Art Movements: Learn about Important Periods in Art History

Japanese art prints, or Ukiyo-e (which means "pictures of the floating world") have become an increasingly popular art form in the Western world. Their upward, floating imagery sprang from the Buddhist idea that joy is transient and that only detachment ...

What was Romanticism? Well, although the name may sound a bit lovey-dovey, as an art (and literary) movement Romanticism really had nothing to do with love or romance. It DID have everything to do with emotion, however.

What was Mannerism? Simply put, Mannerism was the art movement that took place immediately after the Renaissance during the 16th century. There are also two things which tend to show up in Mannerist works fairly often, and you can spot ...

The Baroque art movement began during the early 17th century in Italy and lasted over a century throughout Europe. As a style, Baroque artwork combines dramatic compositions, beautiful details, and emotional subject matter.

The De Stijl art movement (Neo-Plasticism) had just one goal: to make art that was as simple and as basic as possible. De Stijl took art to an almost scientific level of precision and perfection, using squares, lines, and primary ...

Within the first two decades of the 20th century, a new art movement began unlike any other - Cubism. Most Cubist works are immediately recognizable due to their flattened, nearly appearance, geometric lines and angles, and a fairly neutral color ...

The Surrealist art movement began with André Breton, a French writer interested in Sigmund Freud's analysis of the subconscious mind. André Breton wanted Surrealism to change the world. . . in some ways, it probably has.

What is Dada really? Is it an art movement? A way of thinking? The truth is, Dada art is in every possible way the opposite of traditional art—it's anti-art that was meant to shake the art world to its core.

Art Nouveau was an exceptionally popular art movement in the late 1800's, beginning around 1880 and lasting into the second decade of the 20th century. It was so popular in fact, that many of us still recognize it when we ...

Art Deco was an art movement that lasted from the 1920s until around 1940. It began in France with a group of French decorators, designers, and artists at an event called the "Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Modernes." ...

As movements go, Abstract Expressionism is a little tricky to describe because it revolved primarily around the individuality of its leading artists, Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning, and Mark Rothko, just to pick a few. However, if you break down ...