Historical

Development
of Art
PART 2
 The foundation of art history can be
traced back tens of thousands of years
to when ancient civilizations used
available techniques and media to
depict culturally significant subject
matter. Since these early examples, a
plethora of art movements have
followed, each bearing their own
distinct styles and characteristics that
reflect the political and social
influences of the period from which they
emerged.
 Pre-Historic Art
The origins of art history
can be traced back to the
Prehistoric era, before
written records were
kept. The earliest
artifacts come from the
Paleolithic era, or the
Old Stone Age, in the
form of rock carvings,
engravings, pictorial
imagery, sculptures, and
stone arrangements. Lascaux cave paintings, Paleolithic era
The Angono Petroglyps
The Manunggul Jar
The Venus of Willendorf
 Classical Period
The term
classical art
refers to the art
form from
Greece and
Rome.
 Greek Art
It has been
known for
thousands of years
that the art of the
ancient Greeks has
been held as the
standard of
measure by which
all later art will be
judged. It has
shaped our minds
of what perfection
should look like.
Doric, Ionic, Corinthian
Statue of Laocoon
Roman Art: the Etruscans
In the late 600
B.C., the Etruscans
were the most powerful
people in Italy, who had
come from Asia Minor
and settled in Tuscany,
an area north of Rome
They imitated Greek
styles of art but also
achieved much by
themselves.
Roman Town Plan
Capitolium
Roman Public Bath
Ancient Roman Sarcophagus
 Medieval Period
The Middle Ages,
often referred to as the
“Dark Ages,” marked a
period of economic and
cultural deterioration
following the fall of the
Roman Empire in 476 A.D.
Much of the artwork
produced in the early
years of the period reflects
that darkness,
characterized by
grotesque imagery and
brutal scenery.
Illuminated Manuscript: The Annunciation
to the Virgin, Gualenghi-d’Este Hours
Romanesque Architecture
Romanesque Architecture
Interior of the Palatine Chapel of
Charlemagne, Aachen, Germany
Romanesque Architecture
Romanesque Sculpture
Gothic Architecture
Gothic Architecture: Notre Dame, Paris
Gothic Architecture: Rose Window and
Pantheon in Rome
Gothic Sculpture:
Gargoyles
Gothic Painting: Fresco painting, panel
painting, stained glass painting
 Renaissance Period
This style of painting,
sculpture, and decorative
art was characterized by a
focus on nature
and individualism, the
thought of man as
independent and self-
reliant. Though these ideals
were present in the late
Medieval period, they
flourished in the 15th and
16th centuries, paralleling
social and economic
changes like secularization.
 Renaissance Period
The High Renaissance,
which lasted from 1490
to 1527, produced
influential artists such as
da Vinci, Michelangelo,
and Raphael, each of
whom brought creative
power and spearheaded
ideals of emotional
expression.
The Birth of Venus (1486) – Botticelli
Sistine Madonna (1512) – Raphael
Michelangelo's Pietà
 Mannerism
Mannerist artists emerged
from the ideals of Michelangelo,
Raphael, and other Late
Renaissance artists, but their
focus on style and technique
outweighed the meaning of the
subject matter. Often, figures
had graceful, elongated limbs,
small heads, stylized features
and exaggerated details. This
yielded more complex, stylized
compositions rather than relying
on the classical ideals of
harmonious composition and
linear perspective used by their
Renaissance predecessors.
 Mannerism
Some of the most
celebrated Mannerist
artists include Giorgio
Vasari, Francesco Salviati,
Domenico Beccafumi, and
Bronzino, who is widely
considered to be the most
important Mannerist
painter in Florence during
his time.
 Mannerism
Some of the most
celebrated Mannerist
artists include Giorgio
Vasari, Francesco Salviati,
Domenico Beccafumi, and
Bronzino, who is widely
considered to be the most
important Mannerist
painter in Florence during
his time.
 The Origins and Development of
Mannerism
• Religious Turmoil
• Man No Longer the
Centre of the
Universe
• Mannerism Reflects
the New Uncertainty
El Greco’s Disrobing of Christ and Christ
driving the Traders from the Temple
 Baroque
In 1527 Europe, religious
dominance had the power to direct and
inform the content and climate of
society's artistic output. At the time, a
backlash against the conservative
Protestant Reformation was compelled by
the Catholic Church to re-establish its
importance and grandeur within society.
Artists followed suit by
reviving Renaissance ideals of beauty,
infusing into the era's artwork, music, and
architecture a revived nod to classicism
further enhanced by a new exuberant
extravagance and penchant for the
ornate. This highly embellished style was
coined Baroque and became marked by its
innovative techniques and details,
delivering a lush new visual language into
what had been a relatively toned down
period for art.
 Baroque
In 1527 Europe, religious
dominance had the power to direct and
inform the content and climate of
society's artistic output. At the time, a
backlash against the conservative
Protestant Reformation was compelled by
the Catholic Church to re-establish its
importance and grandeur within society.
Artists followed suit by
reviving Renaissance ideals of beauty,
infusing into the era's artwork, music, and
architecture a revived nod to classicism
further enhanced by a new exuberant
extravagance and penchant for the
ornate. This highly embellished style was
coined Baroque and became marked by its
innovative techniques and details,
delivering a lush new visual language into
what had been a relatively toned down
period for art.
 St. Peter's Baldachin (1623-34)
Sculpted bronze canopy above
the high altar in St. Peter's Basilica.
By Bernini.
The Ecstasy Of Blessed Ludovica Albertoni
by Gian Lorenzo Bernini
Peter Paul Rubens – Slave Portrait
Peter Paul Rubens – Persian
 Classicism
Classicism, in the arts,
refers generally to a high regard
for classical antiquity, as setting
standards for taste which the
classicists seek to emulate. The
art of classicism typically seeks
to be formal and restrained. A
violent emphasis or a sudden
acceleration of rhythmic
movement would have
destroyed those qualities of
balance and completeness
through which it retained until
the present century its position
of authority in the restricted
repertoire of visual images.
 Classicism
Classicism implies a canon of
widely accepted ideal forms. It is a
force which is often present in post-
medieval European and European
influenced traditions; however, some
periods felt themselves more
connected to the classical ideals than
others, particularly the Age of
Reason, the Age of Enlightenment,
and some classicizing movements in
Modernism.
 The Death of Marat.
By Jacques-Louis David.
Antonio CANOVA (1757 – 1822)
Psyche Revived by Cupid’s Kiss
Antonio CANOVA (1757 – 1822)
Psyche Revived by Cupid’s Kiss
Antonio CANOVA (1757 – 1822)
Psyche Revived by Cupid’s Kiss
Antonio CANOVA (1757 – 1822)
Psyche Revived by Cupid’s Kiss
 Romanticism
Romanticism embraced
the struggles for freedom and
equality and the promotion of
justice. Painters began using
current events and atrocities to
shed light on injustices in
dramatic compositions that
rivaled the more staid
Neoclassical history paintings
accepted by national
academies.
 Romanticism
• Romanticism is, by nature,
undefinable
• Romanticism is the opposite
of neoclassicism.
• Romantic works yearned for
the past.
• Romantic paintings often
featured natural disasters.
Wanderer Above the Sea of Fog (c. 1818)
Caspar David Friedrich
The Hay Wain (1821)
John Constable
Théodore Géricault‘s The Raft of the
Medusa, 1819
 Impressionism
Impressionism can be
considered the first distinctly
modern movement in painting.
Developing in Paris in the
1860s, its influence spread
throughout Europe and
eventually the United States. Its
originators were artists who
rejected the official,
government-sanctioned
exhibitions, or salons, and were
consequently shunned by
powerful academic art
 Impressionism
In turning away from the
fine finish and detail to which
most artists of their day
aspired, the Impressionists
aimed to capture the
momentary, sensory effect of a
scene - the impression objects
made on the eye in a fleeting
instant. To achieve this effect,
many Impressionist artists
moved from the studio to the
streets and countryside,
 Impressionism
• The Impressionists loosened their
brushwork and lightened their
palettes to include pure, intense
colors. They abandoned
traditional linear perspective and
avoided the clarity of form that
had previously served to
distinguish the more important
elements of a picture from the
lesser ones. For this reason, many
critics faulted Impressionist
paintings for their unfinished
appearance and seemingly
amateurish
Impression, Sunrise, Claude Monet 1872; )
At the Races, 1877–1880, oil on canvas, by
Edgar Degas
 Realism
Though never a coherent
group, Realism is recognized as
the first modern movement in
art, which rejected traditional
forms of art, literature, and
social organization as
outmoded in the wake of the
Enlightenment and the
Industrial Revolution. Beginning
in France in the 1840s, Realism
revolutionized painting,
expanding conceptions of what
 Realism
Working in a chaotic era
marked by revolution and
widespread social change, Realist
painters replaced the idealistic
images and literary conceits of
traditional art with real-life events,
giving the margins of society similar
weight to grand history paintings and
allegories. Their choice to bring
everyday life into their canvases was
an early manifestation of the avant-
garde desire to merge art and life,
and their rejection of pictorial
techniques, like perspective,
prefigured the many 20th-century
definitions and redefinitions of
Rue Transnonain, (1834)
Honoré Daumier
Song of the Lark (1884)
Jules Breton
 Art Nouveau
It is difficult to pinpoint the first
work(s) of art that officially launched Art
Nouveau. Some argue that the patterned,
flowing lines and floral backgrounds found
in the paintings of Vincent van
Gogh and Paul Gauguin represent Art
Nouveau's birth, or perhaps even the
decorative lithographs of Henri de Toulouse-
Lautrec, such as Moulin Rouge: La
Goulue (1891). But most point to the origins
in the decorative arts, and in particular to a
book jacket by English architect and
designer Arthur Heygate Mackmurdo for the
1883 volume Wren's City Churches. The
design depicts serpentine stalks of flowers
emanating from one flattened pad at the
bottom of the page, clearly reminiscent of
Art Nouveau Architecture
 Fauvism
One of Fauvism's major
contributions to modern art
was its radical goal of
separating color from its
descriptive, representational
purpose and allowing it to exist
on the canvas as an
independent element. Color
could project a mood and
establish a structure within the
work of art without having to
be true to the natural world.
 Fauvism
The Fauves' simplified
forms and saturated colors
drew attention to the inherent
flatness of the canvas or paper;
within that pictorial space, each
element played a specific role.
The immediate visual
impression of the work is to be
strong and unified.
 Fauvism
Fauvism valued
individual expression. The
artist's direct experience of his
subjects, his emotional
response to nature, and his
intuition were all more
important than academic
theory or elevated subject
matter. All elements of painting
were employed in service of
this goal.
 Cubism
Cubism developed in the
aftermath of Pablo Picasso's
shocking 1907 Les Demoiselles
d'Avignon in a period of rapid
experimentation between Pablo
Picasso and Georges Braque.
Drawing upon Paul Cezanne’s
emphasis on the underlying
architecture of form, these artists
used multiple vantage points to
fracture images into geometric
forms. Rather than modelled forms
in an illusionistic space, figures were
depicted as dynamic arrangements
of volumes and planes where
background and foreground merged.
Les Demoiselles d'Avignon (1907)
Artist: Pablo Picasso
 Expressionism
The arrival of Expressionism
announced new standards in
the creation and judgment of
art. Art was now meant to
come forth from within the
artist, rather than from a
depiction of the external visual
world, and the standard for
assessing the quality of a work
of art became the character of
the artist's feelings rather than
an analysis of the composition.
El Greco, ’’Pieta’’ (1587)
 Dada
Dada was the direct antecedent
to the Conceptual Art
movement, where the focus of
the artists was not on crafting
aesthetically pleasing objects
but on making works that often
upended bourgeois sensibilities
and that generated difficult
questions about society, the
role of the artist, and the
purpose of art.
Reciting the Sound Poem "Karawane" (1916)
Artist: Hugo Ball
Reciting the Sound Poem "Karawane" (1916)
Artist: Hugo Ball
 Surrealism
André Breton defined Surrealism as
"psychic automatism in its pure
state, by which one proposes to
express - verbally, by means of the
written word, or in any other
manner - the actual functioning of
thought." What Breton is proposing
is that artists bypass reason and
rationality by accessing their
unconscious mind. In practice, these
techniques became known as
automatism or automatic writing,
which allowed artists to forgo
conscious thought and embrace
chance when creating art.
 Surrealism
The work of Sigmund Freud was
profoundly influential for
Surrealists, particularly his
book, The Interpretation of
Dreams (1899). Freud legitimized
the importance of dreams and the
unconscious as valid revelations
of human emotion and desires;
his exposure of the complex and
repressed inner worlds of
sexuality, desire, and violence
provided a theoretical basis for
much of Surrealism.
Reciting the Sound Poem "Karawane" (1916)
Artist: Hugo Ball
Mama, Papa is Wounded! (1927)
Artist: Yves Tanguy