The History of Painting

 The painting is the art of graphical representation using pigments mixed with other
organic or synthetic binders. In this art painting techniques, knowledge of color theory
and pictorial composition, and drawing are used.

Prehistory
Paleolithic
 The Palaeolithic art was born in the Upper Paleolithic , about the year 40.000 B.C.
 The first pictorial manifestations appear in caves, the so-called cave painting.
 As a means of expressing the interrelation between primitive human beings and nature.

Neolithic
 This period - initiated around 8,000 BC in the Middle East - was a profound
transformation for the former human being, who became sedentary and devoted himself
to agriculture and livestock , emerging new forms of social coexistence and developing
religion.
 The human figure was given, very schematic.

Ancient Age
Egypt
 Initiated around 3,000 BC, Egyptian art lasted until the conquest of Alexander the Great,
although its influence persisted in Coptic and Byzantine art.
 This art was intensely religious and symbolic, with a strongly centralized and
hierarchical political power, giving great relevance to the religious concept of
immortality.

Greece
 Greek art developed in three periods: archaic, classical and Hellenistic, from the middle
of the 8th century B.C until two centuries later when it was Greece conquered by the
Romans.
 The Greek painting was developed mainly in ceramics, in everyday or thematic
historical or mythological scenes.

Rome
 The Roman painting is best known for the remains found at Pompeii, where four styles
are perceived: The Embedding, The Architectural one, The Ornamental and The
Fantastic.

Middle Ages
Paleochristian Art
 The painting was mainly in the catacombs, with religious and allegorical scenes, and
the miniature, manuscript lighting, with two main schools: the Hellenistic-Alexandrian
and the Syrian.
Byzantine Art
 The Roman painting is best known for the remains found at Pompeii, where four styles
are perceived: The Embedding, The Architectural one, The Ornamental and The
Fantastic.

Gothic Art
 The Gothic art developed between the centuries XII and XVI, time of great economic
and cultural development.
 The Gothic painting longer wall to pass reredoses located on the altar of churches, and
began to develop painting canvas, the temple or oil. Four pictorial styles followed:
Linear Gothic or Franco-Gothic, Gothic italic or thirtentist, International Gothic and
Flemish Gothic.

Modern Age
Renaissance
 Born in Italy in the fifteenth century (Quattrocento), it expanded throughout the rest of
Europe since the end of that century and the beginning of the XVI.
 The representation of human beings and their environment became more relevant,
appearing new themes such as mythological or historical, or new genres such
aslandscape, still life and even the nude.

Mannerism
 Mannerism abandoned nature as a source of inspiration to seek a more emotional and
expressive tone, taking into account the subjective interpretation that the artist makes of
the work of art.

Baroque
 The Baroque painting was developed in two contrasting trends: Naturalism, based on
strict natural reality, with a taste for chiaroscuro -the called tenebrismo - which include a
Caravaggio, Orazio and Artemisia Gentileschi, etc.

Rococo
 The rococo painting moved between religious exaltation or landscaping vedutista in Italy
(Giambattista Tiepolo, Canaletto), and courtly scenes of Jean-Antoine Watteau, Jean-
Baptiste-Siméon Chardin and Jean-Honoré Fragonard in France, going through the
English portrait of Joshua Reynolds and Thomas Gainsborough.

Neoclassicism
 It is a pictorial movement born in Rome in the 1760s and developed throughout Europe,
especially taking root in France until about 1830, when the Romanticism became the
dominant pictorial trend.

Comtemporary Age
Romanticism
 The popular culture, the exotic, the return to art forms of the past - especially the
medieval ones - was especially valued, and the landscape , which gained prominence
on its own, gained notoriety.
Realism
 From the mid-nineteenth century a trend emerged that emphasized reality, the
description of the surrounding world, especially of workers and peasants in the new
framework of the industrial era, with a certain component of social denunciation, linked
to political movements such as socialism utopian.

Symbolism
 The Symbolist painting was one of the main artistic manifestations of symbolism, a
cultural movement that emerged at the end of the century xix in France and was
developed by several European countries.
 With special emphasis on the world of dreams, as well as on satanic and terrifying
aspects, sex and perversion.

Modernism
 Modernist painting was closely linked to the world of design and illustration, especially
posterism, a new artistic genre between painting and graphic arts, since it was based
on a design made by a painter or illustrator, to be then reproduced in series. Artists
such as Alfons Mucha, Aubrey Beardsley, Jan Toorop, Fernand Khnopff, etc.

Vanguardismo
 On the other hand, the new technologies caused that the art changed of function, since
the photography and the cinema already were in charge to capture the reality.
 Fovism (1905-1908), Cubism (1907-1914), Futurism (1909-1930), Abstract art (1910-
1932), Constructivism (1914-1930), Dadaism (1916-1922) and Surrealism (1924-1955).

Latest trends
 The modern project originated with the historical vanguards reached its culmination with
various styles antimatéricos highlighting the intellectual origin of art on its material
realization, such as performance art and conceptual art.
 Informalism (1945-1960), New figuration (1945-1960), New realism (1958-1970),
Minimalism (1963-1980), Hyperrealism (since 1965) and Postmodern art (since 1975).