Art History Timeline — A Guide to Western Art Movements

Before the genesis of written language, prehistoric cultures utilized artistic means of communication and documentation of the world around them. Artistic works such as cave paintings, rock carvings, stone arrangements, and engraved pictorial imagery date back to the Paleolithic era and Old Stone Age. 

These Prehistoric artworks often depicted cultural events such as rituals or depictions of the environment such as animals and landscapes. Natural materials such as stone were common in prehistoric sculptures and engravings. Pigments from natural materials were often used to create illustrations in cave paintings and the Paleolithic cave paintings in Lascaux in France. 

Ancient Art initially occurred parallel to much of Prehistoric art. Ancient art, however, was a product of civilizations that were advancing at a faster pace such as in Mesopotamia, Greece, Egypt, and Mesoamerica. With the creation of written language in much of these civilizations, religions, social structures, and storytelling became more prevalent.

Human beings utilized artistic methods to communicate and express these concepts. The influence of these artworks on later artists cannot be underscored. From Renaissance artists to even Cubist artists, Ancient artwork has been a source of inspiration for centuries to come. 

After the fall of the Roman Empire, economic strife led to what is now known as The Middle Ages. During this time, art focused predominantly around the hardship that those victims of the Roman Empire fallout endured. Simultaneously, the early Christian Church sought the use of valuable materials to form artworks that conveyed religious meaning. Medieval art is a culmination of these two historical events occurring in parallel.

Over the course of roughly 300 years, artists throughout Europe reconnected to the concepts, styles, and subjects of ancient Rome and ancient Greece. It is a cornerstone of Western culture and history, let alone art.

During the Renaissance, art in all its forms was looked at as a means to better society as a whole. 

Philosophy and art went hand in hand according to the vision of Renaissance titans such as Lorenzo de Medici who was a primary patron of iconic Renaissance artists such as Da Vinci, Botticelli, and Michelangelo.

At the heart of the Renaissance was a philosophy of using the humanities to better the lives of individuals rather than as a means of outward status. 

What was produced during the Renaissance holds so much prestige today not only because of the beauty in the works’ physical form, but the intent behind these works from various visionaries. 

In stark contrast to the rather unemotional Neoclassical artworks, Romanticism found value in passions and deeply emotional subject matter within art. At its core is not a style, but a way of thinking. One that values sensitivity and intense emotion within a fulfilling life. 

Artists such as Francisco Goya, Henry Fuseli, and William Blake discarded the neat order and rationality of Neoclassicism. Rather, their artistic curiosities led them to sensation and feeling. This is why many artworks of Romanticism have drawn inspiration from nature and internal psychology. The influence of Romanticism on modern arts such as music and cinema that thrive on human emotion cannot be understated. 

While Impressionism borrows from Realism as far as focusing on everyday subject matter, it distinguishes itself in style. Impressionism focuses on initial sensations and impressions an artist has of a scene and basing their work off of this rather than what reality presents.

Because of this, Impressionist work often displays quick brush strokes with an almost sketch-like style. Subjects and environments are less defined by parameters, but rather by color and energetic brush strokes. 

As an artist almost synonymous with the Impressionist art movement, Claude Monet talks of his work saying, “Now I really feel the landscape. I can be bold and include every tone of pink and blue: it's enchanting, it's delicious.”

Toward the late 1800s, artists independently began desiring more self expression within their work. A desire to express inward emotion and individual perception rather than what is simply presented to them by the outside world.

The artists and work that emerged during this time were a product of what is now known as Post-Impressionism. Iconic artists such as Vincent van Gogh, Paul Gauguin, and Georges Seurat were some of the more prolific artists to come out of the Post-Impression movement. 

Cubism is an influential art style defined by its revolutionary method of depicting three-dimensional reality through geometrical shapes on a two-dimensional canvas. 

The term “Cubism” was coined by Louis Vauxcelles, a 20th century art critic. When writing a critique of artist Georges Braque’s landscape work, Vauxcelles identified geometric shapes and referred to them as “cubes.” 

Cubist artists depict a subject by utilizing geometrical shapes and forms from varying perspectives of the subject. In practice, form, and observation, cubism is a means of discovering the true essence of a subject rather than a surface level perspective. 

In a stark turn from the work of Abstract Expressionism, artists from the U.S. and England began creating graphically styled illustrations full of bright colors often with underlying political commentary.

This evolved into the Pop Art movement. While many pop artists used the medium as a social critique, some found that it was ironically evolving into an endorsement of the very systems it is “critiquing.” 

Some subjects like capitalism and war were at the core of famous Pop artists like Andy Warhol. Warhol when talking on the idea of Pop art has reaffirmed this mentality saying, “An artist is someone who produces things that people don’t need to have but that he – for some reason – thinks it would be a good idea to give them.”

Minimalism emerged in the mid-twentieth century art movement largely as a response to both Pop art and Abstract Expressionism that came before it. It is characterized by its simplicity in concept and design.

Minimalists believed simplicity was to strip away any forced meaning or expression, a belief that very much contrasts that of the Abstract Expressionists. For minimalists, Simplicity in art meant creating art to be its own identity, not what we impress upon it.