Art Movements

American art movement of the 1940s that emphasized form and color within a nonrepresentational framework. Jackson Pollock initiated the revolutionary technique of splattering the paint directly on canvas to achieve the subconscious interpretation of the artist's inner vision of reality.

Jackson Pollock
Willem de Kooning
Arshile Gorky
Hans Hofmann
Mark Rothko

A 1920s style characterized by setbacks, zigzag forms, and the use of chrome and plastic ornamentation. New York's Chrysler Building is an architectural example of the style.

Tamara de Lempicka
Joseph Csaky
Antoine Bourdelle
John Wagner
Gheorghe Leonida

An 1890s style in architecture, graphic arts, and interior decoration characterized by writhing forms, curving lines, and asymmetrical organization. Some critics regard the style as the first stage of modern architecture. This art was characterized by its use of asymmetrical lines. Flowers, vines, and leaves were common in this style, as these forms took advantage of sinuous curves.

Théophile Steinlen
Aubrey Beardsley
Alphonse Mucha
Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec
Jules Cheret

A group of New York realist artists at the beginning of the twentieth century who rejected the formal subject matter of the academy and focused on gritty urban scenes and ordinary, even ugly, aspects of life.

Thomas Pollock Anshutz
Robert Henri
Everett Shinn
John French Sloan
Edward Hopper

Forms of modern sculpture and painting utilizing readymades, found objects, and pasted fragments to form an abstract composition. Louise Nevelson's boxlike enclosures, each with its own composition of assembled objects, illustrate the style in sculpture. Pablo Picasso developed the technique of cutting and pasting natural or manufactured materials to a painted or unpainted surface.

Robert Rauschenberg
Wallace Berman
Joseph Cornell
Edward Kienholz
André Breton

A group of 19th-century French painters who rejected idealized landscape painting and sought a more informal, realistic portrayal of nature. They were heavily influenced by 17th-century Dutch genre painting. Theodore Rousseau, one of the principal figures of the group, was a proponent of outdoor painting, based on direct observation of one's surroundings.

Jean-François Millet
Gustave Courbet
Karl Bodmer
Hippolyte Boulenger
Théodore Rousseau

European art and architecture of the 17th and 18th centuries. Giovanni Bernini, a major exponent of the style, believed in the union of the arts of architecture, painting, and sculpture to overwhelm the spectator with ornate and highly dramatized themes. Although the style originated in Rome as the instrument of the Church, it spread throughout Europe in such monumental creations as the Palace of Versailles.

Rembrandt van Rijn
Caravaggio
Giovanni Bernini
Peter Paul Rubens
Diego Velázquez

A form of art derived from the study of Greek and Roman styles characterized by harmony, balance, and serenity. In contrast, the Romantic Movement gave free rein to the artist's imagination and to the love of the exotic.

Michelangelo
Raphael
Correggio
Mantegna
Anton Raffael Mengs
Johan Joachim Winckelman

A form of sculpture using wood, metal, glass, and modern industrial materials expressing the technological society. The mobiles of Alexander Calder are examples of the movement.

Mayakovsky
John Ernest
Hermann Glöckner
Richard Paul Lohse
Anton Stankowski

Early 20th-century French movement marked by a revolutionary departure from representational art. Pablo Picasso and Georges Bracque penetrated the surface of objects, stressing basic abstract geometric forms that presented the object from many angles simultaneously.

Georges Braque
Pablo Picasso
Paul Cézanne
Jean Metzinger
Albert Gleizes

A product of the turbulent and cynical post-World War I period, this anti-art movement extolled the irrational, the absurd, the nihilistic, and the nonsensical. The reproduction of Mona Lisa adorned with a mustache is a famous example. The movement is regarded as a precursor of Surrealism. Some critics regard HAPPENINGS as a recent development of Dada. This movement incorporates environment and spectators as active and important ingredients in the production of random events.

Marcel Duchamp
Hannah Höch
Pablo Picasso
Erik Satie
Jean Crotti

A 20th-century European art movement that stresses the expression of emotion and the inner vision of the artist rather than the exact representation of nature. Distorted lines and shapes and exaggerated colors are used for emotional impact. Vincent Van Gogh is regarded as the precursor of this movement.

Edvard Munch
Ernst Ludwig Kirchner
Franz Marc
El Greco
Wassily Kandinsky

The name "wild beasts" was given to the group of early 20th-century French painters because their work was characterized by distortion and violent colors. Henri Matisse and Georges Rouault were leaders of this group. This was known for its use of intensely vibrant colors and simplistic forms. These colors were often not natural in choice, and the style encouraged distortion of images or perspective.

Henri Matisse
Henri Rousseau
Charles Camoin
Jean Metzinger
André Derain

This early 20th-century movement originating in Italy glorified the machine age and attempted to represent machines and figures in motion. The aesthetics of Futurism affirmed the beauty of technological society.

Giacomo Balla
Umberto Boccioni
Natalia Goncharova
El Lissitzky
Giovanni Segantini

Late 19th-century French school dedicated to defining transitory visual impressions painted directly from nature, with light and color of primary importance. If the atmosphere changed, a totally different picture would emerge. It was not the object or event that counted but the visual impression as caught at a certain time of day under a certain light. Claude Monet and Camille Pissarro were leaders of the movement.

Claude Monet
Camille Pissarro
Edgar Degas
Pierre-Auguste Renoir
Mary Cassatt
Eduoard Manet

A mid-16th-century movement, Italian in origin, although El Greco was a major practitioner of the style. The human figure, distorted and elongated, was the most frequent subject.

Andrea del Sarto
Jacopo da Pontormo
Correggio

An 18th-century reaction to the excesses of Baroque and Rococo, this European art movement tried to recreate the art of Greece and Rome by imitating the ancient classics both in style and subject matter. This period focused on a French art style whose purpose was to revive Greek and Roman ideals in art. Its classical imagery reflected bravery and love of country.

Jacques-Louis David
Sir Henry Raeburn
Sir Joshua Reynolds
Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres
Thomas Gainsborough
Antonio Canova
Arnold Bocklin

The 1960s movement known as Optical Painting is characterized by geometrical forms that create an optical illusion in which the eye is required to blend the colors at a certain distance.

Bridget Riley
Heinz Mack
Victor Vasarely

In this return to representational art, the artist returns to the world of tangible objects in a reaction against abstraction. Materials are drawn from the everyday world of popular culture—comic strips, canned goods, and science fiction.

Richard Hamilton
Roy Lichtenstein
Robert Rauschenberg
Andy Warhol
David Hockney
Jeff Koons
Claes Oldenburg
Tom Wesselmann

This period also broke away from the Neoclassic style by painting figures and scenes as they were in everyday life. It generally displayed a moral message. A development in mid-19th-century France led by Gustave Courbet. Its aim was to depict the time's customs, ideas, and appearances using scenes from everyday life.

Gustave Courbet
Jean-Francois Millet
Honore Daumier
Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot
J A MacNeil Whistler
John Singer Sargeant

A French style of interior decoration developed during the reign of Louis XV consisting mainly of asymmetrical arrangements of curves in paneling, porcelain, and gold and silver objects. The characteristics of ornate curves, prettiness, and gaiety can also be found in the painting and sculpture of the period.

Francois Boucher
William Hogarth
Giovanni Battista Tiepolo
Angelica Kauffmann
Giovanni Antonio Canaletto

A further development of Collage, Cubism, and Dada, this 20th-century movement stresses the weird, the fantastic, and the dreamworld of the subconscious.

Marcel Duchamp
Georgia O'Keeffe
Max Ernst
Sir Henry Moore
Rene Magritte
Joan Miro
Salvador Dali
Pablo Picasso
Man Ray
Dorothea Tanning
MC Escher

As part of a general European movement in the latter part of the 19th century, it was closely allied with Symbolism in literature. It marked a turning away from painting by observation to transforming fact into a symbol of inner experience. Gauguin was an early practitioner.

Gustave Moreau
Odilon Redon
Gustav Klimt

A term meaning "rebirth", and appropriately describes the revival of the Classical arts. Both individual expression and worldly achievements influenced the movements.

Following the Late Renaissance movement in Europe, these styles proved to be more realistic and emotionally charged. It also produced many spiritual works of art. The 11th century ushered in these more elegant styles.

This movement departed from Neoclassicalism by incorporating an interest in nature, imagination, and emotion. Considered an intellectual movement, it rebelled against social rules and celebrated nature.

Breaking away from the traditional painting style of Europe, Impressionism favored bold short strokes and the science of color to indicate tones and shades. The idea was to see the image as if you caught a glimpse of it. Several smaller movements involved within this movement.

Still using the brilliant colors of impressionism and the expression of light and tone, these painters, who often began as impressionists, embraced a more personal self-expression in their art and moved away from the naturalist approach.

This was a form of Post-Impressionism using small dots of color, that when juxtaposed, optically blended to create new colors, tones, and hues.

Beginning in Paris, this movement had artists such as Pablo Picasso at its forefront. The style rejected long-time tradition by fragmenting and redefining a subject, encouraging a "new" representation and viewpoint.

This movement in art took from the imagination of dreams and the subconscious rather than a conscious formality.

Sometimes referred to as the Golden Age of Art, this movement often used large canvases to display powerful emotions through brush strokes, color and texture.

Fauvism