Praxis 2 Art Content Knowledge: Art Periods & Movements

Installation Art

1970s- a term generally used to describe artwork located in three-dimensional interior space. Has a specific relationship with its spatial environment on an architectural, conceptual or social level.

Op Art

1960s Movement was driven by artists who were interested in investigating various perceptual effects. Stress on illusion and perception. Victor Vasarely, Bridget Riley, Frank Stella, Jesus Rafael Soto, Josef Albers.

Northern Renaissance

1350-1600 AD, sometimes considered late Gothic, rather than Pre-Renaissance. Artists traveled more and brought back innovations in style and technique which resulted in an international style. Elongated, stylized figures, luxurious fabrics and crowded scenes were typical. Paintings became more portable and affordable by the merchant class as well as royalty and the aristocracy. Jan van Eyck is credited with introducing the use of oil as a painting medium.

Baroque

1590-1750 AD. Developed as a reaction to the discipline of Renaissance art and was intended to appeal to the emotions of the viewer. It was everything the Renaissance was not; in painting, sculpture and architecture. Instead of geometric shapes this period was notable for swirling intensity, strong diagonals, brilliant coloration, dramatic contrasts and emotional intensity.

Rococo

1700-1800 AD applies to the decorative arts of the time of Louis XV of France. It featured designs based on naturalistic forms such as plants, rocks, shells and flowers. It has come to mean the excessive use of ornament in the decorative arts.

Neoclassicism

1770-1820 based on the art of Greece and Rome in antiquity. Always refers to the art produced later but inspired by antiquity.

Romanticism

1800-1850 emphasized the individual, the subjective, the irrational, the imaginative, the personal, the spontaneous, the emotional, the visionary, and the transcendental. Can be seen as a rejection of the precepts of order, calm, harmony, balance, idealization, and rationality that typified Classicism in general and late 18th-century Neoclassicism in particular.

Hudson River School

1825-1875 painters whose work reflected their pride in the beauty and grandeur of the American landscape.

Pre-Raphaelites

1848-1910 Group of English painters whose work was names thus to recapture a simpler time. Their work reflected nature in minutely detailed landscapes and allegories.

Arts & Crafts

1860-1920 Disenchanted with the impersonal, mechanized direction of society in the nineteenth century, they sought to return to a simpler, more fulfilling way of living. The movement is admired for its use of high quality materials and for its emphasis on utility in design. Largely associated with the vast range of the decorative arts and architecture as opposed to the "high" arts of painting and sculpture. The spark for thismovement was the Great Exhibition of 1851, the first world's fair, held in London.

Impressionism

1870-1905 an outdoor painting technique showing the effects of light and color. Developing in Paris in the 1860s, its influence spread throughout Europe and eventually the United States. Its originators were artists who rejected the official, government-sanctioned exhibitions, or salons, and were consequently shunned by powerful academic art institutions. Édouard Manet, Claude Monet, Edgar Degas, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Camille Pissarro & Alfred Sisley.

Tromple L'oeil Painters

1876-1900 A number of Americans including William Michael Harnett, John Frederick Peto and Raphaelle Peale were virtuosos of "deceiving the eye" through their extremely realistic paintings.

Symbolism

1880-1900 What unites the various artists and styles associated with this movement is the emphasis on emotions, feelings, ideas, and subjectivity rather than realism. Their works are personal and express their own ideologies, particularly the belief in the artist's power to reveal truth. In terms of specific subject matter, they combined religious mysticism, the perverse, the erotic, and the decadent. Their subject matter is typically characterized by an interest in peasant scenes, the occult, the morbid, the dream world, melancholy, evil, and death. Paul Gauguin, James Whistler, Gustave Moreau, Odilon Redon, Jan Toorop, Aubrey Beardsley

Post Impressionism

1880-1900s Symbolic and highly personal meanings were particularly important to such as Paul Gauguin and Vincent van Gogh. Rejecting interest in depicting the observed world, they instead looked to their memories and emotions in order to connect with the viewer on a deeper level. All concentrated on the subjective vision of the artist. The movement ushered in an era during which painting transcended its traditional role as a window onto the world and instead became a window into the artist's mind and soul. Paul Cézanne, Vincent Van Gogh, Paul Gauguin, Georges Seurat, Edouard Vuillard & Pierre Bonnard

Minimalism

1960s New York. Denial of expression coupled with an interest in making objects that avoided the appearance of fine art led to the creation of sleek, geometric works that purposefully and radically eschew conventional aesthetic appeal. Carl Andre, Dan Flavin, Robert Irwin, Donald Judd, Kenneth Noland, Richard Serra.

Arte Povera

1969 Used junk object in composition, a form of rebellion against materialism.

Art Nouveau

1880-1910 asymmetrical decorative style featuring sinuous forms based on objects found in nature. Artists drew inspiration from both organic and geometric forms, evolving elegant designs that united flowing, natural forms resembling the stems and blossoms of plants. The emphasis on linear contours took precedence over color, which was usually represented with hues such as muted greens, browns, yellows, and blues. Known by various names, such as the Glasgow Style, or, in the German-speaking world, Jugendstil. Gustav Klimt, Arthur Heygate Mackmurdo, Arthur Liberty, Alphonse Mucha, Josef Hoffmann & Otto Wagner.

Expressionism

1890-1920 The painting of feelings, sometimes with recognizable images, often totally abstract. Art was now meant to come forth from within the artist, rather than from a depiction of the external visual world, and the standard for assessing the quality of a work of art became the character of the artist's feelings rather than an analysis of the composition. Artists often employed swirling, swaying, and exaggeratedly executed brushstrokes in the depiction of their subjects. These techniques were meant to convey the turgid emotional state of the artist reacting to the anxieties of the modern world.

Fauvism

1905-1907 Means "wild beasts". One of its major contributions to modern art was its radical goal of separating color from its descriptive, representational purpose and allowing it to exist on the canvas as an independent element. Color could project a mood and establish a structure within the work of art without having to be true to the natural world. Another of its central artistic concerns was the overall balance of the composition. Simplified forms and saturated colors drew attention to the inherent flatness of the canvas or paper; within that pictorial space, each element played a specific role. The immediate visual impression of the work is to be strong and unified. Above all, it valued individual expression. Henri Mattisse was the leader of this group of French Artists. Maurice de Vlaminck, André Derain, Kees van Dongen, Raoul Dufy & Georges Braque.

Cubism

1907-1920 Natural forms changed by geometric reduction. The artists abandoned perspective, which had been used to depict space since the Renaissance, and they also turned away from the realistic modeling of figures. Interpreting objects from multiple angles. Pablo Picasso, Georges Braque, Fernand Leger, Juan Gris, Robert Delauney & Sonia Delaunay.

Futurism

1908-1918 Italian art movement that tries to show the rapid movement of machinery. The most important Italian avant-garde art movement of the 20th century, celebrated advanced technology and urban modernity. Did not have a specific style, artists worked eclectically at first then in 1911 a distinctive style emerged as a product of Cubist influence. Umberto Boccioni, Giacomo Balla, Gino Severini, Carlo Carra.

Constructivism

1915-1930s was the last and most influential modern art movement to flourish in Russia in the 20th century. Objects were to be created not in order to express beauty, or the artist's outlook, or to represent the world, but to carry out a fundamental analysis of the materials and forms of art, one which might lead to the design of functional objects. Often aimed to demonstrate how materials behaved. Vladimir Tatlin, El Lissitzky, Laszlo Mololy-Nagy, Alexander Rodchnko

Dada

1916-1922 Began in Zurich, Switzerland and marked by its mockery of materialistic and nationalistic attitudes, proved a powerful influence on artists in many cities, including Berlin, Hanover, Paris, New York, and Cologne, all of which generated their own groups. So intent were members on opposing all norms of bourgeois culture that the group was barely in favor of itself! Francis Picabia, Marcel Duchamp, Man Ray, Hannah Hoch, Sophie Taeuber-Arp, Andre Breton.

Bauhaus

1919-1933 Shaped by the Arts & Crafts movement, they were concerned that creativity and manufacturing were drifting apart, and aimed to unite them once again, rejuvenating design for everyday life. The stress on experiment and problem solving at the _______ has proved enormously influential for the approaches to education in the arts. Walter Gropius, Laszlo Moholy-Nagy, Paul Klee, Wassily Kandinsky, Josef Albers, Marcel Breuer.

Art Deco

1920s-1930s works are symmetrical, geometric, streamlined, often simple, and pleasing to the eye. Derived from French, African, Aztec and Chinese motifs. A modern art style that attempts to infuse functional objects with artistic touches available to everyone. Important Art: "Victoire" (1928), René Lalique

Surrealism

1922-1940s These artists sought to channel the unconscious as a means to unlock the power of the imagination. Disdaining rationalism and literary realism, and powerfully influenced by psychoanalysis, they believed the rational mind repressed the power of the imagination, weighting it down with taboos. Andre Breton, Hans Arp, Max Ernst, Salvador Dali, Alberto Giacometti, Joan Miro.

Abstract Expressionism

1945-1960 New York painting movement that rarely featured a subject; sometimes called action painting. Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning, Mark Rothko, Clyfford Still, Franz Kline & Hans Hoffman.

Hard Edge, Shaped & Color Field Painting

1950-1960s is known for its economy of form, fullness of color, impersonal execution, and smooth surface planes. Part of a general tendency to move away from the expressive qualities of gestural abstraction. It describes an abstract style that combines the clear composition of geometric abstraction with the intense color and bold, unitary forms. Karl Benjamin, Lorser Feitelson, Frederick Hammersley, Ellsworth Kelly, Frank Stella, Kenneth Noland.

Pop Art

1950s-1960s Objects from commercial art and the popular culture transformed into artworks. Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein, James Rosenquist, Claees Oldenburg, Richard Hamilton, Tom Wesselmann.

Gutai Group

1954-1972 This Japanese movement represented a radical and energetic approach to artmaking that encompassed performance, painting, installation, and theatrical events, taking advantage of the freedoms available in their newly democratic homeland. Individualism was a central concern.

Photorealism

1960-1975 artists whose work depended heavily on photographs, which they often projected onto canvas allowing images to be replicated with precision and accuracy. The exactness was often aided further by the use of an airbrush, which was originally designed to retouch photographs. Chuck Close, Richard Estes, Ralph Goings, Malcolm Morley, Duane Hanson, Audrey Flack.

Conceptual Art

1970s-Present. a movement that prizes ideas over the formal or visual components of art works. An amalgam of various tendencies rather than a tightly cohesive movement, took myriad forms, such as performances, happenings, and ephemera. These artists produced works and writings that completely rejected standard ideas of art. Joseph Beuys, John Baldessari, Sol LeWitt, Robert Raushenberg, Robert Smithson, Walter de Maria.

Feminist Art

1970s-Present. sought to create a dialogue between the viewer and the artwork through the inclusion of women's perspective. Art was not merely an object for aesthetic admiration, but could also incite the viewer to question the social and political landscape, and through this questioning, possibly affect the world and bring change toward equality. Judy Chicago, Miriam Schapiro, Barbara Kruger, Carolee Schneemann, Hannah Wilke, Jenny Holzer.

Byzantine

323 to 1453 AD. Constantine moved to Istanbul (first called Byzantium then Constantinople). Church decoration was notable for rich mosaics made of brilliantly colored pieces of glass. Mosaic figures were stiff; frontal with large staring eyes, unsmiling, long, narrow faces. Panel paintings featured religious figures on gold backgrounds (icons). Architectural innovation was pendentive which enabled rounded dome to be placed on square pillars.

American Scene Painting

American art needed its own typically American subjects & scenes. (Little difference from Regionalism)

Prehistory

Chinese, Egyptian, Indian, Mesopotamian and Sumerian civilizations developed, 35,000-15,000 BC. Venus of Willendorf from this period.

Federal Arts Projects

During the 1933-1943 depression, the Federal Government formed a number of different agencies to aid artists. PWAP (Public Works of Art Project), WPA (Works Progress Administration) and the FSA (Farm Security Administration).

Earth Art

Largely American, movement that uses the natural landscape to create site-specific structures, art forms, and sculptures. Also called Environmental Art , Earthworks, Land Art.)

Die Brucke

None of the four founding members of Die Brücke, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Fritz Bleyl, Erich Heckel, and Karl Schmidt-Rottluff, had received any formal education in the visual arts. They stressed the value of youth and intuition in escaping the intellectual cul-de-sac of academic thought focused on copying earlier models. Desired to "bridge" the past and present.

Regionalism

Painted people at work, American legends, and landscapes, preserving in their paintings the atmosphere and lifestyles of different areas of the country.

Ashcan School

Pursued authenticity in art, a quality associated with direct experience, immediacy of execution, and a new emphasis on the truth and validity of one's first impression. This resulted in canvases which portray a sense of haste and liveliness, of the working people of New York, and of a release from the artist's need to create beauty from the extraordinary. Painters of realism. Robert Henri, William Glackens, George Luks, George Bellows, Everett Shinn, John Sloan.

Barbizon School

The group of painters took their name from this village near Fontainebleau, where they settled and painted. They preferred to paint in their studios as opposed to the Impressionists, who painted outdoors whenever possible. 1830-1870.

Western Painters

These painters illustrated frontier life including Indian scenes, landscape and army life.

Middle Ages

Time between classical antiquity and modern times. The 5th to 13th Centuries are sometimes referred to as the "Dark Ages". Manuscript Illuminations, grave goods (elaborately carved burial ships for northern kings), carved ivory book covers, beautiful metalwork reliquaries (to house the relics of saints) and jewelry. In 1073 the first work of art known to be created by a woman, "Bayeux Tapestry" by Queen Matilda and her court to commemorate the Battle of Hastings. Architecture was considered by some to be the great artistic contribution of this time with the growth of churches like the "Palace Chapel of Charlemagne" at Aachen, Germany in 792.

Greek

almost paralleled Egyptian art. Evolved from stiff, rigid human forms to classical sculptures such as the "Discus Thrower" and architecture like the "Acropolis". No paintings survived from this era, although vases show how sophisticated they may have been.

Western

began in Egypt around 4000-2000 BC and moved from Egypt through Greece, to Southern Europe then Northern Europe and eventually to the Americas. Egyptian art was unified with architecture for which they were specifically designed. The closer an artist could follow the "rules" of art, the more the work was admired.

Mannerism

closely followed the High Renaissance. Artists departed from the faithfulness to nature that characterized the Renaissance and instead elongated and distorted the human figure using harsh, vivid colors for emotional impact. El Greco was among the best known artists of this period.

Etruscan, Roman & Early Christian

from 750 BC-AD 400. Sculpture reflected Greek influence and wall paintings probably were similar to those of the Greeks. Architecture gave us such innovations as the amphitheater, arch, atrium, groin vault, concrete, organized city planning and apartment houses.

Romanesque

from AD 1000-1150. Vaulted ceilings in churches and long nave were reminiscent of the Roman marketplace. An intense period of church building because of large pilgrimages across Europe to Santiago de Compostelo in Spain. Architecture, stained glass, stone carving, manuscript illumination, jewelry and reliquaries all were dedicated to the glory of the Christian God. Sculptures were elongated and "wooden" as if the human form did not exist under their clothing. Favorite subjects were: the lives of saints, crucifixion scenes, allegories of the months and zodiac signs.

Gothic

from approximately 1100-1400 AD, came to its glory through the churches with spires and stained glass windows. The flying buttress allowed churches to rise to new heights in this period. Churches are distinguished during this period for ribbed vaults, pointed arches, a high nave and clerestories with jewel like stained glass. Most art (carvings, jeweled reliquaries, paintings and sculptures were mostly based on Christianity although they reflected the Eastern influence brought back from the Crusades. In 1348 the black death (bubonic plague) decimated half of Europe. Church Art was created to instruct the illiterate populace.

Italian Renaissance

generally acknowledged from 1400-1520 and was based on principles developed by the Greeks. The age of Humanism had arrived. Renaissance philosophers, writers, scientists and artists based their principles on science and math as they knew it. Leonardo da Vinci felt that even the human form might be based on geometric principles. Architecture displayed geometric forms and symmetry. The renaissance began with "Arena Chapel" frescoes of Giotto in 1305 which were based on real people who showed emotion and whose clothing appeared to cover human form. da Vinci, Michelangelo, Raphael and Botticelli created enduring masterpieces during this rebirth.

Contemporary Art

generally defined as art produced during the 2nd half of the 20th century.

Realism

in the arts, the accurate, detailed, unembellished depiction of nature or of contemporary life. Rejects imaginative idealization in favor of a close observation of outward appearances. The works of such 17th-century painters as Caravaggio, the Dutch genre painters, the Spanish painters José de Ribera, Diego Velázquez, and Francisco de Zurbarán, and the Le Nain brothers in France are realist in approach. Gustave Courbet, James Whistler, John Singer Sargent, Jean-Francois Millet, Édouard Manet & Thomas Eakins

Postmodern Art

is distinguished by a questioning of the master narratives that were embraced during the modern period, the most important being the notion that all progress - especially technological - is positive. overturned the idea that there was one inherent meaning to a work of art or that this meaning was determined by the artist at the time of creation. Instead, the viewer became an important determiner of meaning, even allowed by some artists to participate in the work as in the case of some performance pieces.

Synchronism

paintings (1913-1918) were filled with swirling, colorful shapes that were softly painted and modeled.

Fluxus

sought to change the history of the world, not just the history of art. The persistent goal of most these artists was to destroy any boundary between art and life. George Maciunas especially wanted to, "purge the world of bourgeoisie sickness...." He stated that they were "anti-art," in order to underscore the revolutionary mode of thinking about the practice and process of art.

Institutionalism

the aesthetic philosophy that claims that the value of a work of art is determined by museums and galleries is known as

Der Blaue Reiter

the group's pursuit was of non-objective or abstract painting and was widely read in avant-garde artistic circles across Europe and beyond. Structured around the idea that color and form carried concrete spiritual values Wassily Kandinsky, Alexej von Jawlensky, Franz Marc, August Macke.