Art Eras

Renaissance

1400-1600

-”rebirth”

-humanism

-proportion

-perspective

-pyramidal forms

-scientific naturalism

Baroque

1600-1750

-swirling movement/diagonal lines

-counter (protestant) reformation

-strong emotional statements

-action

-usually has an empty spot for you

Rococo

1700s

-for the aristocracy

-romanticized peasants

-whimsical/carefree

-illicit love affairs

-light, pastel colors

-lightness

-”cotton candy trees”

Neo-classicism

1750-1820

-French revolution

-against the whimsical nature of Rococo

-politically charged, spirit of the French Revolution (1789)

-rational, lack of emotion

-restraint

-static, not much movement

-primary colors

Romanticism

1800-1850

-reaction against neo-classicism/industrialization

-value emotion over reason

-emphasis on the individual

-freedom from social and artistic rules

-awe for the sublime in nature; beautiful yet terrifying

-rural over urban life

-orientalism→east—— exoticized, “othered”

Realism

1840s- late 1800s

-exact description of the world

-subject matter drawn from common life

-social commentary (exploitation of the poor, etc.)

-”ugly” vs. idealized versions of beauty

Impressionism

1860s to late 1800s

-realism of light and color

-desire to paint with an “innocent eye”

-perception rather than intellectual knowledge

Modernism

c. 1900s- 1950s

-effects of WWI 1914-1918

-avant-garde: on the front lines (military term) used to describe weird, new things

-Freudian influences

-alienation

-fragmentation

-abstraction

-experimentation

Contemporary

c. 1950s-today

-disillusionment after WWII 1939-1945

-what is art?

-anti-rational

-contradiction

-ambiguity

-African Diaspora- scattering