Major art movements and their characteristics
25 cards · arts-culture
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| Front | Back |
|---|---|
| Renaissance | c. 1400–1600; humanism, perspective, classical balance Donatello, Botticelli, Leonardo, Michelangelo; Brunelleschi’s dome shaped civic ideals. |
| Northern Renaissance | c. 1430–1600; meticulous oil realism, piety, symbolism Jan van Eyck, Dürer, Bruegel; altarpieces and prints stressed moral themes. |
| Mannerism | c. 1520–1600; elongated forms, artificiality, complex composition Pontormo, Parmigianino, Bronzino; Michelangelo’s Laurentian Library signaled the shift. |
| Baroque | c. 1600–1750; drama, movement, chiaroscuro, grandeur Caravaggio, Rubens, Rembrandt; Bernini and Borromini reshaped church architecture. |
| Neoclassicism | c. 1750–1820s; classical revival, clarity, moral virtue David, Ingres, Canova; architecture used columns, domes, symmetry (e.g., Jefferson). |
| Romanticism | c. 1800–1850; emotion, nature, sublime, individualism Delacroix, Turner, Friedrich; Gothic Revival echoed its nostalgia in buildings. |
| Realism | c. 1840s–1870s; everyday life, unidealized, social critique Courbet, Millet, Daumier; direct observation challenged academic conventions. |
| Impressionism | 1860s–1880s; light, color, plein air, visible brushstrokes Monet, Renoir, Degas; named after Monet’s “Impression, Sunrise.” |
| Post-Impressionism | 1880s–1900s; structure, emotion, symbolism beyond Impressionism Van Gogh, Gauguin, Cézanne, Seurat; personal styles diverged from opticality. |
| Symbolism | 1880s–1900s; dreamlike, mythic, inner states over naturalism Moreau, Redon, Munch; a literary, introspective current across Europe. |
| Art Nouveau | c. 1890–1910; sinuous lines, organic motifs, total design Klimt, Mucha; Horta and Gaudí fused decorative arts and architecture. |
| Fauvism | 1905–1908; bold color, simplified forms, free brushwork Matisse, Derain, Vlaminck; dubbed “wild beasts” after the 1905 Salon. |
| Expressionism | c. 1905–1920s; intense emotion, distortion, raw color Kirchner, Nolde, Kandinsky; Die Brücke and Der Blaue Reiter led waves. |
| Cubism | c. 1907–1914; multiple viewpoints, geometric fragmentation Picasso, Braque; Analytic deconstruction to Synthetic collage innovations. |
| Futurism | 1909–1916; speed, technology, dynamism, anti-past Boccioni, Balla, Severini; manifestos exalted machines; bold urban visions. |
| Dada | 1916–1923; anti-art, chance, absurdity, readymades Duchamp, Höch, Arp; Cabaret Voltaire roots; photomontage and provocation. |
| De Stijl | 1917–1931; abstraction, primary colors, grids, right angles Mondrian, van Doesburg; Rietveld’s Schröder House applied principles to space. |
| Surrealism | 1920s–1940s; unconscious, dream imagery, automatism Dalí, Ernst, Magritte; Breton’s manifestos; biomorphic and veristic streams. |
| Bauhaus | 1919–1933; unify art, craft, industry; functional design Gropius, Klee, Moholy-Nagy; modernist architecture, typography, furniture. |
| Abstract Expressionism | 1940s–1950s; gestural abstraction, scale, spontaneity Pollock, de Kooning, Rothko; action vs color field within the NY School. |
| Pop Art | 1950s–1960s; mass media, consumer icons, irony Warhol, Lichtenstein, Hamilton; bright palettes, repetition, appropriation. |
| Minimalism | 1960s–1970s; industrial materials, repetition, reduced form Judd, Andre, Flavin; literal, objecthood-oriented works shaped galleries. |
| Conceptual Art | 1960s–1970s; idea over object; dematerialized practice Kosuth, Weiner, Huebler; texts, instructions, documentation replace objects. |
| Postmodernism | 1970s–1990s; pluralism, irony, pastiche, grand-narrative critique Cindy Sherman, Koons; in architecture, Venturi championed hybrid references. |
| Contemporary Art | 1970s–present; global scope, hybrid media, social themes Hirst, Ai Weiwei, Kusama; installation, digital, participatory practices. |