Art Periods

Art Periods

Art Periods/
Movements | Characteristics | Chief Artists and Major Works | Historical Events |
Stone Age (30,000 b.c.–2500 b.c.) | Cave painting, fertility goddesses, megalithic structures | Lascaux Cave Painting, Woman of Willendorf, Stonehenge | Ice Age ends (10,000 b.c.–8,000 b.c.); New Stone Age and first permanent settlements (8000 b.c.–2500 b.c.) |
Mesopotamian (3500 b.c.–539 b.c.) | Warrior art and narration in stone relief | Standard of Ur, Gate of Ishtar, Stele of Hammurabi's Code | Sumerians invent writing (3400 b.c.); Hammurabi writes his law code (1780 b.c.); Abraham founds monotheism |
Egyptian (3100 b.c.–30 b.c.) | Art with an afterlife focus: pyramids and tomb painting | Imhotep, Step Pyramid, Great Pyramids, Bust of Nefertiti | Narmer unites Upper/Lower Egypt (3100 b.c.); Rameses II battles the Hittites (1274 b.c.); Cleopatra dies (30 b.c.) |
Greek and Hellenistic (850 b.c.–31 b.c.) | Greek idealism: balance, perfect proportions; architectural orders(Doric, Ionic, Corinthian) | Parthenon, Myron, Phidias, Polykleitos, Praxiteles | Athens defeats Persia at Marathon (490 b.c.); Peloponnesian Wars (431 b.c.–404 b.c.); Alexander the Great's conquests (336 b.c.–323 b.c.) |
Roman (500 b.c.– a.d. 476) | Roman realism: practical and down to earth; the arch | Augustus of Primaporta, Colosseum, Trajan's Column, Pantheon | Julius Caesar assassinated (44 b.c.); Augustus proclaimed Emperor (27 b.c.); Diocletian splits Empire (a.d. 292); Rome falls (a.d. 476) |
Indian, Chinese, and Japanese(653 b.c.–a.d. 1900) | Serene, meditative art, and Arts of the Floating World | Gu Kaizhi, Li Cheng, Guo Xi, Hokusai, Hiroshige | Birth of Buddha (563 b.c.); Silk Road opens (1st century b.c.); Buddhism spreads to China (1st–2nd centuries a.d.) and Japan (5th century a.d.) |
Byzantine and Islamic (a.d. 476–a.d.1453) | Heavenly Byzantine mosaics; Islamic architecture and amazing maze-like design | Hagia Sophia, Andrei Rublev, Mosque of Córdoba, the Alhambra |...