types of fonts and text colors to write my wishes for Dani ~ love, curiosity, patience, courage, grace, kindness, strength, humor, tolerance, understanding, charity, friendship, success, dreams, individuality, faith, hope, and imagination. I printed this page out on heavy paper and ran it through the Xyron machine. I used a circle punch (which miraculously happened to be the perfect size) to punch out the words and stick them on the tags. I used all kinds of glitter, stamps, and stamp ink to decorate the individual tags. Then I tied them onto the fibers. I wrapped a piece of silver wire around the middle of the of the tags and twisted it closed. I stuck the straight end of the wire and through a hole I made at the top of the altered board book’s spine. I twisted it closed and let the yarn and tags jangle and dangle over the side of the book. So much fun!!!
