Periods in Western art history

This is a chronological list of periods in Western art history. An art period is a phase in the development of the work of an artist, groups of artists or art movement.

Ancient Classical art

• Minoan art
• Aegean art
• Ancient Greek art
• Roman art

Medieval art

• Early Christian – 260 – 525
• Migration Period – 300 – 900
• Anglo-Saxon – 400 – 1066
• Visigothic – 415 – 711
• Pre-Romanesque – 500 – 1000
• Insular – 600 – 1200
• Viking – 700 – 1100
• Byzantine
• Merovingian
• Carolingian
• Ottonian
• Romanesque – 1000 – 1200
• Norman-Sicilian – 1100 – 1200
• Gothic – 1100 – 1400
  • International Gothic

Renaissance

• Italian Renaissance – late 13th century – c. 1600 – late 15th century – late 16th century
• Renaissance Classicism
• Early Netherlandish painting – 1400 – 1500
• Early Cretan School – post-Byzantine art or Cretan Renaissance 1400 – 1500
• Mannerism and Late Renaissance – 1520 – 1600, began in central Italy

Baroque to Neoclassicism

• Baroque – 1600 – 1730, began in Rome
  • Dutch Golden Age painting – 1585 – 1702
  • Flemish Baroque painting – 1585 – 1700
  • Caravaggisti – 1590 – 1650
• Rococo – 1720 – 1780, began in France
• Neoclassicism – 1750 – 1830, began in Rome
• Later Cretan School, Cretan Renaissance – 1500 – 1700
• Heptanese School – 1650 – 1830, began on Ionian Islands

Romanticism

• Nazarene movement – c. 1820 – late 1840s
• The Ancients – 1820s – 1840s
• Purismo – c. 1820 – 1860s
• Düsseldorf school – mid-1820s – 1860s
• Hudson River School – 1850s – c. 1880
• Luminism – 1850s – 1870s, United States
• Modern Greek art – 1830 – 1930s, Greece

Romanticism to modern art

• Norwich school – 1803 – 1833, England
• Biedermeier – 1815 – 1848, Germany
• Realism – 1830 – 1870, began in France
• Barbizon school – 1830 – 1870, France
• Peredvizhniki – 1870 – 1890, Russia
  • Abramtsevo Colony – 1870s, Russia
• Hague School – 1870 – 1900, Netherlands
• American Barbizon School 1850 – 1890s – United States
• Spanish Eclecticism – 1845 – 1890, Spain
• Macchiaioli – 1850s, Tuscany, Italy
• Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood – 1848 – 1854, England

Modern art

Note: The countries listed are the country in which the movement or group started. Most modern art movements were international in scope.

• Impressionism – 1860 – 1890, France
  • American Impressionism – 1880, United States
• Cos Cob Art Colony – 1890s, United States
  • Heidelberg School – late 1880s, Australia
• Luminism (Impressionism)
• Arts and Crafts movement – 1880 – 1910, United Kingdom
• Tonalism – 1880 – 1920, United States
• Symbolism (arts) – 1880 – 1910, France/Belgium
  • Russian Symbolism – 1884 – c. 1910, Russia
  • Aesthetic movement – 1868 – 1901, United Kingdom
• Post-impressionism – 1886 – 1905, France
  • Les Nabis – 1888 – 1900, France
  • Cloisonnism – c. 1885, France
  • Synthetism – late 1880s – early 1890s, France
• Neo-impressionism – 1886 – 1906, France
  • Pointillism – 1879, France
  • Divisionism – 1880s, France
• Art Nouveau – 1890 – 1914, France
  • Vienna Secession (or Secessionstil) – 1897, Austria
  • Mir iskusstva – 1899, Russia
  • Jugendstil – Germany, Scandinavia
  • Modernisme – 1890 – 1910, Spain
• Russian avant-garde – 1890 – 1930, Russia/Soviet Union
• Art à la Rue – 1890s – 1905, Belgium/France
• Young Poland – 1890 – 1918, Poland
• Hagenbund – 1900 – 1930, Austria
• Fauvism – 1904 – 1909, France
• Expressionism – 1905 – 1930, Germany
  • Die Brücke – 1905 – 1913, Germany
  • Der Blaue Reiter – 1911, Germany
  • Flemish Expressionism – 1911–1940, Belgium
• Bloomsbury Group – 1905 – c. 1945, England
• Cubism – 1907 – 1914, France
  • Jack of Diamonds – 1909 – 1917, Russia
  • Orphism – 1912, France
  • Purism – 1918 – 1926, France
• Ashcan School – 1907, United States
• Art Deco – 1909 – 1939, France
• Futurism – 1910 – 1930, Italy
  • Russian Futurism – 1912 – 1920s, Russia
  • Cubo-Futurism – 1912 – 1915, Russia
• Rayonism – 1911, Russia
• Synchromism – 1912, United States
• Universal Flowering – 1913, Russia
• Vorticism – 1914 – 1920, United Kingdom
• Biomorphism – 1915 – 1940s
• Suprematism – 1915 – 1925, Russia
  • UNOVIS – 1919 – 1922, Russia
• Dada – 1916 – 1930, Switzerland
• Proletkult – 1917 – 1925, Russia
• Productijism – after 1917, Russia
• De Stijl (Neoplasticism) – 1917 – 1931, Netherlands (Utrecht)
• Pittura Metafisica – 1917, Italy
• Arbeitsrat für Kunst – 1918 – 1921
• Bauhaus – 1919 – 1933, Germany
• The "Others" – 1919, United States
• Constructivism – 1920s, Russia/Soviet Union
  • Vkhutemas – 1920 – 1926, Russia
• Precisionism – c. 1920, United States
• Surrealism – since 1920s, France
  • Acéphale – 1936 – 1939, France
  • Lettrism – 1942 –
  • Les Automatistes 1946 – 1951, Quebec, Canada
• Devetsil – 1920 – 1931
• Group of Seven – 1920 – 1933, Canada
• Harlem Renaissance – 1920 – 1930s, United States
• American scene painting – c. 1920 – 1945, United States
• New Objectivity (Neue Sachlichkeit) – 1920s, Germany
• Grupo Montparnasse – 1922, France
• Northwest School – 1930s – 1940s, United States
• Social realism – 1929, international
• Socialist realism – c. 1920 – 1960, began in Soviet Union
  • Leningrad School of Painting – 1930s – 1950s, Soviet Union
  • Socrealism – 1949 – 1955, Poland
• Abstraction-Création – 1931 – 1936, France
• Allianz – 1937 – 1950s, Switzerland
• Abstract Expressionism – 1940s, Post WWII, United States
  • Action painting – 1940s – 1950s, United States
  • Tachisme – late-1940s – mid-1950s, France
  • Color field painting
  • Lyrical Abstraction
  • COBRA – 1946 – 1952, Denmark/Belgium/The Netherlands
  • Abstract Imagists – United States
• Art informel mid-1940s – 1950s

Contemporary art

Contemporary art – 1946–present

Note: there is overlap with what is considered "contemporary art" and "modern art."

• Contemporary Greek art – 1945 Greece
• Vienna School of Fantastic Realism – 1946, Austria
• Neo-Dada – 1950s, international
• International Typographic Style – 1950s, Switzerland
• Soviet Nonconformist Art – 1953 – 1986, Soviet Union
• Painters Eleven – 1954 – 1960, Canada
• Pop Art – mid-1950s, United Kingdom/United States
• Woodlands School – 1958 – 1962, Canada
• Situationism – 1957 – early 1970s, Italy
• New realism – 1960 –
• Magic realism – 1960s, Germany
• Minimalism – 1960 –
• Hard-edge painting – early 1960s, United States
• Fluxus – early 1960s – late-1970s
• Happening – early 1960 –
• Video art – early 1960 –
• Psychedelic art – early 1960s –
• Conceptual art – 1960s –
• Graffiti – 1960s –
• Junk art – 1960s –
• Performance art – 1960s –
• Op Art – 1964 –
• Post-painterly abstraction – 1964 –
• Lyrical Abstraction – mid-1960s –
• Process art – mid-1960s – 1970s
• Arte Povera – 1967 –
• Art and Language – 1968, United Kingdom
• Photorealism – late 1960s – early 1970s
• Land art – late-1960s – early 1970s
• Post-minimalism – late 1960s – 1970s
• Postmodern art – 1970 – present
• Deconstructivism
• Metarealism – 1970 – 1980, Soviet Union
• Sots Art – 1972 – 1990s, Soviet Union/Russia
• Installation art – 1970s –
• Mail art – 1970s –
• Maximalism – 1970s –
• Neo-expressionism – late 1970s –
• Neoism – 1979
• Figuration Libre – early 1980s
• Street art – early 1980s
• Young British Artists – 1988 –
• Digital art – 1990 – present
• Toyism – 1992 – present
• Massurrealism – 1992 –
• Stuckism – 1999 –
• Remodernism – 1999 –
• Excessivism – 2015 –

See also