Timeline of Art

"To every age its art. To art its freedom."

Vienna Secession

Out with the old, in with the sexy

Art Nouveau

A mystic search for meaning and psychological truth.

Symbolism

"A pot of paint has been flung in the face of the public"

Fauvism

A more authentic, anxious, and grotesque reality

Expressionism

Blood, speed and violence.

Futurism

"We only wanted to express what was in us..."

Cubism

Taking refuge in the square.

Suprematism

Dada is anti-dada!

Dada

The art of the perfectly straight line

De Stijl

Art should only serve society.

Constructivism

Art without reason, aesthetics or morality

Surrealism

Geometry, ornamentation, and lots and lots of money

Art Deco

It's not a picture, it's an event

Abstract Expressionism

What you see is what you see

Minimalism

Colonialism vs Tradition

Hanoi School

Realism as a weapon

Social Realism

For those who didn't like the Modern

Post Modernism

An explosion of black culture in America

Harlem Renaissance

Art as history, protest and education in the DRC

Zaire School of Popular Painting

Open the rocks to discover the fruit inside

Shona Sculpture

Artistic revolt against the Age of Enlightenment

Romanticism

A small village in France, a gathering of artists.

Barbizon School

Love-lorn teenagers drag art back to the future

Pre Raphaelites

An American fraternity of mountain worshipers

Hudson River School

Nature's pencil: light!

Early Photography

Truth, accuracy, and the absence of personal bias

Realism

The end of feudalism begins with the search for knowledge

Meiji Art

10,000 islands, 1800 cultures and languages

Oceanic Art

Light and movement as the crux of human perception

Impressionism

Beyond nature, toward emotional simplicity.

Post-Impressionism

Tradition be damned.

Early Modernism

Cultural rebirth though intellectual inquiry

Italian Renaissance

How Humanism beats down Feudalism with the printing press

Northern Renaissance

Religion and the laws of perspective.

Spanish Renaissance

Power, sophistication, luxury and might.

Mughal Art

Tension, distortion and ice-cold style

Mannerism

Art, culture, and NO OUTSIDERS

Edo Period

Benevolent emperors and the height of literature and art

Qing Dynasty

Dare to Know

The Enlightenment

The best truth is secret truth

Western Esoteric Art

The drama of deep color and shadow

Baroque

Allegory, craft, and the unrelenting dictatorship of the Academy

Academic Art

Opulent, playful embrace of the ornate — 18th century swag.

Rococo

Classical imagery, democratic ideals, and the bloody hands of change.

Neoclassicism

Orderly government and social stability

Ming Dynasty

500 years of spirit objects and power plays

Kingdom of Kongo

The proliferation of Christian art

Byzantine Art

Religion, feudalism and lots of gold leaf.

Medieval Art

Persia brings a wealth of art, poetry, and mysticism to Islam.

Medieval Persian Art

When you don't paint people, things get beautifully, powerfully decorative.

Islamic Dynastic Art

Wolves among sheep

Viking Age

The God-kings and stone cities of Cambodia

Khmer Art

The race for height

Gothic Art

Finding the sublime in nature's power

Song Dynasty

Yuan Dynasty

The original American Empire

Inca Empire

Blood and conquest

The Aztecs

Floating cities and stone heads facing the sea

Classical Oceania

Super power of all super powers.

Ancient Egypt

4000 BCE-30 BCE

Poetry, war, and the invention of law

Mesopotamia

3500 BCE-1000 BCE

The lost faces of the ancient world

Aegean Civilizations

3000 BCE-1200 BCE

Three dynasties birth Chinese art and philosophy.

Ancient China

2070 BCE-256 BCE

Know Thyself

Ancient Greece

A mysteriously happy people at the fringes of the classical world

The Etruscans

768 BCE-100 BCE

The roads make the empire

Ancient Rome

Death & Gold

The Celts

The largest economy in the world for 1500 years

Classical India

Human-animal hybrids in the melting pot of ancient cultures

The Iberians

A Nubian Empire rivals Egypt for 1000 years

Kingdom of Kush

2000 BCE-400 CE

Histories greatest navigators

Lapita Expansion

2000 BCE-500 CE

The mysterious line between pre human and post human

Upper Paleolithic

40000 BCE-10000 BCE

Tools, livestock, farming — and big, big rocks

Neolithic

12000 BCE-2000 BCE

A new metal catapults humanity out of the stone age

Bronze Age

3200 BCE-600 BCE

When you have iron you have power

Iron Age

1200 BCE-800 CE

No pyramids, but great plumbing

Indus Valley Civilization

3300 BCE-1300 BCE

The oldest civilization in the Americas

Norte Chico Civilization

3500 BCE-1800 BCE

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