This document provides an overview of major art movements throughout history, beginning with prehistoric art and continuing through modern movements such as Pop Art and Assemblage. Key periods and styles discussed include Ancient Greek and Roman art, Renaissance art, Baroque, Impressionism, Surrealism, Cubism, and Abstract Expressionism. Critical characteristics and examples are given for each movement.

1. WESTERN ART
MOVEMENTS

2. PRE-HISTORIC
ART
It laid down the foundations of what people would know as art
today.
Noticeable features in these artworks are the exaggerated features,
and the attempt at mimicking the subjects.
Venus of Willendorf
Lascaux Cave Paintings

3. PRE-HISTORIC
AGEAN ART
Each of these art styles move toward more
lifelike proportions and the use of colors and
space.
TherearethreedistinctperiodsofAgeanArt:
Cycladic Art Minoan Art Mycenaean Art
Art of the inhabitants of the Agean Sea before
the Greek civilization.

4. ANCIENT GREEK ART
Greek art popularized many of
the elements of art that is seen
today, especially in sculptures
and architecture.
These artworks are marked
with more realistic proportions,
geometric balance, and
enormous size and scale.
Discus Thrower, 460-
450 BC
The Parthenon

5. ANCIENT ROMAN ART
Roman Art carries with it
characteristics of Greek and Etruscan
Art.
Many of the sculptures and paintings
of Rome continued the use of realistic
likenesses when portraying humans
much like Greek Art, perhaps even
more so than them.
They also pioneered the use of
concrete.
Old Roman Portrait
Bust, Unknown Subject
Roman Wall
Painting
The Pantheon
Marcus

6. CLASSICAL
ANTIQUITY ART
The early AD centuries were
marked with the
monotheistic belief in Jesus
Christ, in contrast to the
polytheistic belief of Greece
and Rome.
People in Rome had started
to shift their beliefs to
Christianity, and was
solidified when it was
legalized on 313. Thus,
Christian Art had started to
flourish.

7. EARLY MEDIEVAL
EUROPE
Christian Art still continued on in this era, due to the rise of Charlemagne
as king of Rome who agreed to continue and revive the old styles of art as
well as portraying Jesus Christ.
Drogo Sacramentary Cross of Lothair Ahenny High Cross

8. GOTHIC EUROPE
This era of art gave rise to many of the
famous cathedrals that can still be seen
today, such as the Notre-Dame.
Rib-like ceilings, stained glass windows,
and distinct architecture for the time
solidified what a church’s design would be,
and would influence their creation to this
day.
Gothic Cathedral Ceiling Lichtfield Cathedral Stained Glass
Notre Dame Cathdral

9. EARLY RENAISSANCE
• Artists began to aspire for realism in
depicting the human form and space of their
works and paintings and shied away from
the Byzantine art style.
• Mythology became an additional subject
matter aside from religion.
Birth of Jesus
Sandro Botticelli

10. HIGH
RENAISSANCE
• It represented the climax of the
goals or the Early Renaissance
which is to realistically represent
figures in the provided space with
credible motion and appropriately
decent style.
• The most well known artists from
this phase are Leonardo da Vinci,
Raphael, and Michelangelo. Their
paintings and frescoes are among
the most widely known works of
art in the world.
The Last Supper
Leonardo da Vinci
The School of Athens
Raphael

11. MANNERISM
• Mannerism came after the High Renaissance and before the Baroque art
period.
• It is characterized by exaggerated forms, humor, and lavish decorations.
Madonna with the Long
Neck
Parmigianino
The Burial of Count
Orgaz
El Greco

12. BAROQUE
• Baroque is a period of artistic style that started
around 1600 in Rome, Italy, and spread
throughout the majority of Europe.
• The Baroque style is characterized by
exaggerated motion and clear detail used to
produce drama, exuberance, and grandeur in
sculpture, painting, architecture, literature,
dance, and music. Baroque iconography was
direct, obvious, and dramatic, intending to
appeal above all to the senses and the emotions.
Massacre of the Innocents
Peter Paul Rubens
St. Peter's Square, Vatican
Gian Lorenzo Bernini

13. ROCOCO
In 18th century Europe, the Rococo style became
prevalent in interior design, painting, sculpture,
and the decorative arts. A reaction to the rigidity
of Baroque style, the frivolous and playful Rococo
first manifested itself with interior design and
decorative work.
Rococo style in painting echoes the qualities
evident in other manifestations of the style
including serpentine lines, heavy use of
ornament as well as themes revolving around
playfulness, love, and nature.
The Blue Boy
Thomas Gainsborough

14. NEOCLASSICISM
Art movement that inspired by the classical art and
culture of the ancient Greece and Rome civilization.
Napoleon on his Imperial Throne
Jean- Auguste- Dominique Ingres
US Capitol Building, Washington
William Thornton

15. ROMANTICIS
M
This features the desire for freedom i.e. not exclusive
of the political sense but also encompassing freedom
of thought, of feeling, of action, of worship, of speech,
and of taste
Insane Woman
Theodore Gericault
Abbey in The Oak
Caspar David Friedrich

16. Three Women in a Village Church
Wilhelm Leibl

17. REALISM
This movement argued that only the things of one’s
own time- what people could see for themselves – were
“real”.
Olympia
Edouard Manet
Third Class Carriage
Honore Daumier

18. IMPRESSIONISM
Unlike realism that is
after absolutely fixed
and precise depiction of
social events,
Impressionism
attempted to capture
fleeting moments that
convey elusiveness and
impermanence of
images and conditions.
Ruin Cathedral
Claude Monet
La Place du Theatre Francais
Camille Pissaro

19. POST-IMPRESSIONISM
Post- Impression as an art movement systematically examined the properties and
expressive qualities of line, pattern, form, and color than the Impressionism did.
Night Cafe
Vincent van Gogh

20. Family Reunion
Frederic Bazille

21. ART
NOVEAU
This art movement is an important international
architectural and design movement that
attempted to create art based on natural forms
that could be mass-produced for a large
audience. It is distinctively ornamental.
Victor
Horta
Louis Comfort
Tiffany

22. FAUVISM (1898 - 1908)
First avant garde movement in France in the
20th century, Fauve painters “wild beasts”
were the first to break with Impressionism.
Founded by André Derain and Henri Matisse.
CHARACTERISTICS:
• Bold
• Undisguised brushstrokes
• High-keyed, vibrant and saturated colors
• simplified forms
Pinède à Cassis (Landscape) (1907)
Artist: André Derain

23. EXPRESSIONISM (1905 - 1933)
• Emerged as a response to humanity’s
increasing conflict of worldview and
the loss of spirituality and authenticity
• Founded by Vincent Van Gogh, Edvard
Munch, and James Enchor
CHRCTERISTICS:
• Distortion of form
• Deployment of strong colors to convey a
variety of anxiety and yearning.
• Swirling , swaying, and exaggerated
brushstrokes to emphasize the
emotions of the artist
Street, Berlin (1913)
Ernst Ludwig Kirchner

24. CUBISM (1907 - 1922)
• Cubists rejected the concept that art should copy
nature.
• Emphasized on the 2 dimensionality of canvas.
• Founded by Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque.
Les Demoiselles d'Avignon (1907)
Artist: Pablo Picasso
CHARACTERISTICS:
• open form, piercing figures and objects
by letting the space flow through them
• Geometric forms
• Shallow, relieflike space
• Multiple or contrasting vantage forms

25. SURREALISM (1924 -1966)
• Seeks to explore the unconscious mind as
a way of creating art, resulting in
dreamlike, sometimes bizarre imagery
across endless mediums. Focuses on
illustrating the mind’s deepest thoughts.
automatically when they surface.
• 2 styles/methods in surrealist painting
• Hyperrealism/ Hyper-realistic style -
objects were depicted in crisp detail and
with the illusion of three-dimensionality,
emphasizing their dream-like quality.
• Automatism - the act of automatic or
uncensored recording of the thoughts and
images that emerge into an artist’s mind
Mama, Papa is
Wounded! (1927)
Artist: Yves Tanguy
Forest and Dove,
1927
Max Ernst

26. ABSTRACT IMPRESSIONISM (1946 - 1960S)
A form of abstract painting in which artists use colors instead of object representations in
their artwork. Its goal is to express wisdom, mental focus, and inner emotions.
Black and Red
(1954)
Artist: Sam Francis

27. ASSEMBLAGE
• A means of creating works of art almost entirely from
pre-existent elements, where the artist’s contribution
was to be found more in making the links between
objects, putting them together, than making objects
from the beginning.
• It was a means of transition from Abstract
Expressionism to Pop Art.
Still Life (1914)
Artist: Pablo Picasso
Earth Eclipse
Artist: Joseph Cornell

28. • A medium that involves the
rendering of optical images on light-
sensitive surfaces. It is used for
documenting, understanding, and
interpreting the world. It has radically
contributed to the evolution of visual
representation, in part by allowing for
the documentation of a moment in
time.
• Photography served as an
important tool for documenting
Performance art in the 1950s.
Trolley, New Orleans
Artist: Robert Frank
Untitled
Artist: Seydou Keïta

29. POP ART (MID 1950S - LATE 1970S)
• Reintroduced identifiable imagery. It celebrated commonplace objects and people of
everyday life, seeking to elevate popular culture to the level of fine art.
• It is a direct descendant of Dadaism in the way it mocks the established art world by
appropriating images from the street, the supermarket, the mass media, and presents it as
an art. It is a reaction against Abstract Expressionism
I Was a Rich Man’s
Plaything (1947)
Artist: Eduardo Paolozzi
Campbell’s Soup I
(1968)
Artist: Andy Warhol