APAH Movements and Styles

Vocabulary flashcards covering key terms and definitions related to art movements and styles.

Abstraction

Works of art reduced to basic forms with little or no desire for pictorial representation.

Abstract Expressionism

The first major American avant-garde movement that emerged in the 1940s in NYC, focusing on automatism and revealing the subconscious through artmaking.

Action painting

An art technique where the artist pours, drips, or splatters pigment, applied in a manner involving the artist's body.

Amarna Style

An artistic style during the Amarna Period, characterized by more expressive and non-idealized art, breaking away from traditional Egyptian conventions.

Animal style

A medieval art form in which animals are depicted in stylized and often complicated patterns.

Art Deco

An art style that sought to upgrade industrial design with streamlined, elongated, and symmetrical decorative patterns.

Art Nouveau

An art style from roughly 1890 to 1910 focusing on decorative and organic forms for elegant and curvilinear designs.

Baroque classicism

A style within the Baroque period that recalls art from ancient Greece and Rome.

Byzantine

An art style focused on formal religious imagery, often featuring flattened and frontal figures.

Chicago Style

The first major modernist architectural movement in the U.S., promoted new technologies like steel-frame construction and simple, grid-like designs.

Classical Greek

Artwork displays idealism and rationalism, with figures based on a canon of proportions.

Cubism

An early 20th-century art movement that rejected naturalistic depictions in favor of abstracted shapes and forms.

Dada

An art movement characterized by a disdain for convention, often enlivened by humor.

De Stijl

An early 20th-century art movement that developed a simplified geometric style.

Environmental art

An American movement in the 1960s that used land as the material, responding to environmentalism.

Fauvism

An early 20th-century art movement led by Henri Matisse, where color became the key element of pictorial meaning.

Feminist art

Art that emerged from the Women's Liberation movement to draw attention to women's stories and issues.

Gothic

An architectural style popular in the 13th and 14th centuries, characterized by rib vaults and pointed arches.

Harlem Renaissance

A rich period of cultural production for African Americans that celebrated their heritage and redefined artistic expressions.

Impressionism

An art movement focused on light and its reflections, often painted outdoors.

Minimalism

An American art movement that reduced form to its essence, often to single units focusing on extreme abstraction.

Neoclassicism

A revival of classical themes and styles in art and architecture that emerged in the late 18th century.

Post-Impressionism

An art movement that retained an interest in color from Impressionism but focused on structure, form, and emotional content.

Surrealism

A 20th-century movement depicting dream-like states and exploring the unconscious, often with multiple interpretations.