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Art History Timeline

Stone Age (30,000 b.c.– Cave painting, Lascaux Cave Painting, Woman of Ice Age ends (10,000 b.c.–8,000
2500 b.c.) fertility goddesses, Willendorf, Stonehenge b.c.); New Stone Age and
megalithic first permanent settlements (8000
structures b.c.–2500 b.c.)

Mesopotamian (3500 Warrior art and Standard of Ur, Gate of Ishtar, Sumerians invent writing (3400
b.c.–539 b.c.) narration in stone Stele of Hammurabi’s Code b.c.); Hammurabi writes his law
relief code (1780 b.c.); Abraham founds
monotheism

Egyptian (3100 b.c.–30 Art with an afterlife Imhotep, Step Pyramid, Great Narmer unites Upper/Lower Egypt
b.c.) focus: pyramids Pyramids, Bust of Nefertiti (3100 b.c.); Rameses II battles
and tomb painting the Hittites (1274 b.c.); Cleopatra
dies (30 b.c.)

Greek and Hellenistic Greek idealism: Parthenon, Myron, Phidias, Athens defeats Persia at Marathon
(850 b.c.–31 b.c.) balance, perfect Polykleitos, Praxiteles (490 b.c.); Peloponnesian
proportions; Wars (431 b.c.–404 b.c.);
architectural Alexander the Great’s conquests
orders(Doric, Ionic, (336 b.c.–323 b.c.)
Corinthian)

Roman (500 b.c.– a.d. Roman realism: Augustus of Primaporta, Julius Caesar assassinated (44
476) practical and down Colosseum, Trajan’s Column, b.c.); Augustus proclaimed
to earth; the arch Pantheon Emperor (27 b.c.); Diocletian splits
Empire (a.d. 292); Rome falls
(a.d. 476)

Indian, Chinese, and Serene, meditative Gu Kaizhi, Li Cheng, Guo Xi, Birth of Buddha (563 b.c.); Silk
Japanese(653 b.c.–a.d. art, and Arts of the Hokusai, Hiroshige Road opens (1st century b.c.);
1900) Floating World Buddhism spreads to China (1st–
2nd centuries a.d.) and Japan
(5th century a.d.)

Byzantine and Islamic Heavenly Hagia Sophia, Andrei Rublev, Justinian partly restores Western
(a.d. 476–a.d.1453) Byzantine mosaics; Mosque of Córdoba, the Roman Empire (a.d.
Islamic architecture Alhambra 533–a.d. 562); Iconoclasm
and amazing Controversy (a.d. 726–a.d.
maze-like design 843); Birth of Islam (a.d. 610) and
Muslim Conquests (a.d.
632–a.d. 732)

Middle Ages (500–1400) Celtic art, St. Sernin, Durham Cathedral, Viking Raids (793–1066); Battle of
Carolingian Notre Dame, Chartres, Cimabue, Hastings (1066);
Renaissance, Duccio, Giotto Crusades I–IV (1095–1204); Black
Romanesque, Death
Gothic (1347–1351); Hundred Years’ War
(1337–1453)

Early and High Rebirth of classical Ghiberti’s Doors, Brunelleschi, Gutenberg invents movable type
Renaissance (1400– culture Donatello, Botticelli, (1447); Turks conquer
1550) Leonardo, Michelangelo, Raphael Constantinople (1453); Columbus
lands in New World (1492); Martin
Luther starts Reformation (1517)

Venetian and Northern The Renaissance Bellini, Giorgione, Titian, Dürer, Council of Trent and Counter-
Renaissance (1430– spreads north- Bruegel, Bosch, Jan van Reformation (1545–1563);
1550) ward to France, the Eyck, Rogier van der Weyden Copernicus proves the Earth
Low revolves around the Sun (1543
Countries, Poland,
Germany, and
England
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Art Periods/ Characteris Chief Artists and Historical Events

Baroque (1600–1750) Splendor and Reubens, Rembrandt, Thirty Years’ War between
flourish for God; art Caravaggio, Palace of Versailles Catholics and Protestants
as a weapon in the (1618–1648)
religious
wars

Neoclassical (1750– Art that recaptures David, Ingres, Greuze, Canova Enlightenment (18th century);
1850) Greco-Roman Industrial Revolution
grace and (1760–1850)
grandeur

Romanticism (1780– The triumph of Caspar Friedrich, Gericault, American Revolution (1775–1783);
1850) imagination and Delacroix, Turner, Benjamin French Revolution
individuality West (1789–1799); Napoleon crowned
emperor of France (1803)

Realism (1848–1900) Celebrating Corot, Courbet, Daumier, Millet European democratic revolutions of
working class and 1848
peasants; en plein
air
rustic painting

Impressionism (1865– Capturing fleeting Monet, Manet, Renoir, Pissarro, Franco-Prussian War (1870–1871);
1885) effects of natural Cassatt, Morisot, Degas Unification of Germany
light (1871)

Post-Impressionism A soft revolt Van Gogh, Gauguin, Cézanne, Belle Époque (late-19th-century
(1885–1910) against Seurat Golden Age); Japan
Impressionism defeats Russia (1905)

Fauvism and Harsh colors and Matisse, Kirchner, Kandinsky, Boxer Rebellion in China (1900);
Expressionism (1900– flat surfaces Marc World War
1935) (Fauvism); emotion (1914–1918)
distorting
form

Cubism, Futurism, Pre– and Post– Picasso, Braque, Leger, Boccioni, Russian Revolution (1917);
Supremativism, World War 1 art Severini, Malevich American women franchised
Constructivism, De Stijl experiments: new (1920)
(1905–1920) forms to express
modern life

Dada and Ridiculous art; Duchamp, Dalí, Ernst, Magritte, de Disillusionment after World War I;
Surrealism(1917–1950) painting Chirico, Kahlo The GreatDepression
dreams and (1929–1938); World War II (1939–
exploring the 1945) and Nazi horrors;
unconscious atomic bombs dropped on Japan
(1945)

Abstract Expressionism Post–World War II: Gorky, Pollock, de Kooning, Cold War and Vietnam War (U.S.
(1940s–1950s) and Pop pure abstraction Rothko, Warhol, Lichtenstein enters 1965); U.S.S.R.
Art and expression suppresses Hungarian revolt
(1960s) without form; (1956) Czechoslovakian revolt
popular art absorbs (1968)
consumerism

Postmodernism and Art without a center Gerhard Richter, Cindy Sherman, Nuclear freeze movement; Cold
Deconstructivism (1970– and reworking and Anselm Kiefer, Frank Gehry, War fizzles; Communism collapses
) mixing past styles Zaha Hadid in Eastern Europe and U.S.S.R.
(1989–1991)