CHRONOLOGY OF ART Date 2.

5 million BCE to 800 BCE 800 BCE - 400 CE Event PREHISTORY Includes details of the earliest examples of Stone Age art, such as petroglyphs, cupules, cave painting and famous venus figurines. Ancient art from Egyptian, Minoan and Mycenean civilizations, and charts the rise in religious art. The Period of Classical Antiquity Era of Greek art. (Fresco murals, encaustic panel paintings, sculpture, ceramics flourish) Greek sculpture (the main surviving artform) is usually divided into these styles: Daedalic(650-600), Archaic (600-500); Early Classical (500-450), High Classical (450-400), Late Classical (400-323) Hellenistic Period (323-27). Also: Archaic Painting, Greek Classical Painting and Hellenistic Painting. For architectural designs, see Greek Architecture. Foundation of ancient Rome. Etruscan Kings rule. Etruscan civilization. First use of Greek alphabet. Famous Romanian wood sculpture -Thinker from Cernavoda. Ancient Persians conquer Mesopotamia. Build Persepolis. High point of Greek black-figure style of ceramic pottery. Soon followed by red-figure. Democracy in Athens. Celtic La Tne art style begins. Roman Republic starts. Greek sculptor Polykleitos creates Doryphoros statue. Construction of the Parthenon begins. Finished 432 BCE. Famous Greek bronze sculpture: Discus Thrower (by Myron). Famous Etruscan works: Capitoline Wolf and Chimera of Arezzo . Greek sculptor Praxiteles produces Aphrodite of Knidos and Hermes . Famous Greek sculpture: Boy From Antikythera . Rise of Alexander the Great Era of Roman art. Heavily influenced by Hellenistic (Greek) painting & sculpture. Creation of Chinese Terracotta Army Warriors. Famous Greek sculpture: Dying Gaul . Start of Chinese Han Dynasty (ends 220 CE) during which the first porcelain was made. Famous Greek sculpted frieze: Altar of Zeus at Pergamon. Famous Greek statue: Venus di Milo (by Alexandros of Antioch). Famous Greek sculpture: Laocoon (by sculptors Hagesandrus, Polydorus, Athenodorus) Beginning of Roman Empire. Vesuvius errupts, destroying Pompeii. Famous Roman relief sculpture monument, Trajan's Column. Christian mural paintings in catacombs of Rome. Period of Late Roman Art. Colossal Head of Constantine . Edict of Milan legitimizes Christianity. St Peter's Basilica in Rome completed. See also Roman Architecture.

800 - 323 BCE

750 BCE 700 - 500 BCE 750 BCE 550 BCE 539 BCE 535 BCE 500 BCE 450 BCE 447 BCE 450 BCE 400 BCE 350 BCE 340 BCE 330 BCE 300 BCE - 400 CE 246 - 208 BCE 232 BCE 206 BCE 180 BCE 150 BCE 42 BCE 27 BCE 79 CE 113

200 313 450-1050 500-1200 532-7 550-800 700-50 700-900

Roman Empire officially splits into West (Rome/Ravenna) and East (Byzantium). Fall of Rome to repeated invasions by Visigoths and Vandals. The Period of the Dark Ages Era of Byzantine art. Panel painting, Orthodox icon painting and mosaic art flourish. Construction of Hagia Sophia in Byzantium/Constantinople. See Byzantine Architecture. Era of Irish monastic art. Celtic/Saxon Illuminated Gospel Manuscripts. Cathach of Colmcille (560 CE), Book of Durrow (670), Book of Kells (c.800). Oils (walnut, linseed) first used for oil-resin varnishes, and for painting on stone & glass. Early form of porcelain ceramics appear in China during the Tang Dynasty (c.600-900 CE). Medieval Christian artworks appear during Pre-Romanesque Era of Carolingian Renaissance under Charlemagne I, Otto I. Byzantine art combines with Western Christian themes to create Illuminated Bible texts.

780-900

The European Revival Carolingian Art flourishes 750-900. Charlemagne builds famous Palatine Chapel in Aachen. Ottonian Art flourishes 900-1000. Height of Romanesque art. Religious murals, stained glass. Cathedrals built at Angoulme, Essen, Mainz, Worms; Pisa (leaning tower) plus Cluny Abbey Church. Bayeaux Tapestry, most famous piece of tapestry art commissioned by Odo of Bayeaux. Era of Gothic art and Gothic architecture. Many Gothic cathedrals designed: (eg. St. Denis (1140), Notre Dame (1160), Chartres (1194), Reims (1211), Canterbury (1100), Westminster Abbey (1245), Cologne, w. pointed arches, flying buttresses, huge stained glass windows. New panel paintings (tempera on wood), and illuminated texts (opaque paint on vellum). Oil paints first used for painting on panel. Era of Proto-Renaissance art / architecture, influenced by International Gothic style. Giotto paints Scrovegni Chapel frescoes at Padua. Zen Ink-Painting dominates Japanese art. Arrival of the Black Death plague. Wipes out one third of European population. Medici Family Bank founded in Florence. The Renaissance (North of Italy, known as the Northern Renaissance) Italian Early Renaissance (1400-90); The three main centres of the Italian Renaissance, were Florence, Rome and Venice.

800 900

1050-1150

1080 1150-1450

1400-1530

1426 1434 1444 1485 1490 1495

Famous painting: The Expulsion of Adam and Eve from Paradise by Masaccio. Dome of Florence cathedral designed by Filippo Brunellesci. Famous bronze sculpture: David by sculptor Donatello. Famous mythological painting: The Birth of Venus by Sandro Botticelli. Famous example of linear perspective: Lamentation Over the Dead Christ by Mantegna. Italian High Renaissance (1490-1530) Famous history painting: The Last Supper by Leonardo Da Vinci.

1501-4 1503-6 1506

Michelangelo, greatest sculptor in the history of sculpture, creates David in Florence. Leonardo paints the Mona Lisa, one of the greatest Renaissance paintings. Vatican Museums open with a display of the sculpture, Laocoon and His Sons. Work begins on redesign and rebuilding of St. Peter's Basilica, Rome. Michelangelo paints the Genesis Old Testament Sistine Chapel frescoes.

1508-12

Raphael works on paintings for the papal apartments. See Raphael Rooms (Vatican). Northern Renaissance

1509-13

Differences in climate, religion, geography and culture between Italy and Northern Europe leads to differences in how the Renaissance develops north of Italy. Technical improvements in oil paints hasten their adoption by Dutch Old Masters. The technique then spreads to Italy, and is taken up by Leonardo Da Vinci and others. Jan Van Eyck paints masterpieces: The Arnolfini Wedding ; Man in a Red Turban (1433)

1400-onwards Famous painting: Descent from the Cross (The Deposition) by Roger Van der Weyden. 1432 1530-1600 1534-41 1545 Moralizing fantasy paintings by Hieronymus Bosch. (eg. The Garden of Earthly Delights). See Netherlandish Renaissance Art (1430-1580). Era of Mannerism. Links High Renaissance and the Baroque eras. Michelangelo paints The Last Judgement biblical frescoes in the Sistine Chapel. Council of Trent: Church in Rome launches Counter-Reformation. Fine arts and architecture used by Catholic religion to promote its authority and public appeal. The artists Titian and Tintoretto both active in Mannerist Venice Renaissance. 1550 1550 1561 1577 1580 The eminent Renaissance art critic Giorgio Vasari, publishes his Lives of the Artists . Foundation of the Academy of Art in Florence (Accademia dell'Arte del Disegno) the first official school of drawing in Europe to promote what is now called Academic Art. Greek mannerist artist El Greco establishes himself in Spain as religious painter. Foundation of the Academy of Art in Rome (Accademia di San Luca). Foundation of the Uffizi Gallery in Florence. Mannerist sculptor Giambologna creates his famous Rape of the Sabines . Era of Baroque Art and Baroque Architecture, noted for its grandeur. Its bold dramatic and often colourful Baroque Painting (by Caravaggio, Rubens, Velazquez) and portraits (by Van Dyck), as well as sculpture by Bernini, are used by secular rulers to buttress their absolutism, and by the Catholic Church as a form of propaganda. Baroque art in Protestant countries takes a more middle-class down-to-earth style, focusing on highly realistic portable artworks enhancing the status of the owner: such as personal portraits, still life & landscape, of the Dutch Realist School led by Jan Vermeer, and by Rembrandt. Bernini designs the grand theatrical approaches to St Peter's to overawe visitors. Rise of French tapestry art with the foundation of Gobelin Factory under Charles Le Brun.

1581

1583

Era of Rococo Art and interior architectural design. Light, whimsical, decorative style reflecting the decadence of the French Kings, and reaction against Baroque gravity. Tiepolo, Watteau, Boucher & Fragonard are the main artists. Ceramicist Ehrenfried von Tschirnhaus and alchemist Johann Friedrich Bottger discover a formula (using feldspathic rock) for true porcelain ceramics in Meissen, Germany. Era of Neoclassicism, a reaction against the frivolity of the French court. Promoted a return to the values and steadfast nobility of Classical Greece and Rome. Neoclassical artists included painters Goya, Ingres and Jacques-Louis David, sculptors Houdon, Canova and Thorvaldsen. Neoclassical architecture (buildings decorated by columns of Greek-style pillars, and topped with classical Renaissance domes) dominate Europe and spread to America (eg. US Capitol building). Catherine the Great establishes The Hermitage Museum in St Petersburg. Foundation of the Royal Academy of Arts in London. Beginning of the French Revolution. Opening of the Louvre Museum, one of the world's greatest art museums. Napoleon seizes power in France. Invention of lithography (using a matrix of fine-grained limestone) by the Austrian printer Alois Senefelder. Mid-point of English Figurative Painting 18th/19th Century, soon to be followed by the influential English School of landscape painting. 1707 Era of Romanticism in art, encouraged by the heroic ideals of the French Revolution. French Romantics led by Eugene Delacroix. Other leading artists included William Blake, Caspar David Friedrich, JMW Turner, Thomas Cole and John Constable. Invention of machine made paper (made from linen and cotton rags) by the Frenchman Nicholas Louis Robert. German painters Friedrich Overbeck and Franz Pforr form the Nazarenes movement. Anticlassicism, inspired by Catholicism, they revived the art of fresco painting. Completion of the Prado Museum in Madrid. Famous painting: Liberty Leading the People , by Delacroix. Barbizon 'School': Group of French landscape painters working near Fontainebleau. Led by Theodore Rousseau, the Barbizon School made landscape as important as portraiture and genre painting, paving the way for Impressionism, the supreme plein-air painting movement. Other members included Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot and Honor Daumier. Other landscape plein-air painting schools emerge in Pont-Aven & Concarneau. Opening of the Alte Pinakothek museum in Munich. Invention of the revolving perfecting press by American Richard March Hoe, (followed in 1846 by the first rotary press) and the manufacture of paper from wood pulp. 1764 1766 Collapsible tin paint tube invented by painter John Rand. Boosts plein air painting. Romantic Pre-Raphaelite art movement founded by Dante Gabriel Rossetti, London.

1600-1700

1656-67 1667 1700-70

1744

1750-1800

1768

High point of Orientalism, a painting school celebrating the exotic Near and Middle East. Members included: Jean-Auguste Ingres, Sir David Wilkie, Eugene Fromentin. The emergence of Realism, the progressive movement in art and literature. Spurning the ideal, Realists, such as Jean-Francois Millet and Gustave Courbet, sought to depict the truth: in particular, the everyday social truths of the new industrial age. Realism continues to spawn new approaches to the depiction of reality in the 20th century. Gustave Courbet paints The Painter's Studio for display at his own exhibition: Le Ralisme. Invention of photo-lithography by the French lithographer, Firmin Gillot, followed in 1872 by his son's invention of zincography, combining photography with etching. The Age of Modern Art Lesser known modern art movements of the mid-late 19th century included: Macchiaiolia Florentine style of anti-academy Impressionism (1860-90); Japonism, popular in UK and France (1875-1900); French Naturalism (Bande Noire, Brittany) inspired by Emil Zola (1880s-90s); Naive Art, exemplified by Henri Rousseau (1895-1940); Symbolism, an intellectual form of expressionist painting (1886-1900); Les Nabis, a mystical religious school of decorative art which spanned painting, tapestry, mosaics, fans, ceramics, andbook illustration (1890s); Verismo, an Italian school of raw realism, led by Telemaco Signorini. (1890-1900); Intimisme, a style of intimate genre-painting exemplified by Edouard Vuillard (1890s-1900s). Edouard Manet paints Djeuner Sur L'Herbe then Olympia , in the style of Goya (The Nude Maja 1800), causing a scandal in the French Salon. Era of French Impressionism, the name given by French critic Louis Leroy in 1874 to the works of Claude Monet, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Alfred Sisley, Camille Pissarro and others, after seeing Monet's painting Impression: Sunrise at the first Impressionist show. Impressionists focused on the depiction of outdoor light, although within a decade most of them (including Degas) had turned to painting indoors or in studios. France's greatest modern sculptor Auguste Rodin shows The Age of Bronze at the Salon. Later Rodin masterpieces include: The Gates of Hell (1880-1917), The Burghers of Calais (1884-86) and The Kiss (1888). The Pointillist neo-Impressionist artist Georges Seurat creates Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte , employing the optical colour-theory of Divisionism. The prolific period of the Dutch Expressionist Vincent Van Gogh, which includes his masterpieces: Vase With Twelve Sunflowers (1888), Wheatfield with Crows (1890),Portrait of Dr. Gachet I and II (1890), Starry Night (1889) and others. Era of Post-Impressionism, led by Paul Cezanne, Paul Gauguin, Georges Seurat, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec and Vincent Van Gogh. Highpoint of Arts and Crafts Movement.

1789

1793 1799 1860-1979

1860-1900

Emergence of Secession and Art Nouveau, two general art movements which sought to break away from the traditions of the official academies. They also sought to unite the fine arts of painting and sculpture and architecture with the applied arts of design and decoration (see Poster Art; and History of Poster Art (1860-1980). Their avant-garde exhibitions caused great controversy. In Vienna, where it was known as Jugenstil orSezessionstil, the breakaway was led by Gustav Klimt. A later member was Egon Schiele, known for his disturbing portraits and Art Nouveau cityscapes. National Gallery of British Art founded in London, popularly known as the Tate Gallery. 1862-3 Death of Aubrey Beardsley, the brilliant 25-year old Art Nouveau illustrator. The emergence of Expressionism. The expressionist art school / style begins with Van Gogh (1890), includes Edvard Munch (eg. The Scream , 1893), and the French Fauvismmovement (1898-1908) led by Henri Matisse; also the Parisian / Italian painter Amedeo Modigliani. German Expressionism, a major offshoot, included: The Bridge (Die Brucke ) (1905-13) founded by Karl Schmidt-Rottluff and Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, was an influential expressionist group based in Dresden. The Blue Rider (Der Blaue Reiter ) (1909-14) expressionist group was formed in Munich, the home of the avant-garde Neue Kunstler Vereiningung (New Artist Association) by the Russian born Wassily Kandinsky. New Objectivity (Die Neue Sachlichkeit ), was a 1920s German Expressionist group led by painters Otto Dix and Max Beckmann. Primitivism / Primitive art emerges in the West.

Pablo Picasso. Early career: characterized by his Blue Period (1901-4), Rose Period(19057), African Period (1907). During the latter, he created Les Demoiselles d'Avignon, a landmark painting in the development of modern art which signalled a radical departure from the artistic ideas of the preceding ages and heralded the coming of a new artistic movement (Cubism) as well as the birth of modern abstract art. The Ashcan School founded. It comprised a small number of painters who chronicled everyday life in New York City during the pre-war period, producing realistic and unvarnished pictures and etchings of urban streetscapes and genre scenes. 1869-90 Armory Show, NY, the most important exhibition of modern art ever held in America. Picasso combines with Georges Braque to invent the revolutionary art movement called Cubism, (overturning conventional ideas of perspective and form) which emerges in 3 stages: Prototype Cubism (1908-9), Analytical Cubism (1909-12), Synthetic Cubism (191219). Other leading Cubist painters include Juan Gris and Fernand Leger.

The chaos of World War I and the Russian Revolution (1917) shatter many conventional ideas in the world of painting and sculpture, leading to numerous avant-garde movements. These include: Futurism (1909-15), which promoted a worship of machinery and modernity; Orphism (Orphic Cubism or Simultanism) (1910-13), founded by French artist Robert Delaunay, which explored the colour phenomena seen in nature; Rayonism(191213), Russian style of painting dominated by pictorialized 'rays of light', invented by Mikhail Larionov, Vorticism (1913-15) the first UK style to embrace Cubist ideas; Dada(1916-24) which used banal imagery to shock; Suprematism (1913-20s) a Russian abstract art movement led by Natalie Goncharova and Kasimir Malevich; Constructivism(1917-21) a Russian avant-garde architectural art style; the Bauhaus Design School(1919-33) founded by Walter Gropius; De Stijl (1917-31), the highly influential Dutch 'school' of geometric abstract art and design led by Theo Van Doesburg and Piet Mondrian, also known as NeoPlasticism. All these styles were labelled 'degenerate art' (entartete kunst ) by the Nazis.

In America, the era of New Realism, as personnified by Edward Hopper (1882-1967). In addition, another style known as Social Realism portrays the everyday hardships of the Depression era. Best known Social Realists include Ben Shahn, Jack Levine and Jacob Lawrence: all strongly influenced by the earlier Ashcan School of New York City. In Europe, the era of Surrealism: a movement emerging out of Cubism, Dada, Freud and Communist philosophy, which aimed to fuse the conscious with the unconscious to create a 'super-reality'. Led by Andre Breton, Rene Magritte and Salvador Dali. A parallel art movement to Surrealism was Magic Realism, whose paintings are anchored in everyday reality, but with overtones of fantasy. The name was coined by the German art historian and critic Franz Roh in 1925, in a book entitled Nach Expressionismus: Magischer Realismus. High point of Art Deco, a style of design for furniture, jewellery, textiles and interior decor. The term was coined from the title of the seminal design exhibition in Paris,Exposition Internationale des Arts Decoratifs et Industriels Modernes. The period of Socialist Realism: a form of public propaganda art instituted by Joseph Stalin during the era of forced industrialization in Soviet Russia. 1884 Chaos and war undermines the primacy of Paris as the world centre of art, a title which soon devolves upon New York. In London (1938), a left-wing modern realist group of artists establish The Euston Road School, advocating the portrayal of traditional subjects in a realist manner, to make art more understandable and socially relevant. Pablo Picasso paints his monumental monochrome masterpiece Guernica . New York supercedes Paris as the centre of innovation in art, Abstract Expressionismemerges as the dominant new style. Leading lights include the so-called action painters led by Jackson Pollock, his wife Lee Krasner and Willem De Kooning, and Colour-Fieldpainters, such as Mark Rothko, Barnett Newman and Clyfford Still. In Europe, this type of Neo-Expressionism focused on the isolation of man (figurative style) as in the works of Alberto Giacometti and Francis Bacon, although hyper-modern movements like Spatialism(Italy) also appeared, prefacing later Performance and environmental / land artworks.

1877

1885-90

The era of Pop-Art, championed by Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein, Jasper Johns and Robert Rauschenburg. Pop-Artists employ contemporary iconic images in an anti-art approach, giving commonplace articles artistic status. Meanwhile, Op-Art becomes the avant-garde form of abstract art. Arte Povera blossoms in Italy 1967-71. The advent of Photorealism (sometimes referred to as superrealism), a form of meticulous photo-like realism, championed by Richard Estes (street scenes with elaborate window reflections) and Chuck Close (1940) who specializes in huge, neck-up portraiture. John Doherty is Ireland's best known photorealist artist. The Age of Postmodernism From roughly this point onwards, Modern Art (1860-1979) or 'Modernism' becomes superceded by what art-historians like to call 'Post-Modernism'. In a nutshell, Modernism asserted the supremacy of a particular style or interpretation of reality, normally considerably at odds with the prevailing academic tradition. In contrast, contemporary art movements take the view that the 'substance' of Modernism has performed no better, and must be dumped in favour of greater style. Post-modernism thus represents the triumph of style over substance. Post-modernist art typically employs new media and materials, stresses the importance of 'communication' from artist to audience and seeks to renew the big question: 'what is art?' Much of this is reflected in contemporary art forms such as Conceptual Art, Installation, Video art, Performance, and Happenings, as well as the works of such showmen as Damien Hirst , Gilbert and George, the environmental 'artists' Christo and Joanne-Claude, and the nude installationist Spencer Tunick. While the ephemeral nature of this contemporary art is fully consistent with global trends of instant gratification, on Growth of digital art, such as Giclee Prints.

1885-1900

1980-present