Art Presentation, long ago

Presentation, due to time and mind constraints, has been restricted strictly only to Western visual art in the form of sculpture and 2D mediums, NOT including advertisements or photography.

Pre-1000
2DMain medium: egg tempura, inks
Forms: illuminated manuscripts (eg. Lindisfarne Gospels, Book of Kells); frescoes; mosaics; statues, paintings
Themes: mostly religious or portrait works
Characeristics: two-dimensional, stylised

Gothic (1200 – 1450)
2D Main medium: egg tempura
Forms: paintings, sculpture, illuminated manuscripts
Themes: mostly religious or portrait works
Characteristics: Stylised, but with increased naturalism

Renaissance (1400 – 1600)
2D Main medium: OIL PAINTS -- Throughout the Renaissance period, artists first began to experiment with oil-based paints, mixing powdered pigments with linseed oil. The slow-drying nature of the medium allowed the painter to edit his work for several months. Perspective and attention to light became important to artists, as well as architectural accuracy in backgrounds.
Forms: frescoes, paintings, portraits
Themes: biblical characters (placed huge importance on the Madonna); people of Greek or Roman mythology; the human body (particularly the nude!) – the idealised human form, purity in expression
Characteristics: see ‘medium’; 3D, individuals that portray for the first time personality and behaviour
Notes: increased blend of art and science

Classicalism (1600 – 1800)
Themes: imitation of Greek and Roman art, which ended in the 5th century with the fall of the Roman empire
Characteristics: adherence to traditional aesthetic formalities favoured over expression and individuality; conservative emphasis on balance, order, unity, symmetry and dignity
1826: INVENTION OF PHOTOGRAPHY


Romanticism (1800 – 1850)
Themes: emphasis on emotional, spontaneous and imaginative approaches; focus on emotion and freedom by way of subjectivity and individualism
Characteristics: country idyll, solitude, peace: exploring everything exotic, mysterious, remote, occult; emphasis on emotional and spiritual themes
Notes: Caused by the sudden social changes that occurred during the French Revolution and the Napoleonic era, Romanticism was formed as a revolt against Neoclassicism and its emphasis on order, harmony, balance, idealization, and rationality.
Evolved into a fully intellectual movement that rejected the traditional values of social structure and religion; encouraged individualism, emotions, and nature.
Techniques to develop associations in the mind of the viewer were purposefully explored à basis for later surrealist, expressionist movements

Realism (1850 - 1880)
Themes: accurate, unembellished, and detailed depiction of nature or contemporary life. The movement prefers an observation of physical appearance rather than imagination or idealization.
Characteristics: painting common, ordinary, sometimes ugly images rather than the stiff, conventional pictures favored by upper-class society.
Notes: It was an opposition to the traditional approach to Neoclassicism and the drama of Romanticism: Realists strived to paint scenes as they actually appeared. Often the artists depicted ugly and common subjects that normally alluded to a social, political, or moral message.

Impressionism (1865 – 1885)
Themes: Emphasis on loose imagery rather than finely delineated pictures. Subject matter was most often landscape or scenes from daily life.
Characteristics: The artists of the movement worked mostly outdoors and strived to capture the variations of light at differing times throughout the day. Color palettes were colorful and blacks or grays rarely used. Emphasized sunlight, shadows, and direct and reflected light. In order to produce vibrant colors, they applied short brush strokes of contrasting colors to the canvas, rather than mixing hues on a palette.
Notes: a movement founded in Paris as an opposition to the rigid traditions favored by institutions such as the Academie des Beaux-Arts.

Symbolism (1880 – 1895)
Themes: fantasy and imagination in the depiction of objects. The artists of the movement often used metaphors and symbols to suggest a subject and favored mystical and occult themes. Influenced by Romanticism and the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, the movement strived to depict the symbols of ideas.
Characteristics: Some works would often contain grotesque and fantastical imagery such as severed heads, monsters, and spirits. In addition, their works sometimes contained references to the Bible and ancient myths. Other Symbolists took a more traditional approach, using lines and colors to produce desired emotional effects.
Notes: Symbolists were opposed to the visual realism of the Impressionists and serious nature of the Industrial Age. Their aim was to portray mysterious and ambiguous interpretations of emotions and ideas by using unobvious symbols.
Important to the development of surrealism.

Expressionism (1905 – 1945)
Themes: the artist is free to move beyond the limitations of objective subject matter and to concentrate on the feeling and impact derived from the artist’s inspiration.
Characteristics: evocative, high-keyed psychological aesthetic
Notes: Expressionist sought to reveal inner, spiritual and emotional foundations of human existence, rather than the external, surface appearances depicted by the Impressionists.
The Expressionist movement took inspiration from Symbolism, Fauvism, and Cubism in its departure from accurate subject matter.
The successors of the original group of expressionists, who fell apart due to artistic differences and WWI, called themselves the Dresdner Sezession – the most famous of which is Gustav Klimt.
Opened the door to abstraction because of its ideals of experimentation, spiritual representation and originality.

Abstract (1910 --)
Abandoning the late 19th century European idea that art should imitate nature, Abstract art does not strive to create accurate representations of any forms or objects. Artists employing the style take an object and either simplify or exaggerate it by altering its color shape and form. Abstract art developed before the twentieth century abstract patterns have roots in ancient history showing up in early decorations for textiles and pottery.

Dadaism (1916 – 1924)
Dada began as an anti-art movement, in the sense that it rejected the way art was appreciated and defined in contemporary art scenes. Founded in Zurich, Switzerland, the movement was a response to World War I. It had no unifying aesthetic characteristics but what brought together the Dadaists was that they shared a nihilistic attitude towards the traditional expectations of artists and writers. The word Dada literally means both "hobby horse" and "father", but was chosen at random more for the naive sound.
Other elements integral to the Dada movement were the non-attempt to underlie work with any reference to intellectual analysis. Dada was also a reaction the bourgeois Victorian values of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The work was also absurd and playful but at times intuitive and even cryptic. Methods of production were unconventional, employing the chance technique, and found objects. Dadaists rejection of these values was an attempt to make a statement on the social values and cultural trends of a contemporary world facing a devastating period of war.


Surrealism (1924 – 1955)
Themes: the expression of imagination as revealed in dreams.
Characteristics: … surrealness! Dream landscapes, spontaneous, where images may appear in the real world or not
Notes: Also similar to the 19th century Symbolist movement, Surrealism was based on the psychoanalytic theories of Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung, emphasizing imagination and subconscious imagery. Work usually contained realist imagery arranged in a nonsensical style in order to create a dreamlike state. Surrealist painting incorporated a lot of content and technique. Surrealism incorporated and celebrated the art of children and primitive art. They appreciated the innocent eye in that the untrained artist was more liberated to depict their actual imaginative ideas.





MAIN POINTS

How art is involved in the knowledge: art moves knowledge, encourages social change, reflective of the values of the era
Religious --> portrait --> people --> landscape --> impressions --> mental landscape etc.
2D --> 3D --> stylised: stiff vs. contorted --> empiricist --> fantastical --> impressionist --> symbolic
how movements build on each other
how science changes art