Understanding Art - a beginnerās guide
I came across one of the best articles, in my opinion, that briefly explains art over centuries. I couldnāt have done a better job or even half of the job that theyāve done, so I thought Iād link it below instead provide an excerpt.
Art as a timeline and a short summary:
Art historians typically consider the Romanesque art era to be the start of the art history timeline. Romanesque art developed during the rise of Christianity ca. 1000 AD. During this time, only a small percentage of the European population were literate. The ministers of the Christian church were typically part of this minority, and to spread the message of the bible, they needed an alternative method. Intended to teach the masses about the values and beliefs of the Christian Church, Romanesque paintings had to be simple and easy to read.
Just as in the Romanesque period, Christianity lay at the heart of the tensions of the Gothic era. As more freedom of thought emerged, and many pushed against conformity, the subjects of paintings became more diverse. The stronghold of the church began to dissipate. Gothic paintings portrayed scenes of real human life. The focus moved away from divine beings and mystical creatures as more focus was given to the intricacies of what it meant to be human.
The Renaissance can be seen as a cultural rebirth. A part of this cultural rebirth was the returned focus on the natural and realistic world in which humans lived. Renaissance artists painted human bodies and faces in three dimensions with a strong emphasis on realism.
The expression of feelings and human gestures, even items of clothing, is exaggerated deliberately in mannerist paintings. The small S-curve of the human body that characterizes the Renaissance style is transformed into an unnatural bending of the body. This is the first European style that attracted artists from across Europe to its birthplace in Italy.
Baroque paintings often showed scenes where Kings would be ascending into the heavens, mingling with the angels, and reaching ever closer to the divinity and power of God. Here, we really can see the progression of human self-importance, man is increasingly the central power within the compositions.
The paintings from the Rococo era are typical of the French aristocracy of the time. Paintings of this era were no longer strong and powerful, but light and playful.
Classism reverted to earlier, more serious styles of artistic expression. The art produced in this era was used internationally to instill feelings of patriotism in the people of each nation.
Romanticism is often seen as an emotionally charged reaction to the stern nature of Classicism. In contrast to the strict and realistic nature of the Classicism era, the paintings of the Romantic era were much more sentimental.
In contrast to the beautiful and deeply emotional content of Romantic paintings, Realist artists presented both the good and beautiful, the ugly and evil.
Historians often paint the Impressionist movement as the beginning of the modern age. A significant change that occurred during the Impressionist era was that painting began to take place āen-plein-air,ā or outside. Galleries and international exhibitions became increasingly important.
Artists became preoccupied with the representation of feelings and thoughts through objects. The favorite themes of the Symbolism movement were death, sickness, sin, and passion.
The art produced in the Art Nouveau period includes a lot of symmetry and is characterized by playfulness and youthfulness. Art Nouveau has a lot of political content.
Expressionism originated in Germany and is intended to contrast Impressionism. Towards the beginning of the First World War, Expressionist paintings had a disturbing intensity about them. Intended to criticize power and the standing social order, Expressionism spread these political ideas through the medium of paint. Art was beginning to become political.
Cubism was a rejection of all the rules of traditional western painting and has had a strong influence on the styles of art that have followed it.
Futurism is less of an artistic style and more of an artistically inspired political movement. Founded by Tommaso Marinettiās Futurist Manifesto, which rejected social organization and Christian morality, the Futurist era was full of chaos, hostility, aggression, and anger. The militant nature of the Futurist movement has resulted in many people believing that it was too close to fascism.
Dadaism represents the beginnings of action art in which painting becomes more than just a portrait of reality, but rather an amalgamation of the social, cultural, and subjective parts of being human. The art movement encompassed several art forms including writing, poetry, dance, and performance art.
Surrealism is fundamentally psychoanalytical, and many Surrealist artists would paint directly from their dreams. Sometimes dealing with uncomfortable concepts, hidden desires, and taboos, Surrealism was a direct critique of the ingrained ideas and beliefs of the bourgeoise. As you can imagine, this style of art was not popular when it began, but it has greatly influenced the world of modern art.
Many of the themes within New Objective art were social critiques. The turbulence of the war left many people searching for some kind of order to hold onto, and this can be seen clearly in the art of New Objectivity. The images represented in New Objectivity were often cold, unemotional, and technical, with some favorite subjects being the radio and lightbulbs.
Abstract Expressionism is said to be the first art movement to originate outside of Europe. Emerging from North America, Abstract Expressionism focused on color-field painting and action paintings. Rather than using a canvas and a brush, buckets of paint would be poured on the ground, and artists used their fingers to create images.
For the artists of Pop-Art, everything in the world was art. From advertisements, tin cans, toothpaste, and toilets, everything is art. Painting and graphic art became influenced by photorealism and serial prints.
Starting in the 1980s, Neo-Expressionism emerged with large-format representational and life-affirming paintings. Berlin was a central point for this new movement, and the designs typically featured cities and big-city life.
As long as we humans have been able to use our hands, we have been creating art. From early cave paintings to the ceiling of the Sistine Cha
