Art History Eras + vocab

Avant Garde

Neoclassicism

Response to Rococo and hypercritical of the elite lifestyle

Return to classic style

Fueled by the revolution and enlightenment thinking

1760 start

Inspired by the discovery of Pompeii

Rococo

highly and intentionally decorative- emphasizing status and wealth: MAINLY in France

1730s-1770s

Romanticism

Emphasis by artist placed on emotions and physical senses

Explored the range of emotions felt from grief, anger, lust, and elation

1790s to mid 1800s

Realism

Rejection of romanticism

Content should avoid all forms of idealization, artificialness, or supernatural elements

Impressionism

Rejection of the realistic and academic

Focused on the manipulation of colors, perspectives, and reality

Supported ‘on the spot’ painting

Post-Impressionsim

Moved away from naturalism

Focusing on subjective emotion, symbolic content, and structural form

Expression of inner feelings rather than fleeting visual movements

Symbolism

late 19th cent

French + Belgian origin

Represent absolute truths through language and metaphorical images

Art Nouveau

1890-1910

Embraced long, sinuous, organic lines inspired by nature, aiming to modernize design by breaking from historical imitation and unifying find and applied arts

Cubism

1907-1914

Abandoning single-point perspective, geometric forms, multiple view points simultaneously to represent reality more completely

Fauvism

1905-1908

Characterized by intense, non-naturalistic colors, bold brushwork, and simplified forms

Emotional expression over realistic representation

Dadaism

A break from logic, reason, and aestheticism or capitalist society in response to World War I. Embraced nonsense, irrationality, and anti-bourgeois ideologies

Constructivism

1915s-1930s

Russian

Aimed to directly reflect modern industrial world +
construct knowledge

Surrealism

 Focuses on the creative potential of the  unconscious mind, almost in a dream space (embraces Freud and his theories)

Expressionism

Expression of subjective emotions, inner experiences, distortion, and spiritual themes

Abstract Expression

Provides the impression of spontaneity as well as the gestural elements of painting including brush strokes, color fields, and the paint itself

Pop Art

Art based on modern popular culture and the mass media, especially as a critical or ironic comment on traditional fine art values.

Performance Art

Combines visual art with dramatic performance

Time, space, body, presence of the artist relation btwn the artist and public

Environmental Art

Celebrates artists connection w nature using natural materials, exploring ecological, social, political issues

To raise awareness

Minimalism

is an extreme form of abstract art developed in the USA in the 1960s and typified by artworks composed of simple geometric shapes based on the square and the rectangle

The Daguerreotype

a photograph taken by an early photographic process employing an iodine-sensitized silvered plate and mercury vapor. Took long to be fully exposed and was ‘perfected’ by Louis Daguerre

Vista

a pleasing natural view

Phryaian cap

worn by freed slaves - shows freedom

Alter Christus

another christ

Verism

old and wise

Balustrade

horizontal roofline

Tenebrism

pitch black chiaroscuro

Posthumously

someone/something is dead in the painting

Stereoscopy

 is a technique for reproducing life-like, three-dimensional effects by staging the viewing of two images through a binocular-like device that isolates and differentiates each eye’s vision