History of art

This article is an overview of the history of art worldwide. For the academic discipline of art history, see Art history.

Laocoön and his Sons, Greek, (Late Hellenistic), circa 160 BC and 20 BC, White marble, Vatican Museum

The history of art usually refers to the history of the visual arts, such as painting, sculpture and architecture. The term also encompasses theory of the visual arts. It is not usually taken or intended to refer to the performing arts or literary arts. The history of art attempts an objective survey of art throughout human history, classifying cultures and periods and noting their distinguishing features and influences.

The field of "art history" was developed in the West, and originally dealt exclusively with Western painting, and Western art history, with the High Renaissance (and its Greek precedent) as the defining standard. Gradually, with the onset of Modernism, a wider vision of history has developed, seeking to place other societies in a global overview by analyzing their artifacts in terms of their own cultural values. Thus, the subject is now seen to encompass all visual art, from the megaliths of Western Europe to the paintings of the Tang Dynasty in China.

Study of art history

The Sakyamuni Buddha, by Zhang Shengwen, c. 1173-1176 AD, Chinese Song Dynasty period.

Main article: Historical development of art history

Study of the history of art is a relatively recent phenomenon; prior to the Renaissance, the modern concept of "art" did not exist, and art was used to refer to workmanship by generally anonymous tradespeople.

The viewpoint of the art historian is a significant input into the defining parameters which are employed. For example, during the early Victorian era, the quattrocento artists were considered inferior to those of the High Renaissance—a notion subsequently challenged by the Pre-Raphaelite movement. There has since been a trend, dominant in most modern art history, to see all cultures and periods from a neutral point of view, with a tendency to shy away from value judgements. Thus, for example, Australian Aboriginal art would not be deemed better or worse than Michelangelo by typical Modernist art historians—just different.

Analysis has also evolved into studying the "political" use of art, rather than reserving analysis to the aesthetic appreciation of its craftsmanship or beauty. It is believed there is always an intent and a philosophy behind art, and an effect achieved by it. Thus, for example, the considerable employment by the Eastern Orthodox Church in the Middle Ages can be contrasted or compared with "Soviet propaganda", the manifestation of social structure through 19th-century portraiture, an anarcho-religious vision exemplified by Van Gogh, etc. What may once have been viewed simply as a masterpiece is now deconstructed into an economic, social, philosophical, and cultural manifestation of the artist's world-view, philosophy, intentions and background.

There are different ways of structuring a history of art. The following is one which is commonly used, based primarily on time, but within that creating subdivisions based on place and culture. Other views are somewhat disputed, still, even today there are many forms of structuring a history of art.

Earliest known art

Main article: Pre-historic art

File:Lascaux-aurochs.jpg

Aurochs on a cave painting in Lascaux, France.

Venus of Willendorf

The oldest surviving art forms include small drug like sculptures and paintings on rocks and in caves. There are very few known examples of art that date earlier than 40,000 years ago, the beginning of the Upper Paleolithic period. People often rubbed smaller rocks against larger rocks and boulders to paint pictures of their everyday life, such as hunting wild game.

The so-called Venus of Willendorf (which is now being called "Woman from Willendorf" in contemporary art history texts) is a sculpture from the Paleolithic era, which depicts a woman with exaggerated female attributes. This sculpture, carved from stone, is remarkable in its roundness instead of a flat or low-relief depiction. Early Aegean art, although it dates from a much later period, shares some of the same abstract figurative elements.

Prehistoric art objects are rare, and the context of such early art is difficult to determine. Prehistoric, by definition, refers to those cultures which have left no written records of their society. The art historian judges early pieces of art as objects in their own right, with few opportunities for comparison between contemporaneous pieces. Interpretation of such early art must be done primarily in the context of aesthetics tempered by what is known of various hunter-gatherer societies still in existence.

Ancient art

Main article: Ancient art

So-called "Grande Ludovisi" sarcophagus, with battle scene between Roman soldiers and Germans. The main character is probably Ostilianus, Emperor Decius' son (d. 252 CE). Proconnesus marble, Roman artwork, ca. 250 CE.

The period of ancient art began when ancient civilizations developed a form of written language.

The great traditions in art have a foundation in the art of one of the six great ancient civilizations: Ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia, Greece, Rome, India, or China. Each of these centers of early civilization developed a unique and characteristic style in their art. Because of their size and duration these civilizations, more of their art works have survived and more of their influence has been transmitted to other cultures and later times. They have also provided us with the first records of how artists worked.

Ancient Roman art depicted gods as idealized humans, shown with characteristic distinguishing features (i.e. Zeus' thunderbolt).

Post-ancient Western art

Main article: Western art history

The interior of the Hagia Sophia in Istanbul, Turkey.

In Byzantine and Gothic art of the Middle Ages, the dominance of the church insisted on the expression of biblical truths. There was no need to depict the reality of the material world, in which man was born in a "state of sin", especially through the extensive use of gold in paintings, which also presented figures in idealised, patterned (i.e."flat") forms.

The Renaissance is the return yet again to valuation of the material world, and this paradigm shift is reflected in art forms, which show the corporeality of the human body, and the three dimensional reality of landscape.

Post-ancient Eastern art

Main article: Eastern art history

The Great Wave off Kanagawa by Hokusai.

Eastern art has generally worked in a style akin to Western medieval art, namely a concentration on surface patterning and local colour (meaning the plain colour of an object, such as basic red for a red robe, rather than the modulations of that colour brought about by light, shade and reflection). A characteristic of this style is that the local colour is often defined by an outline (a contemporary equivalent is the cartoon). This is evident in, for example, the art of India, Tibet and Japan.

Religious Islamic art forbids iconography, and expresses religious ideas through geometric designs instead. However, there are many Islamic paintings which display religious themes and scenes of stories common among the three main monotheistic faiths of Islam, Christianity, and Judaism.

Contemporary art

Main article: Contemporary art

The Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain.

[The physical and rational certainties] of the clockwork universe depicted by the 18th-century Enlightenment were shattered not only by new discoveries of relativity by Einstein and of unseen psychology by Freud, but also by unprecedented technological development accelerated by the implosion of civilisation in two world wars. The history of twentieth century art is a narrative of endless possibilities and the search for new standards, each being torn down in succession by the next. Thus the parameters of Impressionism, Expressionism, Fauvism, Cubism, Dadaism, Surrealism, etc cannot be maintained very much beyond the time of their invention. Increasing global interaction during this time saw an equivalent influence of other cultures into Western art, such as Pablo Picasso being influenced by African sculpture. Japanese woodblock prints (which had themselves been influenced by Western Renaissance draftsmanship) had an immense influence on Impressionism and subsequent development. Then African fetish sculptures were taken up by Picasso and to some extent by Matisse.

Modernism, the idealistic search for truth, gave way in the latter half of the 20th century to a realisation of its unattainability. Relativity was accepted as an unavoidable truth, which led to the Postmodern period, where cultures of the world and of history are seen as changing forms, which can be appreciated and drawn from only with irony. Furthermore the separation of cultures is increasingly blurred and it is now more appropriate to think in terms of a global culture, rather than regional cultures.

See also

• Art - including theoretical overview
• Art criticism
• Art history
• Art historians
• Art periods
• Postmodern art
• Aesthetics
• Sublime
• Architectural history
• History of decorative arts
• Western painting
• History of painting
• History of sculpture
• History of dance
• Sacred art
• Visual culture
• African American art

Bibliography

• Ed. Frank Milner (2004), "The Stuckists Punk Victorian" National Museums Liverpool, ISBN 1-902700-27-9. (The book online)

Further reading

• Vernon Hyde Minor, Art History's History. Upper Saddle River: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 2001, 1994.
• Donald Preziosi, Seeing through Art History in: Ellen Messer-Davidow,David R. Shumway, David J. Sylvan, eds., Knowledges. Historical and Critical Studies in Disciplinarity, Charlotteville, University Press of Virginia 1993, pp. 215-231
• H.W. Janson & Anthony Janson, History of Art, Revised Sixth Edition
• Marilyn Stokstad, Art History Revised, Second Edition

External links

• "History of Art: From Paleolithic Age to Contemporary Art" - all-art.org
• "Art: The history of ideas in literature and the arts in aesthetic theory and literary criticism" - The Dictionary of the History of Ideas
• Art History resources
• Ars Summum Project

Timelines

• Art History Timeline - historyexplorer.net
• Timeline of Art History from Metropolitan Museum of Art