Joseph Wright

An Experiment on a Bird in the Air Pump

1768

Neoclassicism 

• Exemplifies the Enlightenment era.
• Painting’s purpose served to promote the popularity of science to the public.
• Tenebrist painting, inspired by Caravaggio.
• Full moon in background represents Lunar Society.

Hackwood

Am I Not a Man and a Brother

1787

Neoclassicism 

• Black/red figure technique.
• Medallion of English and French colonies who sought to remove slavery
• Sent to Benjamin Franklin at the Philadelphia Abolition Society.

Angelica Kauffman

Cornelia Pointing to Her Children as Treasures

1785

Neoclassicism

• Idealizes and glorifies the "good mother."
• Illustrates ancient Republic Rome myth and moral lesson.

Thomas Jefferson

Monticello

1769-1782

Neoclassicism

• Inspired by ancient Roman architecture.
• Home of Thomas Jefferson.

Le Brun

Marie-Antoinette with Her Children

1787

Neoclassicism

• Image painted to improve Marie-Antoinette's social image, as she was a corrupt French Aristocrat.
• Depicts the "good mother."

Jacques-Louis David

Oath of the Horatii

1784

Neoclassicism

• Depicts ancient Roman myth and a call to arms, taking oath to clan.
• Caption of image: "To plant the seeds of glory and devotion to the fatherland!"
• Colors of clothing on men represent French pride.
• Piece received at The Salon.

Jacques-Louis David

Napoleon Crossing the Saint Bernard

1801

Neoclassicism

• First consul, Napoleon Bonaparte in victory leading his army across the Saint-Bernard and the Alps.
• Propaganda painting; inflated subjects social image.
• Evocative of Roman equestrian influence.

The Age of Reason; secular shift in philosophy focusing on Humanistic aspects of life.

Example: An Experiment on a Bird at the Air Pump by Joseph Wright

Absolute monarch of France during the French Revolution. 

Example: Marie-Antoinetee with Her Children by Vigee Le Brun

Husband of Louis XVI, Queen of France who was corrupt and harbored sympathies for enemy countries.

Example: Marie-Antoinette with Her Children by Le Brun

Rebellion of the people of France and Europe from the absolute monarchy of King Louis XVI.

Example: Liberty Leading the People by Eugene Delacroix

Ingres

Large Odalisque

1814

Romanticism

• Romantic style exepmlified by exaggerated proportions.
• Female figure is a concubine, communicates sense passionate sexual desire.

Gericault

Raft of the Medusa

1818-1819

Romanticism

• Shipwreck of the ship “Medusa,” captain abandons crew and leaves them for dead.
• Political statement, criticizing nepotism of government. 

Delacroix

Liberty Leading the People

1830

 Romanticism

• Depiction of artists' experience of the July Revolution.
• Woman in image represents liberty, her nudity represents freedom.

Goya

Third of May

1808

Romanticism

• Romanticism exemplified by loose brush strokes, unbalanced composition and theatrical lighting.
• Image depicts execution of rebels by French firing squad because of plot against the royal family.

Constable

The White Horse

1819

Romanticism

• Represents the artists dismissal of the industrial revolution.
• Sublime painting; nature greater than man.

Turner

Snowstorm: Hannibal and His Army Crossing the Alps

1812

Romanticism

• Exemplifies Romantic style; focuses on the mood and drama of the painting rather than realistic depiction.
• Sublime painting; nature greater than man.

Cole

The Oxbow

1840

Romanticism

• Sublime painting; nature greater than man.
• Evocative of manifest destiny.

Emperor of France who abolished the Republic, attempting to reinstate the Roman empire. Became corrupt by the power he possessed and was overthrown and exiled.

Example: Napoleon Bonaparte Crossing the Saint-Bernard by Jacques-Louis David

In art, depicting the forces of nature. Big landscapes, small figures; nature is greater than man.

Example: The Oxbow by Thomas Cole

Aesthetic ideal developed by William Gilpin that specifies compositional arrangements that emphasizes sublimity and suggests beauty in landscape paintings. 

Example: The White Horse by John Constable

Female slave or concubine in a harem.

Example: Large Odalisque by Dominique Ingres

Referring to Middle Eastern or East Asian cultures.

Example: Large Odalisque by Dominque Ingres

Courbet

A Burial at Ornans

1849

Realism

• Controversial because it was too secular; too naturalistic, peasants show an apathetic mood on their faces, and lacked hierarchy in the grouping of the people.
• Realistic depiction expresses Realist movement; conveys a social critique.

Millet

The Gleaners

1857

Realism

• Reflects Realist movement; social commentary on poverty and the backbreaking labor of gleaning.
• Naturalistic depiction evocative of Realism.

Manet

Luncheon on the Grass (Dejeuner sur l'Herbe)

1863

Realism

• Controversial and rejected from the Salon; many  didn't understand the satire.
• Mocked nude art; woman wasn't a venus.

Manet

Olympia

1863

Realism

• Based on Titian's Venus of Urbino; similar in form but opposite in subject matter.
• Controversial; scorned at the Salon of 1865 for its defiant representation of a venus.

19th century poet who had reviewed art at the Salon exhibitions.

Example: Olympia by Manet

Monet

Impression

1872

Impressionism

• Reflects Impressionist style; silhouetted figures, low-key background, stylized strokes and emphasized colors.
• Japonisme; influenced by Japanese prints.

Monet

Boulevard des Capucines

1873

Impressionism

• Impressionist style; captures the mood visually rather than actually. 
• En plein air; painted outside.

Degas

The Rehearsal of the Ballet on Stage

1874

Impressionism

• Men in the picture are the ballerina’s patrons and ‘expected something in return.’  
• Impressionist subject; daily life.

Morisot

Summer's Day

1879

Impressionism

• Impressionist style; loose, color strokes that convey mood rather than accurate figures.
• En plein air; painted outside.

French term for painting outside; artists were more mobile because of tin paint tubes being transportable.

Example: Summer's Day by Berthe Morisot

Exhibition of rejected works from the Salon. 

Example: The Luncheon on the Grass by Manet

Influence of Japanese prints on Western art.

Example: Impression by Claude Monet

Architect that updated the infrastructure of Paris.

Seurat

A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte

1884-1886

Post-Impressionism

• Post-Impressionist style; methodical and depicts daily life.
• Pointilism; created through series of colored dots.

Cezanne

Mont Sainte-Victoire

1902-1906

Post-Impressionism

• Post-Impressionist style; depicts every day life, loose painterly style.
• Passage painting; rendered while time changes lighting and color.

Cezanne

Still Life with Basket of Apples

1890-1894

Post-Impressionism

• Passage painting; time passes in different areas of painting, anatomy inconsistent.
• Post-Impressionist style; improvised and intuitive with different perspectives.

Gauguin

Day of the God

1894

Post-Impressionism

• Post-Impressionist style; focuses on color and intuition, what the artist wishes he'd seen.
• Depicts effects of Western culture, showing primitive people who were visited by missionaries.

Van Gogh

Starry Night

1889

Post-Impressionism

• Synthetic; combines view from window and memories of home.
• Impasto; thickly applied pigments.
• Post-Impressionist style; emphasized feeling of realism.

Toulouse Lautrec

Jane Avril

1893

Post-Impressionism

• Japonisme; influenced by Japanese prints.
• Post-Impressionist style; focused on emotion rather than realistic depiction.

Auguste Rodin

Burghers of Calais

1884-1889

Post-Impressionism

• Lost-wax bronze sculpture.
• Commissioned by French town of Calais to commemorate soldiers of Franco-Prussian war.

Matisse

 The Joy of Life

1905-1906

Expressionism

• Fauvism; founded by Matisse, instense color.
• Depicts a Biblical Eden, the birth of human life.

Kirchner

 Street (in Berlin)

1913

 Expressionism

• Die Brucke;artists influenced Frederick Nietzsche focused on the primitive aspects of painting.
• Using angles and a wild palette, creates a sense of claustrophobia.

Becker

Self-Portrait with Amber Necklace

1906

Expressionism 

• Influenced by African art. 
• Depicted in nature because the female is considered attuned to nature.

Kandinsky

 Improvisation #28 (Der Blaue Rieter)

1912

Expressionism

• First non-objective paintings in the history of art, removing all recognizable figures and focusing strictly on formal qualities. 
• Inspired by Schoenburg's music.

Pablo Picasso

Les Demoiselles d’Avignon

1907

Cubism

• Considered Picasso’s first Cubist piece.
• Avignon refers to the red-light district in Barcelona, as the women portrayed in the image are prostitutes.

Composing an image through the technique of stippling certain color combinations rather than mixing pigments.

Example: A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte by Georges Seurat

Picasso

Ma Jolie

1911

Cubism

• High-analytic Cubism.
• Inspired by artists newfound love of a woman. 

Picasso

Glass and Bottle of Suze

1912

Cubism

• Synthetic Cubism; composition combines two different mediums.
• Considered first collage piece.

Blue Period

Period in Picasso’s career where he emphasized blue.

Period in Picasso’s career where he painted with warmer colors.

Cubist movement that is very representational and focused on a high usage of geometric form. 

Example: Ma Jolie by Pablo Picasso

Cubist work combining two mediums, one of which is collage.

Example: Glass and Bottle of Suze by Pablo Picasso

Boccioni

Unique Forms of Continuity in Space

 1912

Futurism

• Dynamism; motion is conveyed through shapes and forms that jut off of the figure. 
• Futurist subject; new, and hasn’t been seen before for the sake of being different. 

Technique of depicting motion in a static painting by ghosting an object multiple times to trace its trajectory.

Example: Unique Forms of Continuity in Space by Umberto Boccioni 

Malevich

 Suprematist Painting (Eight Red Rectangles)

 1915

Suprematism

• Suprematism; focuses on pure formal value and subject matter is removed, making direct  communication to emotion.

Lissitzky

PROUN Space

1915

Constructivism 

• Constructivist; focused on design.
• Russian acronym “PROUN” stands for “Project for the affirmation of the new.” 

Piet Mondrian

Composition with Yellow, Red and Blue

1927

De Stijl

• Line, shape, primary and neutral colors used to communicate emotion.
• Inspired by Cubism; non-objective art.

Rietveld

Schroder House, Utrecht

1925

De Stijl

• Line, shape, primary and neutral colors used to convey a very bare form of art.
• Inspired by Cubism; non-objective art.

Marcel Duchamp

The Fountain

1917

Dada

• Readymade; object recontextualized into a composition.
• Cabaret Voltaire; birthplace of Dada.
• Richard Mutt case; artist inscribed is 'R. Mutt' as alias, knowing it would be rejected in exhibition, controversy over whether composition was truly art or not.

Birthplace of Dada.

Example: The Fountain by Marcel Duchamp

"R. Mutt" inscribed on The Fountain by Duchamp. Richard Mutt used as his alias. Submitted his piece knowing it would be rejected, then published article on controversy of whether or not it was art.

Example: The Fountain by Duchamp

Found objects recontextualized into a composition.

Example: The Fountain by Duchamp

Neurologist and psychotherapist who emphasized the unconscious and psychoanalysis, strong influence on 20th century artists. 

Example: The Persistence of Memory by Salvador Dali

Image appears visually believable, but isn’t possible in reality.

Example: The Persistence of Memory by Salvador Dali

Subconcious association; the artists paints without concious decision.

Example: Composition by Joan Miro

Salvador Dali

 The Persistence of Memory

 1931

Surrealism

• Dislocated realism; image is depicted realistically, but the content is impossible in reality. 
• Portrays artists childhood memory; a doctor asked to see his tongue and purposely confused the French words ‘show’ and ‘tongue’ and through years of cultivation, he manifested it into this interpretive vision. 

Oppenheim

Luncheon in Fur

1933

Surrealism

• Metaphor for female oral sex.

Joan Miró

Composition

 1933

Surrealism

• Automatism; subconsciously painted without conscious control.
• Influenced by Sigmund Freud.

Frida Kahlo

The Two Fridas

1939

Surrealism

• Two aspects of her mental identity; left is her European identity, right is her Mexican identity. 
• Frida rejected the title of a surrealist, because she claimed that she painted her own reality. 

Jackson Pollock

Autumn Rhythm #30

1950

Abstract-Expressionism 

• Action painting; coined by Harold Rosenberg, the approach of seeing the canvas as not a picture, but an event.
• Influenced by Carl Jung.

Krasner

The Seasons

1957

Abstract-Expressionism 

• Influenced by Carl Jung. 
• Abstract; communicates the emotional expression of the collective unconscious.

De Kooning

Woman I

1950-1952

Abstract-Expressionism

• Scraped and repainted several dozen times.
• Action painting; loose and furious brush strokes compose an anxious figure of a woman.

Mark Rothko

Brown, Blue, Brown on Blue

 1953

 Abstract-Expressionism

• Influenced by Frederick Nietzsche; based content of painting off of divergent human tendencies Dionysian and Apollonian.
• Artist used diluted oil paint with solvent and rubbed it down into the fibers of the canvas, which gives a colorful shimmering effect. 

Frankenthaler

Mountains and Sea

1952

Abstract-Expressionism

• Action painting; approach as event rather than picture.
• Influenced by Pollock; unconscious events, dancelike motions of brush strokes.

Psychiatrist influenced by Freud, developed the idea of the collective unconscious.

Example: Autumn Rhythm #30 by Jackson Pollock

A collection of the unconscious feelings common to all of humanity. 

Example: The Seasons by Lee Krasner

Art critic who coined the term 'action painting;' approach to canvas as not a picture, but an event. 

Example: Autumn Rhythm #30 by Jackson Pollock.

Used art history to justify Abstract Expressionism, articulates what modernism is and looks like in art. “There is a law of Modernism that follows a mainstream.” 

Example: Woman I by Willem de Kooning

Rauschenberg

Canyon

1959

 Pop Art

• Assemblage; mixed media movement attempting to break away from Abstract Expressionism.
• Branch off of assemblage termed by artist as 'combines;' chaotically mixed painting combined with found elements

Jasper Johns

Target with Four Faces

1955

 Pop Art

• Assemblage piece; combines both painting and mixed media.
• Reflects on artists anxieties; feeling like a target as a gay artist during the Cold War.

Hamilton

Just What Is It That Makes Today's Homes So Different, So Appealing?

1956

Pop Art

• Exemplifies Pop Art; uses pop culture as commentary on American consumerism. 
• Hamilton part of Independent Group which began Pop art in London.

Lichtenstein

Oh, Jeff... I Love You, Too... But...

 1964

Pop Art

• BEN-DAY color rendering, much like pointilism. 
• Exemplifies Pop art; artists uses comics as commentary on popular culture.

Andy Warhol

Marilyn Diptych

1962

Pop Art 

• Artist uses repetition to depict her like a consumerist product; a persona that was constructed by film industry.
• Created shortly after her suicide; depicted in the piece in the right diptych as she fades away representing her death.

Group of English artists who were ultimately the precursors to Pop art.

Example: Just What Is It That Makes Today's Homes So Different, So Appealing? by Richard Hamilton

Claes Oldenburg

Lipstick (Ascending) on Caterpillar Tracks

1969

Pop Art 

• Exemplifies Pop art; points out consumerist culture of America.
• Donated as gift to Yale university, the artists alma mater.

Bridget Riley

Current

1964

Minimalism

• Exemplifies Minimalism; external meanings stripped, left bare to technical formalities.
• Optical illustion created by parallell lines.

Donald Judd

Untitled (Stack)

 1967

 Minimalism

• Exemplifies Minimalism; relating the material of metallic rectangular prisms to itself by using strict geometric form. 
• Piece is site-specific; artists takes into account the setting.

Eve Hesse

 Rope Piece

1970

Minimalism 

• Rather than focusing on strict formal elements, uses organic forms rather than geometric. 
• Exemplifies Minimalism; material relates to itself by being organic and loose along with the shape of the composition.

Christo and Jeane-Claude

 Running Fence

 1972-1976 

 Postmodernism

• Earthwork installation; composed out of environment, specific to sight.
• Ran along the Sonoma and Marin counties in California into the ocean.

Robert Smithson

Spiral Jetty

1969-1970

Postmodernism 

• Earthwork installation; composed out of environment, sight-specific. 
• Spiral form represents the concept of entropy, the second law of thermodynamics.

Chicago

The Dinner Party

1974-1979

Postmodernism 

• Third-wave Feminism; political commentary on unequal rights between women and men. 
• 39 place sets for 39 famous women in history.

Saar 

The Liberation of Aunt Jemima

1972

Postmodernism

• Appropriation; Aunt Jemima portrayed to an artists interpretation. 
• Political commentary; arms her with not one, but two guns so as to communicate that she is ready to rebel. 

Sherman

Untitled Film Still #21

1979

Postmodernism

• Series of 69 film stills; focus is to point out the construct of gender stereotypes.
• Appropriation; portrays herself as stereotypes rather than specific actresses.

The overall acceptance of multiple approaches.

Example: The Dinner Party by Judy Chicago

Borrowed elements of previous work used in new work.

Example: The Liberation of Aunt Jemima by Bettye Saar

 Feminism that focused largely how gender is constructed and depicted in media. Less emphasis on sex, more on gender. 

Example: Untitled Film Still #21 by Cindy Sherman