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Prehistory — The foggy years before written history
Upper Paleolithic
The mysterious line between pre human and post human
40000 BCE-10000 BCE
Neolithic
Tools, livestock, farming — and big, big rocks
12000 BCE-2000 BCE
Bronze Age
A new metal catapults humanity out of the stone age
3200 BCE-600 BCE
Iron Age
When you have iron you have power
1200 BCE-800 CE
Ancient World — The invention of writing to the fall of Rome
Ancient Egypt
Super power of all super powers.
4000 BCE-30 BCE
Mesopotamia
Poetry, war, and the invention of law
3500 BCE-1000 BCE
Aegean Civilizations
The lost faces of the ancient world
3000 BCE-1200 BCE
Ancient China
Three dynasties birth Chinese art and philosophy.
2070 BCE-256 BCE
Ancient Greece
Know Thyself
800 BCE-31 BCE
The Etruscans
A mysteriously happy people at the fringes of the classical world
768 BCE-100 BCE
Ancient Rome
The roads make the empire
753 BCE-530 CE
The Celts
Death & Gold
800 BCE-43 CE
Classical India
When India held the largest economy in the world for 1500 years
230 BCE-550 CE
The Iberians
The warlike tribes of ancient Spain
600 BCE-500 CE
Kingdom of Kush
A Nubian Empire rivals Egypt for 1000 years
2000 BCE-400 CE
Middle Ages — Feudalism and the rise of organized religion
Byzantine Art
The proliferation of Christian art
330 CE-1453
Medieval Art
Religion, feudalism and lots of gold leaf.
476 CE-1492
Medieval Persian Art
Persia brings a wealth of art, poetry, and mysticism to Islam.
651 CE-1500
Islamic Dynastic Art
When you don't paint people, things get beautifully, powerfully decorative.
661 CE-1243
Viking Age
Wolves among sheep
793 CE-1066
Khmer Art
The God-kings and stone cities of Cambodia
800 CE-1431
Gothic Art
The race for height
1144-1500
Song Dynasty
Finding the sublime in nature's power
960 CE-1127
Yuan Dynasty
1271-1368
Age of Discovery — Trans-continental travel and the enlightenment
Italian Renaissance
Cultural rebirth though intellectual inquiry
1350-1500
Northern Renaissance
How Humanism beats down Feudalism with the printing press
1420-1650
Spanish Renaissance
Religion and the laws of perspective.
1492-1600
Mughal Art
Power, sophistication, luxury and might.
1500-1800
Mannerism
Tension, distortion and ice-cold style
1520-1600
Edo Period
Art, culture, and NO OUTSIDERS
1603-1868
Qing Dynasty
Benevolent emperors and the height of literature and art
1644-1912
The Enlightenment
Dare to Know
1685-1815
Western Esoteric Art
The best truth is secret truth
1690-1947
Baroque
The drama of deep color and shadow
1600-1725
Academic Art
Allegory, craft, and the unrelenting dictatorship of the Academy
1661-1900
Rococo
Opulent, playful embrace of the ornate — 18th century swag.
1715-1774
Neoclassicism
Classical imagery, democratic ideals, and the bloody hands of change.
1760-1830
Ming Dynasty
Orderly government and social stability
1368-1644
Kingdom of Kongo
500 years of spirit objects and power plays
1390-1891
Industrial Revolution — Mass production, the camera, and a return to nature
Romanticism
Artistic revolt against the Age of Enlightenment
1800-1860
Barbizon School
A small village in France, a gathering of artists.
1830-1870
Pre Raphaelites
Love-lorn teenagers drag art back to the future
1848-1900
Hudson River School
An American fraternity of mountain worshipers
1825-1870
Early Photography
Nature's pencil: light!
1826-1860
Realism
Truth, accuracy, and the absence of personal bias
1850-1880
Meiji Art
The end of feudalism begins with the search for knowledge
1868-1912
Impressionism
Light and movement as the crux of human perception
1860-1900
Post-Impressionism
Beyond nature, toward emotional simplicity.
1886-1905
Early Modernism
Tradition be damned.
1870-1900
Modernism — World wars and the rejection of tradition
Vienna Secession
"To every age its art. To art its freedom."
1897-1905
Art Nouveau
Out with the old, in with the sexy
1890-1910
Symbolism
A mystic search for meaning and psychological truth.
1880-1910
Fauvism
"A pot of paint has been flung in the face of the public"
1900-1910
Expressionism
A more authentic, anxious, and grotesque reality
1905-1933
Futurism
Blood, speed and violence.
1909-1944
Cubism
"We only wanted to express what was in us..."
1910-1930
Suprematism
Taking refuge in the square.
1913-1924
Dada
Dada is anti-dada!
1916-1924
De Stijl
The art of the perfectly straight line
1917-1931
Constructivism
Art should only serve society.
1919-1935
Surrealism
Art created without reason, aesthetics or morality.
1924-1965
Art Deco
Geometry, ornamentation, and lots and lots of money
1920-1940
Minimalism
What you see is what you see
1950-2000
Abstract Expressionism
It's not a picture, it's an event
1940-1960
Hanoi School
Colonialism vs Tradition
1925-1981
Social Realism
Realism as a weapon
1900-1950
Post Modernism
For those who didn't like the Modern.
1940-
Harlem Renaissance
An explosion of black culture in America
1918-1936
Zaire School of Popular Painting
Art as history, protest and education in the DRC
1975-2010
Shona Sculpture
Open the rocks to discover the fruit inside
1960-
