ART NOUVEAU 1800s
This describes a decorative style popular from the last decade of the 19th century to the
beginning of the First World War. It was characterised by an elaborate ornamental style
based on asymmetrical lines, frequently depicting flowers, leaves or tendrils, or in the flowing
hair of a female. It can be seen most effectively in the decorative arts, for example interior
design, glasswork and jewellery. However, it was also seen in posters and illustration as well
as certain paintings and sculptures of the period.
The movement took its name from La Maison de l'Art Nouveau in Paris, a shop keen to
promote modern ideas in art. It was influenced by the Symbolists most obviously in their
shared preference for exotic detail, as well as by Celtic and Japanese art. Art Nouveau
flourished in Britain with its progressive Arts and Crafts movement, but was highly successful
all around the world.

ART NOUVEAU: REPRESENTATIVE ARTISTS:
Gustav Klimt
Alphonse Mucha
Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec
Walter Crane

 

SYMBOLISM 1885-1910
Symbolism began as a reaction to the literal representation of subjects, preferring to create
more suggestive and evocative works. It had its roots in literature with poets such as
Baudelaire, believing ideas and emotions could be conveyed not only through the meaning
of words but also in their sound and rhythm.
The styles of the Symbolist painters varied considerably, but they shared many of the
same themes particularly a fascination with the mystical and the visionary. The erotic,
the perverse, death and debauchery were also regular interests for the Symbolists. The
leading figures of the movement included the two French men, Odilon Redon and Paul Gauguin,
but Symbolism was not limited to France with other practitioners including the Austrian Gustav Klimt.
The movement flourished from around 1885 and continued until 1910. It was an important move
away from the naturalism of the Impressionists and showed a preference for feeling over
intellectualism. In Symbolism's faith in the power of expressivity possible in a colour or a line,
the movement is crucial in understanding the development of the abstract arts in the 20th century.

SYMBOLISM: REPRESENTATIVE ARTISTS:
Gustave Moreau
Odilon Redon
Gustav Klimt
Franz von Stuck
William Blake

 

BAROQUE 1600s
Baroque Art emerged in Europe around 1600, as an reaction against the intricate and formulaic Mannerist style which
dominated the Late Renaissance. Baroque Art is less complex, more realistic and more emotionally affecting than
Mannerism. This movement was encouraged by the Catholic Church, the most important patron of the arts at that
time, as a return to tradition and spirituality.
One of the great periods of art history, Baroque Art was developed by Caravaggio, Annibale Carracci, and Gianlorenzo
Bernini, among others. This was also the age of Rubens, Rembrandt, Velázquez, and Vermeer.In the 18th century,
Baroque Art was replaced by the more elegant and elaborate Rococo style.

BAROQUE: REPRESENTATIVE ARTISTS:
Caravaggio
Annibale Carracci
Gianlorenzo Bernini Rubens
Rembrandt
Nicolas Poussin
Johannes Vermeer

 

RENAISSANCE 1300s
This movement began in Italy in the 14th century and the term, literally meaning rebirth,
describes the revival of interest in the artistic achievements of the Classical world. Initially
in a literary revival Renaissance was determined to move away from the religion-dominated
Middle Ages and to turn its attention to the plight of the individual man in society. It was a
time when individual expression and worldly experience became two of the main themes of
Renaissance art.
The movement owed a lot to the increasing sophistication of society, characterised by
political stability, economic growth and cosmopolitanism. Education blossomed at this
time, with libraries and academies allowing more thorough research to be conducted into
the culture of the antique world.

In addition, the arts benefited from the patronage of such influential groups as the Medici
family of Florence, the Sforza family of Milan and Popes Julius II and Leo X. The works
of Petrarch first displayed the new interest in the intellectual values of the Classical world
in the early 14th century and the romance of this era as rediscovered in the Renaissance
period can be seen expressed by Boccaccio.

Leonardo da Vinci was the archetypal Renaissance man representing the humanistic
values of the period in his art, science and writing. Michelangelo and Raphael were
also vital figures in this movement, producing works regarded for centuries as embodying
the classical notion of perfection

RENAISSANCE: REPRESENTATIVE ARTISTS:
Leonardo da Vinci
Sandro Botticelli
Raphael
Titian
Michelangelo Buonarroti

 

POST IMPRESSIONISM 1880-1920
Post-Impressionism in Western painting, movement in France that represented both an
extension of Impressionism and a rejection of that style's inherent limitations. The term
Post-Impressionism was coined by the English art critic Roger Fry for the work of such late
19th-century painters as Paul Cézanne, Georges Seurat, Paul Gauguin, Vincent van Gogh,
Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, and others. All of these painters except van Gogh were French,
and most of them began as Impressionists; each of them abandoned the style, however, to
form his own highly personal art. Impressionism was based, in its strictest sense, on the
objective recording of nature in terms of the fugitive effects of colour and light. The
Post-Impressionists rejected this limited aim in favour of more ambitious expression, admitting
their debt, however, to the pure, brilliant colours of Impressionism, its freedom from traditional
subject matter, and its technique of defining form with short brushstrokes of broken colour.
The work of these painters formed a basis for several contemporary trends and for early
20th-century modernism.
The Post-Impressionists often exhibited together, but, unlike the Impressionists, who began
as a close-knit, convivial group, they painted mainly alone. Cézanne painted in isolation at
Aix-en-Provence in southern France; his solitude was matched by that of Paul Gauguin, who in
1891 took up residence in Tahiti, and of van Gogh, who painted in the countryside at Arles.
Both Gauguin and van Gogh rejected the indifferent objectivity of Impressionism in favour of a
more personal, spiritual expression. After exhibiting with the Impressionists in 1886, Gauguin
renounced “the abominable error of naturalism.” With the young painter Émile Bernard,
Gauguin sought a simpler truth and purer aesthetic in art; turning away from the sophisticated,
urban art world of Paris, he instead looked for inspiration in rural communities with more
traditional values. Copying the pure, flat colour, heavy outline, and decorative quality of medieval
stained glass and manuscript illumination, the two artists explored the expressive potential of
pure colour and line, Gauguin especially using exotic and sensuous colour harmonies to create
poetic images of the Tahitians among whom he would eventually live. Arriving in Paris in 1886,
the Dutch painter van Gogh quickly adapted Impressionist techniques and colour to express
his acutely felt emotions. He transformed the contrasting short brushstrokes of Impressionism
into curving, vibrant lines of colour, exaggerated even beyond Impressionist brilliance, that
convey his emotionally charged and ecstatic responses to the natural landscape.

POST IMPRESSIONIST: REPRESENTATIVE ARTISTS:
Vincent van Gogh
Paul Cézanne
Georges Seurat
Paul Gauguin
Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec

 

LIVING ARTISTS:
Linda Evanglyn Wallace
Joyce Gibson
Joy Leiko

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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