Art History Timeline

By Jesse Bryant Wilder

Part of the Art History For Dummies Cheat Sheet

The history of art is immense, the earliest cave paintings pre-date writing by almost 27,000 years! If
you're interested in art history, the first thing you should do is take a look at this table which briefly
outlines the artists, traits, works, and events that make up major art periods and how art evolved to present
day:

Art Periods/ Characteristics Chief Artists and Historical Events

Movements Major Works
Stone Age (30,000 Cave painting, fertility Lascaux Cave Ice Age ends (10,000 b.c.–
b.c.–2500 b.c.) goddesses, megalithic Painting, Woman of 8,000 b.c.); New Stone Age
structures Willendorf, and first permanent
Stonehenge settlements (8000 b.c.–2500
b.c.)
Mesopotamian (3500 Warrior art and Standard of Ur, Sumerians invent writing
b.c.–539 b.c.) narration in stone Gate of Ishtar, Stele (3400 b.c.); Hammurabi
relief of Hammurabi's writes his law code (1780
Code b.c.); Abraham founds
monotheism
Egyptian (3100 b.c.– Art with an afterlife Imhotep, Step Narmer unites Upper/Lower
30 b.c.) focus: pyramids and Pyramid, Great Egypt (3100 b.c.); Rameses II
tomb painting Pyramids, Bust of battles the Hittites (1274 b.c.);
Nefertiti Cleopatra dies (30 b.c.)
Greek and Hellenistic Greek idealism: Parthenon, Myron, Athens defeats Persia at
(850 b.c.–31 b.c.) balance, perfect Phidias, Polykleitos, Marathon (490 b.c.);
proportions; Praxiteles Peloponnesian Wars (431
architectural b.c.–404 b.c.); Alexander the
orders(Doric, Ionic, Great's conquests (336 b.c.–
Corinthian) 323 b.c.)
Roman (500 b.c.– a.d. Roman realism: Augustus of Julius Caesar assassinated (44
476) practical and down to Primaporta, b.c.); Augustus proclaimed
earth; the arch Colosseum, Trajan's Emperor (27 b.c.); Diocletian
Column, Pantheon splits Empire (a.d. 292);
Rome falls (a.d. 476)
Indian, Chinese, and Serene, meditative art, Gu Kaizhi, Li Birth of Buddha (563 b.c.);
Japanese(653 b.c.–a.d. and Arts of the Cheng, Guo Xi, Silk Road opens (1st century
1900) Floating World Hokusai, Hiroshige b.c.); Buddhism spreads to
China (1st–2nd centuries a.d.)
and Japan (5th century a.d.)
Byzantine and Islamic Heavenly Byzantine Hagia Sophia, Justinian partly restores
(a.d. 476–a.d.1453) mosaics; Islamic Andrei Rublev, Western Roman Empire (a.d.
architecture and Mosque of 533–a.d. 562); Iconoclasm
amazing maze-like Córdoba, the Controversy (a.d. 726–a.d.
 design Alhambra 843); Birth of Islam (a.d. 610)
and Muslim Conquests (a.d.
632–a.d. 732)
Middle Ages (500– Celtic art, Carolingian St. Sernin, Durham Viking Raids (793–1066);
1400) Renaissance, Cathedral, Notre Battle of Hastings (1066);
Romanesque, Gothic Dame, Chartres, Crusades I–IV (1095–1204);
Cimabue, Duccio, Black Death (1347–1351);
Giotto Hundred Years' War (1337–
1453)
Early and High Rebirth of classical Ghiberti's Doors, Gutenberg invents movable
Renaissance (1400– culture Brunelleschi, type (1447); Turks conquer
1550) Donatello, Constantinople (1453);
Botticelli, Columbus lands in New
Leonardo, World (1492); Martin Luther
Michelangelo, starts Reformation (1517)
Raphael
Venetian and The Renaissance Bellini, Giorgione, Council of Trent and Counter-
Northern Renaissance spreads north- ward to Titian, Dürer, Reformation (1545–1563);
(1430–1550) France, the Low Bruegel, Bosch, Jan Copernicus proves the Earth
Countries, Poland, van Eyck, Rogier revolves around the Sun
Germany, and England van der Weyden (1543
Mannerism (1527– Art that breaks the Tintoretto, El Magellan circumnavigates the
1580) rules; artifice over Greco, Pontormo, globe (1520–1522)
nature Bronzino, Cellini
Baroque (1600–1750) Splendor and flourish Reubens, Thirty Years' War between
for God; art as a Rembrandt, Catholics and Protestants
weapon in the Caravaggio, Palace (1618–1648)
religious wars of Versailles
Neoclassical (1750– Art that recaptures David, Ingres, Enlightenment (18th century);
1850) Greco-Roman grace Greuze, Canova Industrial Revolution (1760–
and grandeur 1850)
Romanticism (1780– The triumph of Caspar Friedrich, American Revolution (1775–
1850) imagination and Gericault, 1783); French Revolution
individuality Delacroix, Turner, (1789–1799); Napoleon
Benjamin West crowned emperor of France
(1803)
Realism (1848–1900) Celebrating working Corot, Courbet, European democratic
class and peasants;en Daumier, Millet revolutions of 1848
plein airrustic painting
Impressionism (1865– Capturing fleeting Monet, Manet, Franco-Prussian War (1870–
1885) effects of natural light Renoir, Pissarro, 1871); Unification of
Cassatt, Morisot, Germany (1871)
Degas
Post-Impressionism A soft revolt against Van Gogh, Belle Époque (late-19th-
(1885–1910) Impressionism Gauguin, Cézanne, century Golden Age); Japan
Seurat defeats Russia (1905)
Fauvism and Harsh colors and flat Matisse, Kirchner, Boxer Rebellion in China
Expressionism (1900– surfaces (Fauvism); Kandinsky, Marc (1900); World War (1914–
1935) emotion distorting 1918)
form
Cubism, Futurism, Pre– and Post–World Picasso, Braque, Russian Revolution (1917);
Supremativism, War 1 art experiments: Leger, Boccioni, American women franchised
Constructivism, De new forms to express Severini, Malevich (1920)
Stijl (1905–1920) modern life
Dada and Ridiculous art; Duchamp, Dalí, Disillusionment after World
Surrealism(1917– painting dreamsand Ernst, Magritte, de War I; The GreatDepression
1950) exploring the Chirico, Kahlo (1929–1938); World War II
unconscious (1939–1945) and Nazi
horrors; atomic bombs
dropped on Japan (1945)
Abstract Post–World War II: Gorky, Pollock, de Cold War and Vietnam War
Expressionism pure abstraction and Kooning, Rothko, (U.S. enters 1965); U.S.S.R.
(1940s–1950s) and expression without Warhol, suppresses Hungarian revolt
Pop Art (1960s) form; popular art Lichtenstein (1956) Czechoslovakian
absorbs consumerism revolt (1968)
Postmodernism and Art without a center Gerhard Richter, Nuclear freeze movement;
Deconstructivism and reworking and Cindy Sherman, Cold War fizzles;
(1970– ) mixing past styles Anselm Kiefer, Communism collapses in
Frank Gehry, Zaha Eastern Europe and U.S.S.R.
Hadid (1989–1991)