Art History Timeline

2013-04-12 by liuqingwang 留下评论

      ART has not always been what we think it is today. An object regarded as Art today may not have been perceived as such when it was first made, nor was the person who made it necessarily regarded as an artist. Both the notion of “art” and the idea of the “artist” are relatively modern terms.  Many of the objects we identify as art today — Greek painted pottery, medieval manuscript illuminations, and so on — were made in times and places when people had no concept of “art” as we understand the term. These objects may have been appreciated in various ways and often admired, but not as “art” in the current sense. 

      Art lacks a satisfactory definition. It is easier to describe it as the way something is done — “the use of skill and imagination in the creation of aesthetic objects, environments, or experiences that can be shared with others” — rather than what it is. 

      Art is a testament of the moment and of the society in which the artist lives.  It can be the positive or negative, but meaning is always present.——Juan Genoves

      Art is a uniquely human activity that grows out of our inborn impulse to create.  We create things that we have no utilitarian purpose. 

      “There are two kinds of art… art that is intrinsically artistic and timeless, and art that is meant to part a fool and his money. Sometimes we need a common cleaning lady to remind us of the difference.”

      Art is a crystal of human civilization,  it is also part of our life, without art our life will be so dull. 

• Line, shape, form, value, color, space, texture, balance, unity, contrast, emphasis, pattern, movement and rhythm create art.
• Art includes the “major” arts of paintings, sculpture, and architecture……

      Art history spans the entire history of humankind.  Art is one of the parts in our lives, you can see it everywhere.  During the Romantic period, art came to be seen as “a special faculty of the human mind to be classified with religion and science”.  The history of art is the history in a visual form for aesthetical or communicative purposes, expressing ideas, emotions or.  In general it is a worldview.  You can express your emotion in paintings.  Over time visual art has been classified in diverse ways, from the medieval distinction between liberal arts and mechanical arts, to the modern distinction between fine arts and applied arts.  Expansion of the list of principal arts in the 20th century reached to nine: architecture, dance, sculpture, music, painting, poetry (described broadly as a form of literature with aesthetic purpose or function, which also includes the distinct genres of theatre and narrative), film, photography and comics……

Time	Characteristics	Chief Artists and Major Works
Stone Age (30,000 b.c.–2500 b.c.)	Cave paintings in the walls, fertility goddesses	Lascaux Cave Painting, Woman of Willendorf, Stonehenge
Mesopotamian (3500 b.c.–539 b.c.)	Describe the events of wars which draw in stone	Standard of Ur, Gate of Ishtar, Stele of Hammurabi’s Code
Egyptian (3100 b.c.–30 b.c.)	Pyramids and tomb painting	Imhotep, Step Pyramid, Great Pyramids, Bust of Nefertiti
Greek and Hellenistic (850 b.c.–31 b.c.)	Statue, Greek idealism: balance, perfect proportions	Parthenon, Myron, Phidias, Polykleitos, Praxiteles
Roman (500 b.c.– a.d. 476)	Roman realism	Augustus of Primaporta, Colosseum, Trajan’s Column, Pantheon
Indian, Chinese, and Japanese(653 b.c.–a.d. 1900)	Colorful and traditional paintings	Gu Kaizhi, Li Cheng, Guo Xi, Hokusai, Hiroshige
Byzantine and Islamic (a.d. 476–a.d.1453)	Paintings more about religions:Islamic architecture and amazing maze-like design Hagia Sophia, Andrei Rublev, Mosque of Córdoba, the Alhambra Justinian partly restores Western Roman Empire	Hagia Sophia, Andrei Rublev, Mosque of Córdoba, the Alhambra
Middle Ages (500–1400)	Celtic art, Carolingian Renaissance, Romanesque, Gothic	St. Sernin, Durham Cathedral, Notre Dame, Chartres, Cimabue, Duccio, Giotto
Early and High Renaissance (1400–1550)	Rebirth of classical culture	Ghiberti’s Doors, Brunelleschi, Donatello, Botticelli, Leonardo, Michelangelo, Raphael
Venetian and Northern Renaissance (1430–1550)	More focus on  portrait	Bellini, Giorgione, Titian, Dürer, Bruegel, Bosch, Jan van Eyck, Rogier van der Weyden
Mannerism (1527–1580)	Art that breaks the rules; More focus on naked	Tintoretto, El Greco, Pontormo, Bronzino, Cellini
Neoclassical (1750–1850)	More on revolution	David, Ingres, Greuze, Canova
Romanticism (1780–1850)	About revolution	Caspar Friedrich, Gericault, Delacroix, Turner, Benjamin West
Realism (1848–1900)	More real; en plein air rustic painting	Corot, Courbet, Daumier, Millet
Impressionism (1865–1885)	Capturing fleeting effects of natural light	Monet, Manet, Renoir, Pissarro, Cassatt, Morisot, Degas
Post-Impressionism (1885–1910)	Natural light	Van Gogh, Gauguin, Cézanne, Seurat
Fauvism and Expressionism (1900–1935)	Harsh colors and flat surfaces	Matisse, Kirchner, Kandinsky, Marc
Cubism, Futurism, Supremativism, Constructivism, De Stijl (1905–1920)	Pre– and Post–World War 1 art experiments: new forms to express modern life	Picasso, Braque, Leger, Boccioni, Severini, Malevich
Dada and Surrealism (1917–1950)	Ridiculous art; painting dreams and exploring the unconscious	Duchamp, Dalí, Ernst, Magritte, de Chirico, Kahlo
Abstract Expressionism (1940s–1950s) and Pop Art (1960s)	Post–World War II: pure abstraction and expression without form; popular art absorbs consumerism	Gorky, Pollock, de Kooning, Rothko, Warhol, Lichtenstein
Modern Arts         To me art is anything that stimulates my audio and visual senses.  It doesn’t matter whether it is a natural landscape, or a human creation.  I enjoyed all forms of art.  Reading a good book, watching a great film or TV program, an afternoon tour of the museum exhibits or camping in the wilderness are all considered nice treats for me.  Art, in a broad sense, keeps me motivated to go on my otherwise boring daily routines.  It is not just important to my life, it is an indispensable part of my life.