Annotated Mona Lisa

American Art: 1908-40

American realists focus on social concerns, daily life. Ash Can school, Sloan, Bellows, American Scene Painters, Benton, Wood, Hoppers, Social Realism, Bearden, Social Protest Art.

Architecture for the industrial age

Architects renounce past styles; buildings reflect new technology. Crystal Palace, Eiffel Tower, Arts and Crafts Movement

Prehistoric Art: the beginning

Art beings c. 25,000 BC with first surviving sculpture, cave paintings, huge stone monuments for rituals. Stonehenge

The Renaissance: The Beginning of Modern Painting

Classic art reborn due to breakthrough discoveries like anatomy and perspective; influence spreads from Italy throughout Europe. Four technical breakthroughs, early Renaissance Masters, Masaccio, Donatello, Botticelli.

Pop art

Consumer culture permeates art. Lichtenstein, Warhol, Oldenburg, Segal, Op art

Symbolism

Artists turn to subjective imagery, fantasy. Rousseau, Redon, Ryder.

Fauvism: Exploding Color

French painters warp color to express subjective response rather than object's appearance. Vlaminch, Derain, Dufy, Rouault.

Baroque: The Ornate Age

Grandiose art approaches theater with spotlight effect, emotional appeal.

Photography comes of age

Photography reflects trends with both surreal and geometric compositions. Man Ray, Atget, Cartier-Bresson, Stieglitz, Weston, Lange.

Cubism

Picasso, Braque overthrow Renaissance perspective, splinter form to show simultaneous views of object. Analytic Cubism, Synthetic Cubism: Gris, Leger

Contemporary Architecture

Post-Modern triumphs with return to historical references. Pei, Johnson, Beaubourg, Graves, Gehry, Venturi, Survey of Architecture.

Neo Expressionism

Powerful subject matter revived Beuys, Kiefer, Clemente, Baselitz, Basquiat

Twentieth Century and beyond: Contemporary Art

Experimentation continues as styles, materials, techniques change rapidly.

Neoclassicism: Roman Fever

Greek and Roman forms revived

Color field

Americans rely on fields of color to convey messages of art. Rothko, Newman, Frankenthaler, Louis

Conceptual Art: Invisible visual art

Idea rather than art object dominates Process Art, Environmental Art, Performance Art, Installations

Romanticism: The Power of Passion

Interest in exotic subjects born; goal of art to express emotion

Modernist architecture: Geometry to live in

International Style develops sleek, simple forms. Gropius, Mies van der Rohe, Le Corbusier, Wright

Rodin: First modern sculptor

Rodin brings sculpture into modern era.

The Birth of Art: Prehistoric through Medieval

Roots of paintings, sculpture, architecture, established.

Twentieth Century Sculpture: A new look

Sculpture simplified into abstract symbols.

The Middle Ages: The reign of religion

Spiritual art to inspire religious devotion replaces lifelike portrayal

Greece: They invented a lot more than the Olympics

Striving for ideal beauty results in sculpture, architecture, vase painting with balance, proportion, harmony; style called "Classical" because it set standard for technical perfection. Vase painting, sculpture, architecture, Greek art styles.

Contemporary Art

Styles multiply in global high-tech world before returning to high-touch tradition of studio craft.

Modernism outside of France

New concept of art spreads: less concerned with subject or outside world, more concerned with color, line, shape.

The Birth of Modern Architecture.

New functions demand new forms; skyscraper invented. Sullivan.

Realism

New view of art's function arises; artists show life of streets without retouching reality.

Goya: Man without an "ISM"

Nonconformist denounces human hypocrisy

Post-War sculpture

Nonrepresentational sculptures experiment with varied material and forms. Moore, Calder, Smith, Bourgeois, Nevelson.

Photo-Realism

Painting imitates the camera. Estes, Flack, Close, Hanson

Photography: What's new

Realism and fantasy both evident. Abbott, Bourke-White, Adams, Street Photography, Uelsmann, Baldessari

Pre-Pop art

Recognizable objects return to art. Rauschenberg, Johns

African Art: The first cubists

Religions shapes art of wooden masks, elongated sculpture; semiabstract forms influence modern art. Influence of Tribal Art

Mesopotamia: The Architects

First cities built with mammoth temples called ziggurats and palaces lined with bas-relief sculpture. The pyramid form through the ages

Early expressionism

Form and color distorted to convey feelings. Munch, Modersohn-Becker

The 19th century: Birth of the "ISMS"

France dominates art leadership for next 200 years as styles come and go

Abstract Expressionism

Action painters smash art tradition, create first U.S. movement to influence world art. Gorky, Pollock, de Kooning, Kline, Hofmann, Still, Motherwell.

The Twentieth Century: Modern Art

Art styles shift each decade; trend toward nonrepresentational art increases.

Rebirth of Art: Renaissance and Baroque

Artists rediscover how to represent human figure realistically, overcome technical limitations

Figural Expressionism: Not just a pretty face

Artists seek visceral effect by distorting figures. Dubuffet, Outsider Art, Bacon, Kahlo

Minimalism: The cool school

Artists strip sculpture to simplest elements, pure form without content. Judd, Andre, Flavin, LeWitt, Morris, Serra

Hard edge

Artists use large geometric shapes to show how colors interact. Albers Noland, Kelly, Stella

Post-Impressionism

French Painters blaze trails by using color to express emotion and simulate depth. Hallmarks of Post-Impressionist's Styles, Seurat, Toulouse-Lautrec, Cezanne, Gauguin, Van Gogh.

Impressionism: Let there be color and light

French artists paint outdoors to record changing effects of light, launch art revolution. Hallmarks of Impressionist's Styles, Landmark Paintings, Manet, Monet, Renoir, Degas, Cassatt, Morisot, Pissarro, Graphics Arts, Japanese Woodblocks Prints.

Dada and Surrealism: Art between the wars

Dada defies logic; surrealist artists explore world of dreams and unconscious. Duchamp, Arp, Schwitters, Miro, Chirico, Ernst, Chagall, Dali, Magritte

Art Nouveau

Decorative style of flowing lines opposes Machine Age. Beardsley, Tiffany

Rome: The Organizers

Empire produces realistic portrait sculpture, idealized busts of emperors, engineering wonders like aqueducts and arenas based on arch, vault, dome. Greek vs Roman styles, Architecture, Sculpture, Colosseum, Pompeii.

Twin Titans of the Twentieth Century: Matisse and Picasso

Matisse simplifies, Picasso fractures forms. Matisse, Picasso

Mondrian: Harmony of opposites

Mondrian devises purely geometric art.

The New Breed: Post-Modern Art

Multiple styles with social criticism common. Appropriation art: Schnabel: photography derived art: kruger, Sherman, Longo; Narrative Art: Fischl; Graffiti Art: Haring; Political art, Post-Modern Sculpture, End of the Millenium.

Pre-Colombian Art of the Americas: New World art when it was still an old world

Native Americans create stylized human and animal forms in ceremonial objects. Mound-Builders, 20th-century adaptations.

Birth of Photography

New art form born; captures world with unmatched accuracy. Inventors: Niepce, Daguerre, Talbot, Types of Photography, Impact on Painting

Egypt: The art of Immortality

Tomb art developed with wall paintings; statues conforming to rigid conventions for 3,000 years; colossal architecture (pyramids) constructed. Paintings, sculptures, mummies, pyramids, Tutankhamen's Tomb