Art History Timeline

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/ Chief Artists and

Characteristics Historical Events
Movements Major Works
Cave painting, fertility Lascaux Cave Painting, Ice Age ends (10,000 b.c.–8,000 b.c.);
Stone Age (30,000 b.c.–
goddesses, megalithic Woman of Willendorf, New Stone Age and first permanent
2500 b.c.)
structures Stonehenge settlements (8000 b.c.–2500 b.c.)
Standard of Ur, Gate of Sumerians invent writing (3400 b.c.);
Mesopotamian (3500 Warrior art and narration
Ishtar, Stele of Hammurabi writes his law code (1780
b.c.–539 b.c.) in stone relief
Hammurabi's Code b.c.); Abraham founds monotheism
Narmer unites Upper/Lower Egypt
Art with an afterlife focus: Imhotep, Step Pyramid,
Egyptian (3100 b.c.–30 (3100 b.c.); Rameses II battles the
pyramids and tomb Great Pyramids, Bust
b.c.) Hittites (1274 b.c.); Cleopatra dies (30
painting of Nefertiti
b.c.)
Greek idealism: balance, Athens defeats Persia at Marathon
Parthenon, Myron,
Greek and Hellenistic perfect proportions; (490 b.c.); Peloponnesian Wars (431
Phidias, Polykleitos,
(850 b.c.–31 b.c.) architectural orders(Doric, b.c.–404 b.c.); Alexander the Great's
Praxiteles
Ionic, Corinthian) conquests (336 b.c.–323 b.c.)
Augustus of Julius Caesar assassinated (44 b.c.);
Roman realism: practical
Roman (500 b.c.– a.d. Primaporta, Colosseum, Augustus proclaimed Emperor (27
and down to earth; the
476) Trajan's Column, b.c.); Diocletian splits Empire (a.d.
arch
Pantheon 292); Rome falls (a.d. 476)
Birth of Buddha (563 b.c.); Silk Road
Indian, Chinese, and Gu Kaizhi, Li Cheng,
Serene, meditative art, and opens (1st century b.c.); Buddhism
Japanese(653 b.c.–a.d. Guo Xi, Hokusai,
Arts of the Floating World spreads to China (1st–2nd centuries
1900) Hiroshige
a.d.) and Japan (5th century a.d.)
Justinian partly restores Western
Heavenly Byzantine
Hagia Sophia, Andrei Roman Empire (a.d. 533–a.d. 562);
Byzantine and Islamic mosaics; Islamic
Rublev, Mosque of Iconoclasm Controversy (a.d. 726–
(a.d. 476–a.d.1453) architecture and amazing
Córdoba, the Alhambra a.d. 843); Birth of Islam (a.d. 610) and
maze-like design
Muslim Conquests (a.d. 632–a.d. 732)
Viking Raids (793–1066); Battle of
St. Sernin, Durham
Celtic art, Carolingian Hastings (1066); Crusades I–IV
Middle Ages (500– Cathedral, Notre Dame,
Renaissance, Romanesque, (1095–1204); Black Death (1347–
1400) Chartres, Cimabue,
Gothic 1351); Hundred Years' War (1337–
Duccio, Giotto
1453)
Ghiberti's Doors, Gutenberg invents movable type
Early and High Brunelleschi, (1447); Turks conquer Constantinople
Renaissance (1400– Rebirth of classical culture Donatello, Botticelli, (1453); Columbus lands in New
1550) Leonardo, World (1492); Martin Luther starts
Michelangelo, Raphael Reformation (1517)

The Renaissance spreads Bellini, Giorgione, Council of Trent and Counter-

Venetian and Northern
north- ward to France, the Titian, Dürer, Bruegel, Reformation (1545–1563);
Renaissance (1430–
Low Countries, Poland, Bosch, Jan van Eyck, Copernicus proves the Earth revolves
1550)
Germany, and England Rogier van der Weyden around the Sun (1543

Mannerism (1527–1580) Art that breaks the rules; Tintoretto, El Greco, Magellan circumnavigates the globe
 artifice over nature Pontormo, Bronzino, (1520–1522)
Cellini
Splendor and flourish for Reubens, Rembrandt,
Thirty Years' War between Catholics
Baroque (1600–1750) God; art as a weapon in Caravaggio, Palace of
and Protestants (1618–1648)
the religious wars Versailles
Neoclassical (1750– Art that recaptures Greco- David, Ingres, Greuze,Enlightenment (18th century);
1850) Roman grace and grandeur Canova Industrial Revolution (1760–1850)
American Revolution (1775–1783);
The triumph of Caspar Friedrich,
Romanticism (1780– French Revolution (1789–1799);
imagination and Gericault, Delacroix,
1850) Napoleon crowned emperor of France
individuality Turner, Benjamin West
(1803)
Celebrating working class
Corot, Courbet, European democratic revolutions of
Realism (1848–1900) and peasants; en plein air
Daumier, Millet 1848
rustic painting
Monet, Manet, Renoir,
Impressionism (1865– Capturing fleeting effects Franco-Prussian War (1870–1871);
Pissarro, Cassatt,
1885) of natural light Unification of Germany (1871)
Morisot, Degas
Belle Époque (late-19th-century
Post-Impressionism A soft revolt against Van Gogh, Gauguin,
Golden Age); Japan defeats Russia
(1885–1910) Impressionism Cézanne, Seurat
(1905)
Fauvism and Harsh colors and flat
Matisse, Kirchner, Boxer Rebellion in China (1900);
Expressionism (1900– surfaces (Fauvism);
Kandinsky, Marc World War (1914–1918)
1935) emotion distorting form
Cubism, Futurism, Pre– and Post–World War
Picasso, Braque, Leger,
Supremativism, 1 art experiments: new Russian Revolution (1917); American
Boccioni, Severini,
Constructivism, De Stijl forms to express modern women franchised (1920)
Malevich
(1905–1920) life
Disillusionment after World War I;
Ridiculous art; painting
Duchamp, Dalí, Ernst, The Great Depression (1929–1938);
Dada and Surrealism
dreams and exploring the
Magritte, de Chirico, World War II (1939–1945) and Nazi
(1917–1950)
unconscious Kahlo horrors; atomic bombs dropped on
Japan (1945)
Post–World War II: pure Cold War and Vietnam War (U.S.
Abstract Expressionism Gorky, Pollock, de
abstraction and expression enters 1965); U.S.S.R. suppresses
(1940s–1950s) and Pop Kooning, Rothko,
without form; popular art Hungarian revolt (1956)
Art (1960s) Warhol, Lichtenstein
absorbs consumerism Czechoslovakian revolt (1968)
Gerhard Richter, Cindy Nuclear freeze movement; Cold War
Postmodernism and Art without a center and
Sherman, Anselm fizzles; Communism collapses in
Deconstructivism reworking and mixing past
Kiefer, Frank Gehry, Eastern Europe and U.S.S.R. (1989–
(1970– ) styles
Zaha Hadid 1991)

Source: Wilder, Jesse Bryant. Art History for Dummies. 2007