Basic History of Art

History of Art

Roshan Ali HakkimIrfan Kachwalla

Introduction

Art is the process or product of deliberately and creatively arranging elements in a way that appeals to the senses or emotions, especially beauty. In its narrow sense, the word art most often refers specifically to the visual arts, including media such as painting, sculpture, and printmaking. However, "the arts" may also encompass a diverse range of human activities, creations, and modes of expression, including music and literature. Aesthetics is the branch of philosophy which studies art.

The definition and evaluation of art has become especially problematic since the 20th century. Richard Wollheim distinguishes three approaches: the Realist, whereby aesthetic quality is an absolute value independent of any human view; the Objectivist, whereby it is also an absolute value, but is dependent on general human experience; and the Relativist position, whereby it is not an absolute value, but depends on, and varies with, the human experience of different humans.

Traditionally the term art was used to refer to any skill or mastery. This conception changed during the Romantic period, when art came to be seen as "a special faculty of the human mind to be classified with religion and science". Generally, art is a human activity, made with the intention of stimulating thoughts and emotions. Beyond this description, there is no general agreed-upon definition of art.

Painting vs Sculpture

2- Dimensional

Flat and textured surface

Virtual dimensions- Subject can be represented by the size desired

3- Dimensional

The surface is constructed

Real dimensions- Subject is constructed of the actual size only.

Comparing Indian Art and Western ArtIndian Art

In Indian art emphasis is on spiritual world.

In Indian art there is a relation between time and visuals.

Subject of the painting is given importance but there are a lot of other activities happening in the background, which also gets the attention.

Western Art

In western art, for emphasis is on the

realistic world.

In western art, size is more important.

Only one thing is given importance, which forms the subject of the painting.

Western Art

Ancient and Classical Art

• Key dates: 15000 BC / 400 BC-200AD / 350 AD-450AD

• Ancient - There are few remaining examples with early art often favouring drawing over colour. Work has been found recently in tombs, Egyptian frescoes, pottery and metalwork.

• Classical - Relating to or from ancient Roman or Greek architecture and art. Mainly concerned with geometry and symmetry rather than individual expression.

• Byzantine - A religious art characterised by large domes, rounded arches and mosaics from the eastern Roman Empire in the 4th Century.

Neoclassical

In the visual arts the European movement called "neoclassicism" began after A.D. 1765, as a reaction against both the surviving Baroque and Rococo styles, and as a desire to return to the perceived "purity" of the arts of Rome, the more vague perception ("ideal") of Ancient Greek arts, and, to a lesser extent, 16th century Renaissance Classicism.

Neo-classical paintings are devoid of pastel colors and haziness; instead, they have sharp colors with Chiaroscuro. In the case of Neo-classicism in France, a prime example is Jacques Louis David whose paintings often use Greek elements to extol the French Revolution's virtues (state before family).

Gothic Architecture

Originating in 12th-century France and lasting into the 16th century, Gothic architecture was known during the period as "the French Style", with the term Gothic first appearing during the latter part of the Renaissance as a stylistic insult. Its characteristic features include the pointed arch, the ribbed vault and the flying buttress. Gothic architecture is most familiar as the architecture of many of the great cathedrals, abbeys and parish churches of Europe. It is also the architecture of many castles, palaces, town halls, guild halls, universities, and to a less prominent extent, private dwellings.

Medieval Art

Medieval art in Europe grew out of the artistic heritage of the Roman Empire and the legacy of the early Christian church. These sources were mixed with the vigorous "Barbarian" artistic culture of Northern Europe to produce a remarkable artistic legacy. Indeed the history of medieval art can be seen as the history of the interplay between the elements of classical, early Christian and "pagan" art.

Medieval art covers a vast scope of time and place, over 1000 years of art history in Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa. It includes major art movements and periods, national and regional art, genres, revivals, the artists crafts, and the artists themselves.

Art historians classify Medieval art into major periods and movements. They are Early Christian art, Migration Period art, Celtic art, Byzantine art, Islamic art, Pre-Romanesque and Romanesque art, and Gothic art. In addition each "nation" or culture in the Middle Ages had its own distinct artistic style and these are looked at individually, such as Anglo-Saxon art or Viking art. Medieval art includes many mediums, and was especially strong in sculpture, Illuminated manuscripts and mosaics. There were many unique genres of art, such as Crusade art or animal style.

Medieval Art

Michelangelo - “Pieta” – 1499

Renaissance The Renaissance (from French

Renaissance, meaning "rebirth") was a cultural movement that spanned roughly the 14th to the 17th century, beginning in Italy in the late Middle Ages and later spreading to the rest of Europe.

As a cultural movement, it encompassed a revival of learning based on classical sources, the development of linear perspective in painting, and gradual but widespread educational reform. Traditionally, this intellectual transformation has resulted in the Renaissance being viewed as a bridge between the Middle Ages and the Modern era. It is perhaps best known for its artistic developments and the contributions of such polymaths as Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo, who inspired the term "Renaissance men".

High Renaissance

The High Renaissance is widely viewed as the greatest explosion of creative genius in history. It is notable for three of the greatest artists in history: Michelangelo Buonarroti, Raphael Sanzio and Leonardo da Vinci.

The High Renaissance, in the history of art, denotes the culmination of the art of the Italian Renaissance between 1450 and 1527. The movement was centered in Rome.The paintings in the Vatican by Michelangelo and Raphael represent the culmination of the style in painting. The style was introduced to architecture by Donato Bramante, who in 1502 built the Tempietto, with its majestic proportions signifying the full-scale revival of ancient Roman architecture. High Renaissance sculpture, as exemplified by Michelangelo's Pietà and David, is characterized by the ideal balance between statics and movement. The serene mood and luminous colours of Giorgione and young Titian exemplify the High Renaissance in Venice.

High is generally held to have emerged in the late 1490s, when Leonardo da Vinci executed his Last Supper in Milan.

The Last Supper by Leonardo Di Vinci

High Renaissance

Michaelangelo

Michelangelo, was an Italian Renaissance painter, sculptor, architect, poet and engineer. Despite making few forays beyond the arts, his versatility in the disciplines he took up was of such a high order that he is often considered a contender for the title of the archetypal Renaissance man, along with his rival and fellow Italian Leonardo da Vinci.

The Creation of Adam, Michelangelo's work in the Sistine Chapel.

Leonardo Di Ser Piero Da Vinci

Leonardo da Vinci (April 15, 1452 – May 2, 1519) was a Florentine polymath, who worked as a scientist, mathematician, engineer, inventor, anatomist, painter, sculptor, architect, botanist, musician and writer. His works, the Mona Lisa and The Last Supper, are the most famous, most reproduced and most parodied portrait and religious painting of all time.

He is widely considered to be one of the greatest painters of all time and perhaps the most diversely talented person ever to have lived, Leonardo has often been described as the archetype of the "Renaissance man", a man whose seemingly infinite curiosity was equaled only by his powers of invention.

Raphael Sanzio

Raphael Sanzio was an Italian painter and architect of the High Renaissance, celebrated for the perfection and grace of his paintings and drawings. Together with Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci, he forms the traditional trinity of great masters of that period.

Self-portrait by Raphael Sanzio

Rococo Rococo is a style of 18th century

French art and interior design. Rococo rooms were designed as total works of art with elegant and ornate furniture, small sculptures, ornamental mirrors, and tapestry complementing architecture, reliefs, and wall paintings. It was largely supplanted by the Neoclassic style.

Due to Rococo love of shell-like curves and focus on decorative arts, some critics used the term to derogatively imply that the style was frivolous or merely modish; interestingly, when the term was first used in English in about 1836, it was a colloquialism meaning "old-fashioned". However, since the mid 19th century, the term has been accepted by art historians.

Baroque

The Baroque was a Western cultural period,

commencing roughly at the beginning of the 17th century in Rome, Italy. It was exemplified by drama and grandeur in sculpture, painting, literature, dance, and music.The aristocracy also saw the dramatic style of Baroque architecture and art as a means of impressing visitors and expressing triumphant power and control. Baroque palaces are built around an entrance of courts, grand staircases and reception rooms of sequentially increasing opulence.

TAKING IT TOO FAR An Italian Baroque painting of brotherly hate, Cain's killing of Abel.

Baroque

In similar profusions of detail, art, music, architecture, and literature inspired each other in the Baroque cultural movement as artists explored what they could create from repeated and varied patterns. Some traits and aspects of Baroque paintings that differentiate this style from others are the abundant amount of details, often bright polychromy, less realistic faces of subjects, and an overall sense of awe, which was one of the goals in Baroque art.

Baroque was a art form that communicated religious themes.

Baroque was a very dramatic style of art form.

In this art form, details such as texture of skin and cloth both are rendered with all detail.

Baroque-era conceptions of monarchy, iconography, handling of paint, and compositions as well as the depiction of space and movement.

Characteristics of Baroque Art Forms

Modernism The term modernism covers a series

of reforming movements in art, architecture, music, literature and the applied arts which emerged during this period. Embracing change and the present, modernism encompasses the works of thinkers who rebelled against nineteenth century academic and historicist traditions, believing the "traditional" forms of art, architecture, literature, religious faith, social organization and daily life were becoming outdated; they directly confronted the new economic, social and political conditions of an emerging fully industrialized world. Some divide the twentieth century into movements designated Modernism and Postmodernism, whereas others see them as two aspects of the same movement.

Postmodernism

The term postmodern is described by Merriam-Webster as meaning either of, relating to, or being an era after a modern one or of, relating to, or being any of various movements in reaction to modernism that are typically characterized by a return to traditional materials and forms (as in architecture) or by ironic self-reference and absurdity (as in literature), or finally of, relating to, or being a theory that involves a radical reappraisal of modern assumptions about culture, identity, history, or language.

Realism

Realism (sometimes called naturalism) in the visual arts and literature is the depiction of subjects as they appear in everyday life, without embellishment or interpretation.

The term is also used to describe works of art which, in revealing a truth, may emphasize the ugly or sordid.

Realists render everyday characters, situations, dilemmas, and objects, all in a "true-to-life" manner. They tend to discard theatrical drama, lofty subjects and classical forms of art in favor of commonplace themes.

It is a visual art style that depicts the actuality of what the eyes can see. Realists render everyday characters, situations, dilemmas, and objects, all in verisimilitude.

Jean-Francois Millet – “The Gleaners” – 1857. (Paris)

Impressionism

Impressionism was a 19th-century art movement that began as a loose association of Paris-based artists exhibiting their art publicly in the 1860s. The name of the movement is derived from the title of a Claude Monet work, Impression, Sunrise which provoked a critic to coin the term in a satiric review.Characteristics of Impressionist painting include visible brush strokes, open composition, emphasis on light in its changing qualities (often accentuating the effects of the passage of time), ordinary subject matter, the inclusion of movement as a crucial element of human perception and experience, and unusual visual angles.

Claude Monet – “Impression, soliel levant” – 1872 (oil on canvas).

Impressionism Techniques

o Painting in the evening to get the shadowy effects of the light in the evening or twilight.

o Impressionist paintings do not exploit the transparency of thin paint films (glazes) which earlier artists built up carefully to produce effects. The surface of an Impressionist painting is typically opaque.

o The play of natural light is emphasized. Close attention is paid to the reflection of colours from object to object.

o In paintings made outdoors, shadows are boldly painted with the blue of the sky as it is reflected onto surfaces, giving a sense of freshness and openness that was not captured in painting previously. (Blue shadows on snow inspired the technique.)

Background painting by Alfred sisley – 1872 – “Bridge at Villeneuve-la-Garenne”.

o Painting realistic scenes of modern life, they emphasized vivid overall effects rather than details. They used short, "broken" brush strokes of pure and unmixed colour, not smoothly blended, as was customary, in order to achieve the effect of intense colour vibration.

o Short, thick strokes of paint are used to quickly capture the essence of the subject, rather than its details.

o Colours are applied side-by-side with as little mixing as possible, creating a vibrant surface. The optical mixing of colours occurs in the eye of the viewer.

o Grays and dark tones are produced by mixing complementary colors. In pure Impressionism the use of black paint is avoided.

o Wet paint is placed into wet paint without waiting for successive applications to dry, producing softer edges and an intermingling of colour.

Impressionism Techniques

Post Impressionism

Post-Impressionism is the term coined by the British artist and art critic Roger Fry in 1910 to describe the development of French art since Manet (One of the first nineteenth century artists to approach modern-life subjects, he was a pivotal figure in the transition from Realism to Impressionism.)

Post-Impressionists extended Impressionism while rejecting its limitations: they continued using vivid colours, thick application of paint, distinctive brushstrokes and real-life subject matter, but they were more inclined to emphasize geometric forms, to distort form for expressive effect, and to use unnatural or arbitrary colour.

“Portrait of Emile Bernard” – 1886 – by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec.(Tate Gallery London)

Cubism

Cubism was a 20th century art movement, pioneered by Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque. The first branch of cubism, known as Analytic Cubism, was both radical and influential as a short but highly significant art movement between 1908 and 1911 in France. In its second phase, Synthetic Cubism, (using synthetic materials in the art) the movement spread and remained vital until around 1919.

In cubist artworks, objects are broken up, analyzed, and re-assembled in an abstracted form—instead of depicting objects from one viewpoint, the artist depicts the subject from a multitude of viewpoints to represent the subject in a greater context. Often the surfaces intersect at seemingly random angles, removing a coherent sense of depth. The background and object planes interpenetrate one another to create the shallow ambiguous space, one of cubism's distinct characteristics.

Georges Braque – “Woman with a guitar” – 1913.

Analytic Cubism

Analytic Cubism is one of the two major branches of the artistic movement of Cubism and was developed between 1908 and 1912. Analytic cubists "analyzed" natural forms and reduced the forms into basic geometric parts on the two-dimensional picture plane. Colour was almost non-existent except for the use of a monochromatic scheme that often included grey, blue and ochre. Instead of an emphasis on colour, Analytic cubists focused on forms like the cylinder, sphere and the cone to represent the natural world.

Pablo Picasso, “le guitariste” – 1910.

Synthetic Cubism Synthetic Cubism was the second main

branch of Cubism developed by Picasso, Braque, Juan Gris and others between 1912 and 1919. It was seen as the first time that collage had been made as a fine art work. Newspaper clippings were a common inclusion in this style of cubism, whereby physical pieces of newspaper, sheet music, or the like were included in the collages.

Whereas analytic cubism was an analysis of the subjects (pulling them apart into planes), synthetic cubism is more of a pushing of several objects together. Picasso, through this movement, was the first to use text in his artwork (to flatten the space), and the use of mixed media—using more than one type of medium in the same piece. Opposed to analytic cubism, synthetic cubism has fewer planar shifts, and less shading, creating flatter space.

‘Nature morte à la chaise cannée’ – Pablo Picasso

Fauvism

Les Fauves (French for The Wild Beasts) were a short-lived and loose grouping of early 20th century Modern artists whose works emphasized painterly qualities and strong colour over the representational values retained by Impressionism.

While Fauvism as a style began around 1900 and continued beyond 1910, the movement as such lasted only three years, 1905–1907, and had three exhibitions. The leaders of the movement were Henri Matisse and André Derain

The paintings of the Fauves were characterised by seemingly wild brush work and strident colours, while their subject matter had a high degree of simplification and abstraction.

“Portrait of Madame Matisse (the green line)” – Henri Matisse – 1905.

Expressionism

Expressionism is the tendency of an artist to distort reality for an emotional effect; it is a subjective art form. Expressionism is exhibited in many art forms, including painting, literature, theatre, film, architecture and music.

The term often implies emotional angst. In a general sense, painters such as Matthias Grünewald and El Greco can be called expressionist, though in practice, the term is applied mainly to 20th century works.

Although it is used as term of reference, there has never been a distinct movement that called itself "expressionism“.

The term is usually linked to paintings and graphic work in Germany at the turn of the century which challenged the academic traditions.

“On white II” – 1923 by Wassily Kandinsky (German)

Neo Expressionism

Neo-expressionism was a style of modern painting that emerged in the late 1970s and dominated the art market until the mid-1980s. Neo-expressionists returned to portraying recognizable objects, such as the human body (although sometimes in a virtually abstract manner), in a rough and violently emotional way using vivid colours and banal colour harmonies. Overtly inspired by the so-called German Expressionist painters--Emil Nolde, Max Beckmann, George Grosz--and other emotive artist such as James Ensor and Edvard Munch. Neo-expressionists were sometimes called Neue Wilde ('The new wild ones'; 'New Fauves' would better meet the meaning of the term).

Abstract Expressionism

Abstract expressionism was an American post–World War II art movement. It was the first specifically American movement to achieve worldwide influence and also the one that put New York City at the center of the art world, a role formerly filled by Paris.

Although the term "abstract expressionism" was first applied to American art in 1946, it had been first used in Germany in 1919 in a magazine, regarding German Expressionism. In the USA this term was first used in 1929 in relation to works by Wassily Kandinsky.

In this form of art there is an emphasis on spontaneous, automatic or subconscious creation.

“No. 5” in 1948 by Jackson Pollock

Abstract ArtAbstract art uses a visual language of form, color

and line to create a composition which exists independently of visual references to the world.

Western art had been, from the Renaissance up to the middle of the 19th century, underpinned by the logic of perspective and an attempt to reproduce an illusion of visible reality. The arts of cultures other than the European had become accessible and showed alternative ways to the artist, of describing visual experience.

By the end of the 19th century many artists felt a need to create a 'new kind of art' which would encompass the fundamental changes taking place in technology, science and philosophy. The sources from which individual artists drew their theoretical arguments were diverse, and reflected the social and intellectual turmoil in all areas of Western culture at that time. Barnett Newman – “Onement 1” – 1948

(Museum Of Modern Art – New York)

Pop Art

Pop art is a visual art movement, that emerged in the mid 1950’s in Britain, and the late 1950’s in the United States.

It challenges tradition by asserting that an artist's use of the mass-produced visual commodities of popular culture is contiguous with the perspective of fine art since Pop removes the material from its context and isolates the object, or combines it with other objects, for contemplation. The concept of Pop Art refers not as much to the art itself as to the attitudes that led to it.

Eduardo Paolozzi - “I was a rich man’s plaything” - 1947

The origins of Pop art in America and Great Britain developed slightly differently. In America, it marked a return to hard-edged composition and representational art as a response by artists using impersonal, mundane reality, irony and parody to diffuse the personal symbolism and ″painterly looseness” of abstract expressionism.

American Pop Artist Roy Lichtenstein’s work probably defines the basic premise of Pop Art better than any other through parody. Selecting the old-fashioned comic strip as subject matter, he produces a hard-edged, precise composition that documents while it parodies in a soft manner. His paintings share a direct attachment to the commonplace image of American popular culture, but also treat the subject in an impersonal manner clearly illustrating the idealization of mass production.

Roy Lichtenstein. Drowning Girl (1963). On display at the Museum of Modern Art, New York.

Pop Art

Op art, also known as optical art, is a genre of visual art, especially painting, that makes use of optical illusions.

Op art is also known as geometric abstraction and hard-edge abstraction, although the preferred term for it is perceptual abstraction.

It is a method of painting concerning the interaction between illusion and picture plane, between understanding and seeing. Op art works are abstract, with many of the better known pieces made in only black and white. When the viewer looks at them, the impression is given of movement, hidden images, flashing and vibration, patterns, or alternatively, of swelling or warping.

“Cataract 3” - Bridget Riley – 1967.

OP Art

OP Art

Minimalism

Minimalism describes movements in various forms of art and design, especially visual arts and music, where the work is stripped down to its most fundamental features.

As a specific movement in the arts it is identified with developments in post-World War II Western Art, most strongly with American visual arts in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Prominent artists associated with this movement include Donald Judd, Agnes Martin, Robert Morris, and Frank Stella. It is rooted in the reductive aspects of Modernism, and is often interpreted as a reaction against Abstract Expressionism and a bridge to Postmodern art practices.

An art work by Piet Mondrian – “Composition No. 10”. Oil on Canvas.

Conceptual ArtConceptual art is art in which the concept(s) or

idea(s) involved in the work take precedence over traditional aesthetic and material concerns.

Many of the works of the artist Sol LeWitt may be constructed by anyone simply by following a set of written instructions.This method was fundamental to LeWitt's definition of Conceptual art, one of the first to appear in print:

“ In conceptual art the idea or concept is the most important aspect of the work. When an artist uses a conceptual form of art, it means that all of the planning and decisions are made beforehand and the execution is a perfunctory affair. The idea becomes a machine that makes the art. – Sol LeWitt, "Paragraphs on Conceptual Art", Artforum, June 1967.

Conceptual art is an art which questions the very nature of what is understood as art.

Joseph Kosuth – “One and three chairs” - 1965

Mannerism

Mannerism is a period of European art which emerged from the later years of the Italian High Renaissance around 1520. It lasted until about 1580 in Italy, when a more Baroque style began to replace it, but continued into the seventeenth century throughout much of Europe. Stylistically, Mannerism encompasses a variety of approaches influenced by, and reacting to, the harmonious ideals and restrained naturalism associated with artists such as Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael, and early Michelangelo. Mannerism is notable for its intellectual sophistication as well as its artificial (as opposed to naturalistic) qualities.

Mannerism makes itself known by elongated proportions, highly stylized poses, and lack of clear

perspective.

SymbolismSymbolism was a late 19th century art movement of

French and Belgian origin in poetry and other arts

Symbolists believed that art should aim to capture more absolute truths which could only be accessed by indirect methods.

The Symbolist painters mined mythology and dream imagery for a visual language of the soul, seeking evocative paintings that brought to mind a static world of silence. The symbols used in Symbolism are not the familiar emblems of mainstream iconography but intensely personal, private, obscure and ambiguous references. More a philosophy than an actual style of art, the Symbolist painters influenced the contemporary Art Nouveau movement and The Nabis.

Above: “La mort du fossoyeur” ("The death of the gravedigger") by Carlos Schwabe - 1895 is a visual summary of Symbolist motifs. Death, angels, pristine snow, and the dramatic poses of the characters all express Symbolist longings for transfiguration "anywhere, out of the world."

RomanticismRomanticism is a complex artistic, literary, and

intellectual movement that originated in the second half of the 18th century in Western Europe, and gained strength during the Industrial Revolution. It was partly a revolt against aristocratic social and political norms of the Age of Enlightenment and a reaction against the scientific rationalization of nature, and was embodied most strongly in the visual arts, music, and literature.

The movement stressed strong emotion as a source of aesthetic experience, placing new emphasis on such emotions as trepidation, horror and awe—especially that which is experienced in confronting the sublimity of untamed nature and its picturesque qualities, both new aesthetic categories. It elevated folk art and custom to something noble.

Caspar David Friedrich, “Wanderer above the Sea of Fog” -1818, (Oil on canvas)

Arts and Crafts MovementKey Dates: 1850sThe Victorian style of heavily ornamented interiors

displaying many pieces of furniture, collections of small ornamental objects, and surfaces covered with fringed cloths prevailed in middle-class homes in England and America during the latter half of the 19th century.

Techniques of mass production promoted the use of reproductions in many different styles. William Morris, the British poet, artist and architect rejected this opulence in favor of simplicity, good craftsmanship, and good design and the Arts & Crafts Movement was born.

This sought to reestablish the ties between beautiful work and the worker, returning to an honesty in design not to be found in mass-produced items. Architecture, furniture, and the decorative arts became the focus of the movement.

Art Deco

It is an art movement involving a mix of modern decorative art styles, largely of the 1920s and 1930s, whose main characteristics were derived from various avant-garde painting styles of the early twentieth century.

Art deco works exhibit aspects of Cubism, Russian Constructivism and Italian Futurism-- with abstraction, distortion, and simplification, particularly geometric shapes and highly intense colors--celebrating the rise of commerce, technology, and speed.

It was popularly considered to be an elegant style of cool sophistication in architecture and applied arts which range from luxurious objects made from exotic material to mass produced, streamlined items available to a growing middle class.

Art Nouveau The Art Nouveau movement occurred in

the late 19th century from about 1894 to 1914, and was represented in Europe as well as in the United States.

In each country “Art Nouveau” had a different meaning and identity, and artists were often piqued against each other in defining the art period.

It is the avant-garde movement of the period in reaction to historical and academic perspectives. Art Nouveau artists wished to blur the lines between famous and minor artists, and unifying all arts, and unifying art with everyday human life – in essence, the art of the period became part of the architecture, placards, and jewelry in an attempt to combine life and art. Art Nouveau is characterized by its elegant decorative style, detailed patterns, curving lines, and art innovation

Aschan School A group of urban realist painters in

America during the early part of 20th century, founded by the artist and teacher Robert Henri, began its activities in Philadelphia around 1891.

The Ash Can School was more revolutionary in its subject matter rather than its style. The Ash Can school artists sought to paint "real life" and urban reality. These artists believed what was real and true in life was what was beautiful and what constituted "art." They painted gritty urban scenes and the poor and disenfranchised in America.

These paintings have a loose and spontaneous style, very different from the polished techniques taught in the American art academies of the period. A rapid handling of the paint left individual brushstrokes and the paint was applied thickly. Ash Can painters used a dark, subdued palette.

Bauhaus Key Dates: 1919-1930s It is a school of art, design and architecture

founded in Germany in 1919. Bauhaus style is characterized by its severely economic, geometric design and by its respect for materials.

The Bauhaus school was created when Walter Gropius was appointed head of two art schools in Weimar and united them in one. He coined the term Bauhaus as an inversion of 'Hausbau' - house construction.Teaching at the school concentrated on functional craftsmanship..

It was closed by the Nazis in 1933. The school had some illustrious names among it's teachers, including Paul Klee, Lyonel Feininger, Wassily Kandinsky, Laszlo Moholy-Nagy and Marcel Breuer. Its influence in design of architecture, furniture, typography and weaving has lasted to this day - the look of the modern environment is almost unthinkable without it.

Black Mount College Key Dates: 1933-1950s Black Mountain College was an independent

education experiment of “education in a democracy” established in 1933 but closed in 1956.

The college founders believed that creative arts and daily responsibilities were equal factors in the development of a person’s intellect. The faculty and students worked on a farm, did maintenance, served meals, and constructed buildings – no extracurricular activities or sports were organized as it was felt that there should be no distinction between work and play.

Black Mountain College was the first American college, although experimental, to have complete democratic self rule as well as extensive creative artwork and interdisciplinary academic study.

Bloomsbury Group

The Bloomsbury group was basically a group of like minded friends with a 'common attitude to life', many of whom had first met at Trinity College, Cambridge at the turn of the century.

From 1904 onwards they met regularly in Bloomsbury, London. Thoby and his sisters, Vanessa and Virginia, (later to become Bell and Woolf), and brother Adrian hosted 'at homes' when they and their friends indulged in free conversations about art, literature and philosophy.

‘Bloomsbury' has become synonymous with both literary and artistic styles, as well as with economic theory and psychology.

The Bloomsbury artists Vanessa Bell, Roger Fry and Duncan Grant were greatly influenced by the Post Impressionists and their painting celebrates the sensuous beauty of everyday domestic surroundings.

'Portrait of Mrs Hammersley' – 1937Duncan Grant

Constructivism

Key Dates: 1915-1940s

It was a movement created by the Russian avant-garde, but quickly spread to the rest of the continent. Constructivist art is committed to complete abstraction with a devotion to modernity, where themes are often geometric, experimental and rarely emotional. Objective forms carrying universal meaning were far more suitable to the movement than subjective or individualistic forms. Constructivist themes are also quite minimal, where the artwork is broken down to its most basic elements. Famous artists of the Constructivist movement include Vladimir Tatlin, Kasimir Malevich, Alexandra Exter, Robert Adams, and El Lissitzky.

Model for the 3rd International Tower, 1919-1920 -Vladimir Tatlin

DERBLAUEREITER

The Der Blaue Reiter movement was a German expressionist art period lasting from 1911 to 1914.

The movement was led by Kadinsky, Klee, Marc, and Macke – a group of expressionist artists greatly influenced by the Brucke artists of the previous decade – the Der Blaue Reiter did not believe in the main objective of the Brucke movement (simply focusing on one group of artists).

These artists attempted to find spiritual truths that they felt impressionists had not conveyed. The art movement was not stylistically unified as demonstrated by the range of pure abstractions created by Kadinsky versus the romantic images of Marc. They believed in changeability, new ideas, and the mixing of different ideas of spirituality and art.

HUDSONRIVERSCHOOLThe Hudson River School was comprised of a group of

painters who created realistic, romanticized works, particularly in New York’s Hudson River Valley. Led by Thomas Cole, other artists in the School chose subject matter such as the lakes, gorges, and forests of the Catskill and Adirondack Mountains. Despite these influences, one of the School’s goals was to ignore overseas traditions in order to create a distinctive concept of American art.

The movement began in 1825. Seeing the sacred aspects of the natural environment became an aim amongst the Hudson River School. The Hudson River School artists promoted the idea that God and nature were one.

Hudson River School paintings were often panoramic views done in a romantic, somewhat realist style. They suggested an atmosphere of serenity and meditation. The artists used the effects of light to depict dramatic landscapes, particularly of sunsets and water. This technique became known as Luminism. Artists using this technique wished to portray emotions through the bold contrasts between light and dark.

FUTURISMKey Dates:1909-1944

An Italian avant-garde art movement that took speed, technology and modernity as its inspiration, Futurism portrayed the dynamic character of 20th century life, glorified war and the machine age, and favoured the growth of Fascism.

The idea of Futurism came first, followed by a fanfare of publicity; it was only afterwards that artists could find a means to express it.

Painters in this movement had a serious intent. Their aim was to portray sensations as a "synthesis of what one remembers and of what one sees", and to capture what they called the 'force lines' of objects.

The futurists' representation of forms in motion influenced many painters and movements as Cubism.

PRERAPHAELITES

This movement was originally founded in 1848 by Holman Hunt and John Everett Millais. The name was decided upon as the group aimed to rediscover the painting styles of artists working earlier than the time of Raphael. The group specialised in detailed studies of medieval scenes strong on elaborate symbolism and noble themes.

After Millais' 'Ophelia' (1850-1851) was exhibited to great acclaim at the Academy Exhibition, the group dissolved.

Rossetti, together with William Morris and Edward Burne-Jones formed an alternative Brotherhood based in Oxford, specialising in the depiction of pale, ethereal beauties, while Millais and Hunt went their separate ways but continued working according to the original ideas of the movement.

La Fileuse (1874)

DADAAn international movement among European artists and

writers between 1915 and 1922, characterised by a spirit of anarchic revolt. Dada revelled in absurdity, and emphasised the role of the unpredictable in artistic creation.

It began in Zürich with the French poet Tristan Tzara thrusting a penknife into the pages of a dictionary to randomly find a name for the movement. This act in itself displays the importance of chance in Dada art. Irreverence was another key feature: in one of Dada's most notorious exhibitions, organised by Max Ernst, axes were provided for visitors to smash the works on show.

While perhaps seeming flippant on the surface, the Dada artists were actually fuelled by disillusionment and moral outrage at the unprecedented carnage of World War One, and the ultimate aim of the movement was to shock people out of complacency.

The movement had a strong influence on Pop Art, which was sometimes called neo-Dada.

INDIANRIVERSCHOOLKey dates: 1950s

Influenced in the late fifties and early sixties by the great Florida naturalist, A.E. "Beanie" Backus, the black artists, along with others, used canvasboard, upson board, masonite and canvas to paint on creating dramatically powerful, yet serene, "Florida scapes".

This artwork was sold by the artists themselves while traveling up and down the highways, primarily along the eastern seaboard, during the last forty years.

SITUATIONISM

Situationists originated in a small band of avante-garde artists and intellectuals influenced by Dada, Surrealism and Lettrism. The post-war Lettrist International, which sought to fuse poetry and music and transform the urban landscape, was a direct forerunner of the group who founded the magazine 'Situationiste Internationale' in 1957. At first, they were principally concerned with the "suppression of art", that is to say, they wished like the Dadaists and the Surrealists before them to supersede the categorization of art and culture as separate activities and to transform them into part of everyday life

DESTIJL

It is an art movement advocating pure abstraction and simplicity-- form reduced to the rectangle and other geometric shapes, and colour to the primary colours, along with black and white.

Piet Mondrian was the group's leading figure. Another member, painter Theo van Doesberg had started a journal named De Stijl in 1917, which continued publication until 1928, spreading the theories of the group, which also included the painter George Vantongerloo along with the architects J.J.P. Oud and Gerrit Rietveld

Their work exerted tremendous influence on the Bauhaus and the International Style.

FLUXUS

Fluxus—a name taken from a Latin word meaning "to flow"—is an international network of artists, composers and designers noted for blending different artistic media and disciplines in the 1960s. They have been active in Neo-Dada noise music and visual art as well as literature, urban planning, architecture, and design. Fluxus encouraged a do it yourself aesthetic, and valued simplicity over complexity. In terms of an artistic approach, Fluxus artists preferred to work with whatever materials were at hand, and either created their own work or collaborated in the creation process with their colleagues.

SURREALISM

It is a literary and art movement, dedicated to expressing the imagination as revealed in dreams, free of the conscious control of reason and convention. Surrealism inherited its anti-rationalist sensibility from Dada, but was lighter in spirit than that movement. Like Dada, it was shaped by emerging theories on our perception of reality.

Founded in Paris in 1924 by André Breton with his Manifesto of Surrealism, the movement's principal aim was 'to resolve the previously contradictory conditions of dream and reality into an absolute reality, a super-reality‘.

The major artists of the movement were Salvador Dali, Max Ernst, René Magritte and Joan Miró. Surrealism's impact on popular culture can still be felt today, most visibly in advertising.

GROUPOFSEVENThe Group of Seven Artists began in the early

1900s when several Canadian Artists began noticing a similarity in style. Canadian Painters Tom Thomson, J.E.H. MacDonald, Arthur Lismer, Frederick Varley, Frank Johnston and Franklin Carmichael were often believed to have socialised together through common interests and mutual employment.

In 1920, the group put on their first exhibit and formerly called themselves the Group of Seven. The artists included were J.E.H. MacDonald, Franklin Carmichael, Frank Johnston, Arthur Lismer, Lawren S. Harris, Frederick Varley and A.Y. Jackson.

During the 1920s, the group established itself as uniquely Canadian in style. They are historically recognized as the first group of European descent to capture the feel of the Arctic on canvas.

NABISKey Dates: 1888-1899

A Parisian group of Post-Impressionist artists and illustrators who became very influential within the field of graphic art.

Their emphasis on design was shared by the parallel Art Nouveau movement. Both groups also had close ties to the Symbolists.

The core of Les Nabis was Pierre Bonnard, Maurice Denis, Ker Xavier Roussel, Félix Vallotton, and Édouard Vuillard. 

PAHARIART

Pahari Paintings are literally, paintings from the hills of India.

The Rajput kings ruled in the sub-Himalayan state of Himachal Pradesh. They were great art-lovers. It is under their patronage that the Pahari painting flourished from the 17th to the 19th century.

The breathtaking landscapes of the mountain ranges inspired artists. And they made these the backdrop of their paintings. These paintings are mainly in the miniature style.

The Pahari painting underwent a lot of modification during its life time. It’s development can broadly be classified into three distinct schools: Basohli, Guler-Kangra and Sikh.

RAJPUTPAINTINGSRajput painting, a style of Indian painting, evolved and

flourished during the 18th century in the royal courts of Rajputana, flowing from the style of Mughal Painting, itself derived from the Persian Miniature. Each Rajput kingdom evolved a distinct style, but with certain common features. Rajput paintings depict a number of themes, events of epics like the Ramayana and the Mahabharata, Krishna’s life, beautiful landscapes, and humans. Miniatures in manuscripts or single sheets to be kept in albums were the preferred medium of Rajput painting, but many paintings were done on the walls of palaces, inner chambers of the forts, havelis, particularly, the havelis, forts and palaces built by Shekhawat Rajputs.

The colours extracted from certain minerals, plant sources, conch shells, and were even derived by processing precious stones. Gold and silver were used. The preparation of desired colours was a lengthy process, sometimes taking weeks. Brushes used were very fine.

He was an Indian painter who achieved recognition for his depiction of scenes from the epics of the He was an Indian painter who achieved recognition for his depiction of scenes from the epics of the Mahabharata and Ramayana. Raja Ravi Varma became famous after he won an award for an Mahabharata and Ramayana. Raja Ravi Varma became famous after he won an award for an exhibition of his paintings at Vienna in 1873. He travelled throughout India in search of subjects. He exhibition of his paintings at Vienna in 1873. He travelled throughout India in search of subjects. He often modelled female deities of the Hindu pantheon, on the exquisitely beautiful and attractive often modelled female deities of the Hindu pantheon, on the exquisitely beautiful and attractive women he saw around him. Ravi Varma is particularly noted for his paintings depicting episodes women he saw around him. Ravi Varma is particularly noted for his paintings depicting episodes from the story of from the story of Dushyanta and Shakuntala, Nala and DamayantiDushyanta and Shakuntala, Nala and Damayanti, from the Mahabharata., from the Mahabharata.

Ravi Varma's depiction of mythological characters has become a part of the Indian art heritage. It is also Ravi Varma's depiction of mythological characters has become a part of the Indian art heritage. It is also known as calender art He was – and still is – criticized for being too showy and sentimental in his known as calender art He was – and still is – criticized for being too showy and sentimental in his style. Nevertheless, his work remains quite popular and highly sought after. He is most remembered style. Nevertheless, his work remains quite popular and highly sought after. He is most remembered for his paintings of beautiful sari clad women, who were portrayed as very shapely and graceful. His for his paintings of beautiful sari clad women, who were portrayed as very shapely and graceful. His paintings are considered to be among the best examples of the fusion of Indian traditions with the paintings are considered to be among the best examples of the fusion of Indian traditions with the techniques of European academic art.techniques of European academic art.

Raja Ravi Verma

Calendar Art by Raja Ravi Verma

TANTRAART

Tantra is The Art of Philosophy.

Tantra has developed a system of thought which makes us see the universe as if it were within ourselves, and ourselves as if we were within the universe.

Further the forces governing the cosmos on the macro-level are believed to govern the individual in the micro-level.

According to tantra, the individual being and universal being are one. Thus all that exists in the universe must also exist in the individual body.

The way to fulfillment is through recognition of our wholeness linking man and the universe. This hence is the broad aim of Tantra art, achieved through visual symbols and metaphors.

Encompassing its whole pictorial range, Tantric imagery can be broadly grouped under three heads:

Geometrical representation of deities as Yantras Representation of the Human Body as a Symbol

of the Universe Iconographic images The art which has evolved out of tantra reveals

an abundant variety of forms, varied inflections of tone and colors, graphic patterns, powerful symbols with personal and universal significance.

It is especially intended to convey a knowledge evoking a higher level of perception, and tapping dormant sources of our awareness.

JAINPAINTINGS

The earliest extant Jain miniature paintings are associated with palm-leaf manuscripts, and their wooden book-covers came into use from the 11th century.

Quite often the paintings on the book-covers (PATLIS) were much superior to the paintings done on manuscripts.

The palm-leaf folios generally represented hieratic characters like Tirthankaras, monks etc, whereas the paintings on the PATLIS (book covers) freely portrayed non-iconic subjects such as birds, animals etc.

As the manuscripts were confined to Gujarat and Rajasthan, the miniatures are referred to as having been executed in the Western Indian style of painting. Some of the early paintings show great beauty and plasticity.

A Jain miniature painting. The 23rd Tirthankara, Parsvanath, is always shown

seated under serpent hoods. 

ELEPHANTACAVES

The Elephanta Caves are a  great tourist attraction in the vicinity of the large Mumbai meteropolis.

These caves house rock cut temples dating back to the 5th century CE.

This rock cut temples were created by carving out rock, and creating the columns, the internal spaces and the images.

The entire temple is akin to a huge sculpture, through whose corridors and chambers one can walk.

The entire complex was created through a process of rock removal. Some of the rock surfaces are highly finished while some are untreated bare rock.

This form of expression is not pursued like detached speculation to achieve mere aesthetic delight, but has a deeper meaning.

Apart from aesthetic value, its real significance lies in its content, the meaning it conveys, and the philosophy of life it unravels.

In this sense tantra art is visual metaphysics.

Dancing Skanda, Saptamatr shrine,

AJANTAELLORA

At Ajanta paintings are all over the cave except for the floor.

At various places the art work has become eroded due to decay and human interference.

The painted narratives of the Jataka tales are depicted only on the walls, which demanded the special attention of the devotee.

The process of painting involved several stages. The first step was to chisel the rock surface, to make it rough enough to hold the plaster. The plaster was made of clay, hay, dung and lime.

The colors were referred to as 'earth colors' or 'vegetable colors.' Various kinds of stones, minerals, and plants were used in combinations to prepare different colors.

FOLKART

Folk and tribal art in India takes on different manifestations through varied medium such as pottery, painting, metalwork, paper-art, weaving and designing of artifacts such as jewellery and toys.

Often puranic gods and legends are transformed into contemporary forms and familiar images.

It is an art where life and creativity are inseparable.

Folk art also includes the visual expressions of the wandering nomads. The Sun Temple, Madhvi Parekh(1999)

MUGHALPAINTINGSMughal painting is a particular style of Indian

painting, generally confined to illustrations on the book and done in miniatures, and which emerged, developed and took shape during the period of the Mughal Empire (16th-19th centuries).

As the Mughal kings wanted visual records of their deeds as hunters and conquerors, their artists accompanied them on military expeditions or missions of state, or recorded their prowess as animal slayers, or depicted them in the great dynastic ceremonies of marriages.

Brilliant red, blue and green predominate; the pink, eroded rocks and the vegetation, planes and blossoming plum and peach trees are reminiscent of Persia. However, Indian tones appear in later work when Indian artists were employed.

The very mention of Mughal paintings evokes stylized images of richly draped figures involved in various court activities. Though there is very little regard for realism, these paintings capture ones imagination because of their unique style and selection of themes.

The popular perception of Mughal paintings is not altogether an unfounded one, these Paintings hardly follow the dictum of realism in style but their themes are as true to its period as possible. In fact they can be seen as the most substantial specimens of their times.

A blend of the Indian and the Persian style, these paintings depicted various themes. From scenes of a Mughal court to lovers in intimate positions, the themes were both informative and provocative.

A 17th century Mughal painting.

KALIGHAT

At the time when the Company artists were painting for the British public in India in Western technique, a school of painting combining Indian and Western influences emerged at Kalighat.

From around 1809, when the present Kali Temple was built, Kalighat began to draw more and more pilgrims from allover Bengal and elsewhere. To this growing centre of trade gathered the patuas or the hereditary scroll-painters from different parts of lower Bengal to make paintings, icons and coloured toys which the pilgrims bought as auspicious souvenirs to take back to their homes.

They painted on cheap unglued mill-made paper, used chemical paints with home-ground colours and adopted water colour in place of the time consuming gouache and tempera.

Finally, they used lightening quick flowing lines that became the hall-mark of the Kalighat paintings along with their abstract symbolism, formalized structure and simple composition.

A special feature of Kalighat School is that it developed a vigorous secular aspect that gives its paintings their international appeal though one should not minimize the beauty and virtuosity of its religious and epical paintings

BENGAL SCHOOL

The Bengal School of Art was an influential style of art that flourished in India during the British Raj in the early 20th century. It was associated with Indian nationalism, but was also promoted and supported by many British arts administrators.

The Bengal school arose as an avant garde and nationalist movement reacting against the academic art styles previously promoted in India, both by Indian artists such as Ravi Varma and in British art schools.

The Bengal school's influence in India declined with the spread of modernist ideas in the 1920s.

However Bengal continues to produce some of the best artists of modern India. Among them the best known artists of present day Bengal are Ganesh Pyne, Bikash Bhattacharya, Devajyoti Ray and Paresh Maiti.

CALCUTTA GROUP

The Calcutta Group was the first group of modern artists in India

It was formed in 1943 in Kolkata.Its leading members included the sculptor

Pradosh Das Gupta and the painters Paritosh Sen, Gopal Ghose, Nirode Mazumdar and Zainul Abedin.

The group held exhibitions from 1945, and held a joint exhibition in 1950 with the Progressive Artists' Group in Bombay (which became more influential).

SIKHSCHOOLThis was the last phase in the development of the Pahari painting.

It was not as refined as the former schools.

It was apparent that this painting from the hills of India was quietly withdrawing from the stage of Indian Art.

GULERKANGRASCHOOL

The family of Shiva on Mount Kailasa. Guler style, early 19th century.

In the second quarter of the 18th century, the Basohli style underwent a significant change. A new school of Pahari painting developed in the Guler and Kangra area, and increasingly gained popularity. This style was characterized by: 1.A certain toning down of the former exuberance. The paintings acquired a lyrical nature. 2.An expansion of the color palette. Artists in this style did not use the smoldering colors of the Basohli school. They adopted various shades of the primary colors and used delicate and fresher hues. For instance, the a light pink color was used on the upper hills to indicate distance. 3.The foliage depicted was now more vast and varied. This was made noticeable by the multiple shades of green used to signify vegetation. 4.The most popular themes were the stories and antics of Krishna.

BASOHLISCHOOL The early stage of development of the Pahari

painting started in the mid 17th century. It is in the style of the Basohli school. Pahari paintings in this style are characterized by:

1. Brilliant colours. The background is bright red, yellow, green or brown usually.

2. A sense of perspective is achieved by the pigmy trees.

3. The sky is merely indicated. It is usually a narrow strip in the horizon.

4. Figures with distinct facial features such as fish-shaped elongated eyes or large expressive lotus-shaped eyes, round chins, prominent noses, oval faces, receding foreheads

5. Two-dimensional architectural constructions, crowned with pavilions or domes.

6. Popular themes are: portraits of local rulers and the Hindu gods and figures from Hindu mythology.

A lovelorn lady and a peacock.Basohli style, late 18th century from the Karan Singh Collection

COMPANY STYLE

• Company style or Company painting is a term for a hybrid Indo-European style of paintings made in India by Indian artists many of whom worked for European patrons in the British East India Company or other foreign Companies in the 18th and 19th centuries.

• The style blended traditional elements from Rajput and Mughal painting with a more Western treatment of perspective, volume and recession.

• Most paintings were small, reflecting the Indian miniature tradition, but the natural history paintings of plants and birds were usually life size.

Women in a Brothel, Company style, Northern India, 1800-25, opaque watercolor and gold on paper, 26 x 31.2 cm. San Diego Museum of Art

MADHVI PAREKH

• Madhvi, who has situated herself in the space of contemporary art practice, reverts for inspiration, from time to time, to her childhood village left far behind.

• Madhvi Parekh's images of fantasy and childhood memories, spread over her entire work, have this iconic-symbolic quality.

• Madhvi was not trained in an art school but it is not that she has had no exposure to the world of modern art or to new materials and techniques.

The Boy From Mauritius (Water Color, 1999)

YAMINI SHARMA

Art works by Yamini Sharma

ABANINDRANATH TAGORE• he began to come under the influence of Mughal art,

making a number of works based on the life of Krishna in a Mughal-influenced style.

• After meeting E.B. Havell, Tagore worked with him to revitalise and redefine art teaching at the Calcutta School of art, a project also supported by his brother Gaganendranath, who set up the Indian Society of Oriental Art.

• Abanindranath Tagore (August 7, 1871 - December 5, 1951), was the principal artist of the Bengal school and the first major exponent of swadeshi values in Indian art. He was also a noted writer.

• Tagore sought to modernize Moghul and Rajput traditions in order to counter the influence of Western models of art, as taught in Art Schools under the British Raj.

• Tagore believed that Western art was "materialistic" in character, and that India needed to return to its own traditions in order to recover spiritual values.

• Tagore believed that Indian traditions could be adapted to express these new values, and to promote a progressive Indian national culture.

Bharat Mata by Abanindranath Tagore

GAGANENDRANATH TAGORE

Gaganendranath Tagore (September 18, 1867--1938) was an Indian

painter and cartoonist of the Bengal school.He belongs to the Tagore family and was born at

Jorasanko.Along with his brother Abanindranath Tagore, he

was counted as one of the earliest modern artists in India.

He was a nephew of Nobel Prize winning poet Rabindranath Tagore

AMRITA SHER-GILAmrita Sher-Gil was an eminent Indian painter, sometimes known as India's Frida Kahlo.Today considered an important women painter of 21st century India.Her whose legacy stands at par with that of the Masters of Bengal

Renaissance.She is also the 'most expensive' woman painter of India.Today, she is amongst Nine Masters, whose work was declared as art treasures by The Archaeological Survey of India, in 1976 and 1979.The Government of India has declared her works as National Art Treasures.Most of them are housed in the National Gallery of Modern Art in New Delhi.A postage stamp depicting her painting 'Hill Women' was released in 1978 in India.A road in Lutyens' Delhi, was named after her, Amrita Shergill Marg

TYEB MEHTA

• Tyeb Mehta is an Indian artist from Mumbai.• He holds the record for the highest price an Indian painting has ever sold

in a public auction ($317,500 USD or 15 million Indian rupees) for Celebration at Christie's in 2002.

• He received the Padma Bhushan award in 2007.• Apart from several solo exhibitions Mehta has participated in international

shows like Ten Contemporary Indian Painters at Trenton in the U.S. in 1965

• Mehta's preoccupation with formalist means of expression have led to matt surfaces, broken with diagonals and imagery which while expressing a deep anguish is specifically painterly.

Mahishasura, Oil on Canvas(1996)

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