History of painting

Northern Qi dynasty, 571 AD, located in Taiyuan, Shanxi

province, China

Warring States period, from Zidanku Tomb no. 1 in Changsha, Hunan

Province

The history of Eastern painting includes a vast range of influences from various cultures and religions. Developments in

Korean Art, and Japanese art^[4] each had significant influence on Western art, and, vice versa.^[5]

Goryeo dynasty

, Korean painting was characterized primarily by a combination of Korean-style landscapes, facial features, Buddhist-centered themes, and an emphasis on celestial observation that was facilitated by the rapid development of Korean astronomy.

East Asian

See also Chinese painting, Japanese painting, Korean painting.

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• 
  A

  State of Chu (704–223 BC), depicting men riding in a two-horsed chariot
• 
  Detail of a fresco showing the Chinese philosopher

  Shandong province
• 
  A Chinese woman, fresco from a

  Shaanxi province
• 
  Paintings on tile of guardian spirits donned in

  Chinese robes, from the Han dynasty

  (202 BC – 220 AD)
• 
  Gentlemen in Conversation, tomb painting dated to the

  Eastern Han dynasty

  (25–220 AD).
• 
  Eastern Han dynasty

  (25-220 AD)
• 
  Female court attendants, a mural from an

  Henan province
• 
  Female court attendants, a mural from an

  Henan province
• 
  Male figure from a lacquerware painting over wood, Northern Wei period, 5th century AD
• 
  Northern Wei dynasty

  (386-535 AD)
• 
  Emperor Sun Quan in the Thirteen Emperors Scroll and Northern Qi Scholars Collating Classic Texts, by Yan Liben (c. 600–673 AD), Chinese
• 
  Eighty-Seven Celestials, by Wu Daozi (685–758), Tang dynasty, Chinese
• 
  Portrait of Night-Shining White, by Han Gan, 8th century, Tang dynasty, Chinese
• 
  Spring Outing of the Tang Court, by Zhang Xuan, 8th century, Tang dynasty, Chinese
• 
  Servant, 8th century, Tang dynasty, Chinese
• 
  Ladies making silk, a remake of an 8th-century original by Zhang Xuan by Emperor Huizong of Song, early 12th century, Chinese
• 
  An illustrated sutra from the Nara period, 8th century, Japanese
• 
  Ladies Playing Double Sixes, by Zhou Fang (730–800 AD), Tang dynasty, Chinese
• 
  A Palace Concert, Tang dynasty, Chinese
• 
  The Xiao and Xiang Rivers, by Dong Yuan (c. 934–962 AD), Chinese
• 
  Night Revels, a Song dynasty remake of a 10th-century original by Gu Hongzhong.
• 
  Court portrait of Emperor Shenzong of Song (r. 1067–1085), Chinese
• 
  Golden Pheasant and Cotton Rose, by Emperor Huizong of Song (r.1100–1126 AD), Chinese
• 
  Listening to the Guqin, by Emperor Huizong of Song (1100–1126 AD), Chinese
• 
  Children Playing, by Su Han Chen, c. 1150, Chinese
• 
  Chinese, anonymous artist of the 12th century Song dynasty
• 
  Portrait of the Zen Buddhist Wuzhun Shifan, 1238 AD, Chinese
• 
  Ma Lin, 1246 AD, Chinese
• 
  A Man and His Horse in the Wind, by Zhao Mengfu (1254–1322 AD), Chinese
• 
  Shukei-sansui (Autumn Landscape),

  Sesshu Toyo

  (1420–1506), Japanese
• 
  Kanō Masanobu, 15th-century founder of the Kanō school, Zhou Maoshu Appreciating Lotuses, Japanese
• 
  A White-Robed Kannon, Bodhisattva of Compassion, by Kanō Motonobu (1476–1559), Japanese
• 
  Yi Ahm (1499–?), Mother Dog, 15th century, National Museum of Korea
• 
  Tang Yin, A Fisher in Autumn, (1523), Chinese
• 
  Nanban ships arriving for trade in Japan, 16th century, Japanese
• 
  A screen painting depicting people playing Go, by Kanō Eitoku (1543–1590), Japanese
• 
  Right panel of the Pine Trees screen (Shōrin-zu byōbu, 松林図 屏風) by Hasegawa Tōhaku (1539–1610), Japanese
• 
  Scroll calligraphy of Bodhidharma, "Zen points directly to the human heart, see into your nature and become Buddha", Hakuin Ekaku (1686 to 1769), Japanese
• 
  Hanging scroll 1672,

  Kanō Tanyū

  (1602–1674), Japanese
• 
  Peonies, by Yun Shouping (1633–1690), Chinese
• 
  Genji Monogatari, by Tosa Mitsuoki (1617–1691), Japanese
• 
  View of Geumgang, Jeong Seon (1676–1759), 1734, Korean
• 
  Ike no Taiga (1723–1776), Fish in Spring, Japanese
• 
  Maruyama school, Pine, Bamboo, Plum, six-fold screen, Maruyama Ōkyo

  (1733–1795), Japanese
• 
  A Cat and a Butterfly, Kim Hong-do (1745–?), 18th century, Korean
• 
  A Boat Ride,

  Shin Yun-bok

  (1758–?), 1805, Korean
• 
  Sakai Hoitsu

  (1761–1828), Japanese
• 
  A tanuki (raccoon dog) as a tea kettle, by

  Katsushika Hokusai

  (1760–1849), Japanese
• 
  A House amongst Apricot Trees, Jo Hee-ryong (1797–1859), Korean
• 
  Katsushika Hokusai

  , The Dragon of Smoke Escaping from Mt Fuji, Japanese
• 
  Miyagawa Isshō, untitled Ukiyo-e painting, Japanese
• 
  Tomioka Tessai (1837–1924), Nihonga style, Two Divinities Dancing, 1924, Japanese

Western Han Era

(202 BCE – 9 CE)

China, Japan and Korea have a strong tradition in painting which is also highly attached to the art of calligraphy and printmaking (so much that it is commonly seen as painting). Far east traditional painting is characterized by water based techniques, less realism, "elegant" and stylized subjects, graphical approach to depiction, the importance of white space (or negative space) and a preference for landscape (instead of the human figure) as a subject. Beyond ink and color on silk or paper scrolls, gold on lacquer was also a common medium in painted East Asian artwork. Although silk was a somewhat expensive medium to paint upon in the past, the invention of paper during the 1st century AD by the Han court eunuch Cai Lun provided not only a cheap and widespread medium for writing, but also a cheap and widespread medium for painting (making it more accessible to the public).

The ideologies of

Smithsonian Freer Gallery of Art) of the 12th century are excellent examples of Buddhist ideas fused into classical Chinese artwork. In the latter painting on silk (image and description provided in the link), bald-headed Buddhist Luohan

are depicted in a practical setting of washing clothes by a river. However, the painting itself is visually stunning, with the Luohan portrayed in rich detail and bright, opaque colors in contrast to a hazy, brown, and bland wooded environment. Also, the tree tops are shrouded in swirling fog, providing the common "negative space" mentioned above in East Asian Art.

In

James McNeill Whistler, admired early 19th-century Japanese Ukiyo-e artists like Hokusai (1760–1849) and Hiroshige

(1797–1858) and were influenced by them.

Chinese

The earliest surviving examples of Chinese painted artwork date to the

, and writing and reciting of poetry). Painting became a common form of artistic self-expression, and during this period painters at court or amongst elite social circuits were judged and ranked by their peers.

Sakyamuni Buddha, by Zhang Shengwen, 1173–1176 AD, Song dynasty

period.

The establishment of classical Chinese landscape painting is accredited largely to the

and his Night Revels of Han Xizai.

Southern Song dynasty

; paintings in leaf album style such as this were popular in the Southern Song (1127–1279).

During the Chinese

, who he criticized as follows:

...Then there was Li Cheng, who when he depicted

eaves as seen from below. His idea was that 'one should look upwards from underneath, just as a man standing on level ground and looking up at the eaves of a pagoda can see its rafters and its cantilever eave rafters'. This is all wrong. In general the proper way of painting a landscape is to see the small from the viewpoint of the large...just as one looks at artificial mountains in gardens (as one walks about). If one applies (Li's method) to the painting of real mountains, looking up at them from below, one can only see one profile at a time, and not the wealth of their multitudinous slopes and profiles, to say nothing of all that is going on in the valleys and canyons, and in the lanes and courtyards with their dwellings and houses. If we stand to the east of a mountain its western parts would be on the vanishing boundary of far-off distance, and vice versa. Surely this could not be called a successful painting? Mr. Li did not understand the principle of 'seeing the small from the viewpoint of the large'. He was certainly marvelous at diminishing accurately heights and distances, but should one attach such importance to the angles and corners of buildings?^[24]

Although high level of stylization, mystical appeal, and surreal elegance were often preferred over realism (such as in shan shui style), beginning with the medieval Song dynasty there were many Chinese painters then and afterwards who depicted scenes of nature that were vividly real. Later Ming dynasty artists would take after this Song dynasty emphasis for intricate detail and realism on objects in nature, especially in depictions of animals (such as ducks, swans, sparrows, tigers, etc.) amongst patches of brightly colored flowers and thickets of brush and wood (a good example would be the anonymous Ming dynasty painting Birds and Plum Blossoms,^[25] housed in the Freer Gallery of the Smithsonian Museum in Washington, D.C.). There were many renowned Ming dynasty artists; Qiu Ying is an excellent example of a paramount Ming era painter (famous even in his own day), utilizing in his artwork domestic scenes, bustling palatial scenes, and nature scenes of river valleys and steeped mountains shrouded in mist and swirling clouds. During the Ming dynasty there were also different and rivaling schools of art associated with painting, such as the Wu School and the Zhe School.

Classical Chinese painting continued on into the early modern Qing dynasty, with highly realistic portrait paintings like seen in the late Ming dynasty of the early 17th century. The portraits of Kangxi Emperor, Yongzheng Emperor, and Qianlong Emperor are excellent examples of realistic Chinese portrait painting. During the Qianlong reign period and the continuing 19th century, European Baroque styles of painting had noticeable influence on Chinese portrait paintings, especially with painted visual effects of lighting and shading. Likewise, East Asian paintings and other works of art (such as porcelain and lacquerware) were highly prized in Europe since initial contact in the 16th century.

Chinese oil paintings

Western techniques of oil paintings began entering China in the 19th century, becoming prevalent among Chinese artists and art students in the early 20th century, coinciding with China's growing engagement with the West. Artists such as Li Tiefu, Hong Yi, Xu Beihong, Yan Wenliang, Lin Fengmian, Fang Ganmin, Pang Yuliang went abroad, predominantly to Paris and Tokyo, to learn Western art. Through them, artistic movements such as Impressionism, Cubism, Fauvism, Post-impressionism grew and thrived in China, only halted by the Second World War and the birth of the People's Republic of China, when modernistic artistic styles were seen as being inconsistent with the prevailing political ideals and realism was the only acceptable artistic form. Nonetheless, the legacy of the close engagement with Western art in the early 20th century endured. Oil paintings survived as an important medium in Chinese artistic scenes; traditional Chinese ink paintings were also changed as a result.

• 
  Portrait of Madame Liu, (1942) Li Tiefu oil on canvas
• 
  Portrait of Kang Youwei (1904) Li Tiefu oil on canvas
• 
  Portrait of Madam Cheng (1941) Oil on board Xu Beihong

Japanese

Japanese painting (絵画) is one of the oldest and most highly refined of the Japanese arts, encompassing a wide variety of genres and styles. As with Japanese arts in general, Japanese painting developed through a long history of synthesis and competition between native Japanese

.

Korean

Korean painting, as an independent form, began around 108 B.C., around the fall of

that Confucian themes began to take root in Korean paintings, used in harmony with indigenous aspects.

The history of Korean painting has been characterized by the use monochromatic works of black brushwork, often on mulberry paper or silk. This style is evident in "Min-Hwa", or colorful folk art, tomb paintings, and ritual and festival arts, both of which incorporated an extensive use of colour.

South Asian

• 
  Floating Figures Dancing, a mural of c. 850.
• 
  Mughal, Akbar Being Received by Khan Kilan, the Governor of Nagaur, in 1570, Akbarnama
• 
  Deccan painting; the young Ibrahim Adil Shah II hawking, c. 1590
• 
  Mughal, Yudishthira wrestling with Karna, 1598
• 
  Mughal nilgai, 1625–1650
• 
  Emperor Shah Jahan and sons, c. 1628 or later. Mughal portraits normally use profile views.
• 
  A Lady Listening to Music, c. 1750.
• 
  Bahsoli painting of Radha and Krishna in Discussion, c. 1730.
• 
  Deccan painting, Sultan Ibrahim Adil Shah II of Bijapur, c. 1590. A three-quarter view which gives a powerful and lively impression of the sitter, despite lacking both Mughal precision, and very coherent modelling of the surfaces.
• 
  Mughal portrait of Raja Jagat Singh of Nurpur (reigned 1618–1646), probably 1619
• 
  Pahari painting, Chamba, c. 1665, a warrior mounts his horse
• 
  Portrait of the Govardhân Chand, Pahari painting style, c. 1750.
• 
  Kangra painting, c. 1775, Krishna plays his flute to the gopis
• 
  Ravana kills Jathayu; the captive Sita despairs, by Raja Ravi Varma
• 
  Akbar and Tansen Visit Haridas in Vrindavan, Rajasthan style, c. 1750.
• 
  Krishna Summoning the Cows,

  Bilaspur

  , 18th century
• 
  A man with children, Pahari painting style, 1760.
• 
  Company style, 1770s, Crimson Horned Pheasant (Satyr Tragapan)
• 
  Râdhâ arrests Krishna, Pahari painting style, 1770.
• 
  Rama and Sita in the Forest, Pahari painting style, 1780.
• 
  Late Kangra painting, 1815/1825, Rama, Lakshmana, and Sita
• 
  Late Rajput painting, Kota, c. 1830s, Ram Singh II Tiger Hunting

Indian

rock painting, Stone Age

, India

Indian paintings historically revolved around the religious deities and kings. Indian art is a collective term for several different schools of art that existed in the

.

History

The earliest Indian paintings were the rock paintings of

, Maharashtra state present a fine example of Indian paintings, and the colors, mostly various shades of red and orange, were derived from minerals.

Madhubani painting

Madhubani painting

is a style of Indian painting, practiced in the Mithila region of Bihar state, India. The origins of Madhubani painting are shrouded in antiquity.

Mughal

Mughal 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.

Rajput

Mother Goddess A miniature painting of the Pahari

style, dating to the eighteenth century. Pahari and Rajput miniatures share many common features.

Rajput painting evolved and flourished during the 18th century, in the royal courts of Rajputana, India. 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 were the preferred medium of Rajput painting, but several manuscripts also contain Rajput paintings, and paintings were even done on the walls of palaces, inner chambers of the forts, havelies, particularly, the havelis of Shekhawait.

The colors 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 colors was a lengthy process, sometimes taking weeks. Brushes used were very fine.

Tanjore

. In modern times, these paintings have become a much sought after souvenir during festive occasions in South India.

The process of making a Tanjore painting involves many stages. The first stage involves the making of the preliminary sketch of the image on the base. The base consists of a cloth pasted over a wooden base. Then chalk powder or

dyes

are used to add colors to the figures in the paintings.

Madras School

During British rule in India, the crown found that Madras had some of the most talented and intellectual artistic minds in the world. As the British had also established a huge settlement in and around Madras, Georgetown was chosen to establish an institute that would cater to the artistic expectations of the royal family in London. This has come to be known as the

Madras School of Art

. At first traditional artists were employed to produce exquisite varieties of furniture, metal work, and curios and their work was sent to the royal palaces of the Queen.

Unlike the Bengal School where 'copying' is the norm of teaching, the Madras School flourishes on 'creating' new styles, arguments and trends.

Bengal School

Main article:

Bengal school of art

The

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

pan-Asianist

model of art.

The Bengal School's influence in India declined with the spread of

had shot to fame in the late 1990s with his paintings which were both modern and beyond the scope of generic definition. However, while artists in India in the new century are trying out new styles, themes and metaphors, it would not have been possible to get such quick recognition without the aid of the business houses which are now entering the art field like they had never before.

Modern Indian

Amrita Sher-Gil was an Indian painter, sometimes known as India's Frida Kahlo,^[29] and today considered an important woman painter of 20th-century India, whose legacy stands at par with that of the Masters of Bengal Renaissance;^[30][31] she is also the 'most expensive' woman painter of India.^[32]

Today, she is amongst Nine Masters, whose work was declared as art treasures by The Archaeological Survey of India, in 1976 and 1979,^[33] and over 100 of her paintings are now displayed at National Gallery of Modern Art, New Delhi.^[34]

During the colonial era, Western influences started to make an impact on Indian art. Some artists developed a style that used Western ideas of composition, perspective and realism to illustrate Indian themes. Others, like Jamini Roy, consciously drew inspiration from folk art.

By the time of Independence in 1947, several schools of art in India provided access to modern techniques and ideas. Galleries were established to showcase these artists. Modern Indian art typically shows the influence of Western styles, but is often inspired by Indian themes and images. Major artists are beginning to gain international recognition, initially among the Indian diaspora, but also among non-Indian audiences.

The

, Narayanan Ramachandran, and Bijon Choudhuri enriched the art culture of India. They have become the icons of modern Indian art. Art historians like Prof. Rai Anand Krishna have also referred to those works of modern artistes that reflect Indian ethos. Geeta Vadhera has had acclaim in translating complex, Indian spiritual themes onto canvas like Sufi thought, the Upanishads and the Bhagwad Geeta.

Indian art got a boost with the

postminimalist

artworks have acquired attention for their sheer size. Many art houses and galleries have also opened in USA and Europe to showcase Indian artworks.

South-East Asia

Indonesian

The oldest known

The discovery of the then-oldest known figurative art painting, over 40,000 (perhaps as old as 52,000) years old, of an unknown animal, in the cave of Lubang Jeriji Saléh on the Indonesian island of Borneo. In December 2019, however, figurative cave paintings depicting pig hunting in the Maros-Pangkep karst in Sulawesi were estimated to be even older, at at least 43,900 years old. The finding was noted to be "the oldest pictorial record of storytelling and the earliest figurative artwork in the world".^[14][15]

Other examples of Indonesian paintings are the Kenyah decorative art, based on endemic natural motifs such as ferns and hornbills, found decorating the walls of Kenyah longhouses. Other notable traditional art is the geometric Toraja wood carvings. Balinese paintings are initially the narrative images to depict scenes of Balinese legends and religious scripts. The classical Balinese paintings are often decorating the lontar manuscripts and also the ceilings of temples pavilion. Notable modern Indonesian painters in the European tradition include Raden Saleh, Jan Toorop, Basuki Abdullah and Abdullah Suriosubroto, their themes explore landscape and portrait painting.

• 
  Traditional Balinese painting depicting

  cockfighting

  .
• 
  Capture of Prince Diponegoro, 1857.
• 
  Javanese Landscape, with Tigers Listening to the Sound of a Travelling Group, 1849.
• 
  The Wheel of Life, I Ketut Murtika (b. 1952), Gouache on canvas
• 
  Pre-1920 Kamasan Palindon Painting detail, an example of Kamasan-style classical painting.
• 
  Mask Dancer (by A.A. Gde Anom Sukawati) in Puri Lukisan Museum.
• 
  Legong dancer.
• 
  Indonesian Temple painting.

Filipino

Filipino painting as a whole can be seen as an amalgamation of many cultural influences, though it tends to be more Western in its current form with Eastern roots.

Early Filipino painting can be found in red slip (clay mixed with water) designs embellished on the ritual pottery of the Philippines such as the

carved and painted in the beautiful Panolong of their Torogan or King's House.

Filipinos began creating paintings in the European tradition during the 17th-century Spanish period.^[36] The earliest of these paintings were Church frescoes and religious imagery from Biblical sources as well as engravings, sculptures and lithographs featuring Christian icons and European nobility. Most of the paintings and sculptures between the 19th and 20th century were a mixture of religious, political, and landscape artwork, with qualities of sweetness, dark, and light. Early modernist painters such as Damián Domingo were associated with religious and secular paintings. The art of Juan Luna and Félix Hidalgo showed a trend toward political statement. Artists such as Fernando Amorsolo used post-modernism to produce paintings that illustrated Philippine culture, nature, and harmony. Other artists such as Fernando Zóbel used reality and abstraction in their work.

• 
  Juan Luna, The Death of Cleopatra, 1881
• 
  Juan Luna, Spoliarium, c. 1884
• 
  Nuestra Senora de la Soledad de Porta Vaga
• 
  Lila Church ceiling painting
• 
  Lorenzo de la Rocha Icaza, Mujer filipina, 1895
• 
  Fabián de la Rosa, Women Working in rice field, 1902
• 
  Juan Luna, Tampuhan, 1895
• 
  José Honorato Lozano, Indios, 1847

Western

Egypt, Greece and Rome

was buried with the entombed person. It was considered important for an introduction to the afterlife.

• 
  Sennedjem plows his fields with a pair of oxen, c. 1200 BC
• 
  Ancient Egypt,The Goddess Isis, wall painting, c. 1360 BC
• 
  Ancient Egypt, Queen Nefertari
• 
  Ancient Egypt, papyrus
• 
  Ancient Egypt
• 
  Ancient Egypt
• 
  Knossos, Minoan civilization, Bronze Age Crete
• 
  Pitsa panels, one of the few surviving panel paintings from Archaic Greece, c. 540–530 BC
• 
  Symposium scene in the Tomb of the Diver at Paestum, circa 480 BC Greek art
• 
  Mural of

  Ancient Macedonia

  , 4th century BC
• 
  A Greek fighting an Amazon. Detail from painted sarcophagus found in Italy, 350-325 BC
• 
  Fresco of an ancient

  thureos

  shield, 3rd century BC
• 
  Fresco depicting sacrifice of Iphigenia
• 
  Roman art showing Hercules and Telephus
• 
  Roman art showing Meleager and Atalanta
• 
  Roman art showing Dirce's punishment
• 
  Roman art showing Pirithous and Hippodamia
• 
  Roman art, Pompeii, Villa of the Mysteries, c. 60-50 BC
• 
  Roman art, Villa Boscoreale frescos, c. 40 BC
• 
  Roman art, Pompeii
• 
  The Three Graces, fresco from Pompeii
• 
  The Fall of Icarus, fresco from Pompeii, 40-79 AD
• 
  Roman art, Pompeii
• 
  Roman art, Fayum mummy portraits from Roman Egypt
• 
  Roman art from the House of the Vettii, Pompeii, 1st century AD
• 
  Cupids playing with a lyre, Roman fresco from Herculaneum
• 
  Roman fresco with a seated Venus, the so-called "Dea Barberini", 4th century AD

To the north of

.

for perfect technique in drawing, brilliant color and modeling.

from Late Antique illustrated books also survive, and a rather larger number of copies of them from the Early Medieval period.

Middle Ages

• 
  Cotton Genesis A miniature of Abraham Meeting Angels
• 
  Byzantine icon, 6th century
• 
  Byzantine art mosaics in Ravenna
• 
  Byzantine, 6th century
• 
  Book of Kells
• 
  Book of Kells
• 
  Limbourg Brothers
• 
  Limbourg Brothers
• 
  Book of Hours
• 
  The Capture of Jerusalem during the First Crusade, c. 1099
• 
  The Morgan Leaf, from the Winchester Bible 1160–75, Scenes from the life of David
• 
  Yaroslavl Gospels c. 1220s
• 
  Carolingian
• 
  Carolingian

  Saint Mark
• 
  Evangelist portrait
• 
  Giottino
• 
  Vitale da Bologna
• 
  Simone Martini
• 
  Simone Martini
• 
  Cimabue
• 
  Giotto
• 
  Giotto
• 
  Giotto
• 
  Andrei Rublev
• 
  Andrei Rublev
• 
  Ambrogio Lorenzetti
• 
  Pietro Lorenzetti
• 
  Duccio
• 
  Bonaventura Berlinghieri, St Francis of Assisi, 1235
• 
  Chora Church
• 
  Cathedral of the Archangel
• 
  Rogier van der Weyden, (c. 1435)
• 
  Rogier van der Weyden, St Ivo (c. 1450)
• 
  Voronet Monastery

The rise of Christianity imparted a different spirit and aim to painting styles. Byzantine art, once its style was established by the 6th century, placed great emphasis on retaining traditional iconography and style, and gradually evolved during the thousand years of the Byzantine Empire and the living traditions of Greek and Russian Orthodox icon-painting. Byzantine painting has a hieratic feeling and icons were and still are seen as a representation of divine revelation. There were many frescos, but fewer of these have survived than mosaics. Byzantine art has been compared to contemporary

in Istanbul.

Book of Hours

In post-Antique Catholic Europe the first distinctive artistic style to emerge that included painting was the Insular art of the British Isles, where the only surviving examples are miniatures in Illuminated manuscripts such as the Book of Kells.^[39] These are most famous for their abstract decoration, although figures, and sometimes scenes, were also depicted, especially in Evangelist portraits. Carolingian and Ottonian art also survives mostly in manuscripts, although some wall-painting remain, and more are documented. The art of this period combines Insular and "barbarian" influences with a strong Byzantine influence and an aspiration to recover classical monumentality and poise.

Walls of Romanesque and Gothic churches were decorated with frescoes as well as sculpture and many of the few remaining murals have great intensity, and combine the decorative energy of Insular art with a new monumentality in the treatment of figures. Far more miniatures in Illuminated manuscripts survive from the period, showing the same characteristics, which continue into the Gothic period.

Panel painting becomes more common during the

. From Giotto on, the treatment of composition by the best painters also became much more free and innovative. They are considered to be the two great medieval masters of painting in western culture. Cimabue, within the Byzantine tradition, used a more realistic and dramatic approach to his art. His pupil, Giotto, took these innovations to a higher level which in turn set the foundations for the western painting tradition. Both artists were pioneers in the move towards naturalism.

Churches were built with more and more windows and the use of colorful

panel paintings and altarpieces gained importance.

Renaissance and Mannerism

• 
  Robert Campin, c. 1425
• 
  Jan van Eyck, 1434
• 
  Rogier van der Weyden, c. 1435
• 
  Hugo van der Goes, c. 1470
• 
  Dieric Bouts, 1464–1467
• 
  Hans Memling, c. 1466–1473
• 
  Petrus Christus, c. 1470
• 
  Hieronymus Bosch, c. 1480–1505
• 
  Fra Angelico, 1425–1428
• 
  Paolo Uccello, c. 1470
• 
  Masaccio, 1426–1427
• 
  Jean Fouquet, 1450
• 
  Andrea Mantegna, c. 1458–1460
• 
  Piero della Francesca, 1463–1465
• 
  Sandro Botticelli, 1483–1485
• 
  Leonardo da Vinci, 1503–1506
• 
  Raphael, 1505–1506
• 
  Michelangelo, c. 1511
• 
  Lucas Cranach the Elder, c. 1530
• 
  Albrecht Dürer, 1500
• 
  Matthias Grünewald, 1512–1516
• 
  Giovanni Bellini, c. 1480
• 
  Giorgione, c. 1505
• 
  Titian, 1520–1523
• 
  École de Fontainebleau, 1530
• 
  Bronzino, 1540–1545
• 
  Pieter Bruegel, 1565
• 
  Hans Holbein the Younger, 1527
• 
  Jacopo Tintoretto

  , 1582
• 
  Paolo Veronese, 1562–1563
• 
  Joachim Wtewael, 1595
• 
  El Greco, 1596–1600

The Renaissance (French for 'rebirth'), a cultural movement roughly spanning the 14th through the mid-17th century, heralded the study of classical sources, as well as advances in science which profoundly influenced European intellectual and artistic life. In the

.

In Italy, the art of

, were less concerned with precision in their drawing than with the richness of color and unity of effect that could be achieved by a more spontaneous approach to painting.

Flemish, Dutch and German painters of the Renaissance such as Hans Holbein the Younger, Albrecht Dürer, Lucas Cranach, Matthias Grünewald, Hieronymus Bosch, and Pieter Bruegel represent a different approach from their Italian colleagues, one that is more realistic and less idealized. Genre painting became a popular idiom amongst the Northern painters like Pieter Bruegel.

The French tradition of

.

Renaissance painting reflects the revolution of ideas and science (

easel painting

in the Renaissance, painting gained independence from architecture. Easel paintings—movable pictures which could be hung easily on walls—became a popular alternative to paintings fixed to furniture, walls or other structures. Following centuries dominated by religious imagery, secular subject matter slowly returned to Western painting. Artists included visions of the world around them, or the products of their own imaginations in their paintings. Those who could afford the expense could become patrons and commission portraits of themselves or their family.

The High Renaissance gave rise to a stylized art known as Mannerism. In place of the balanced compositions and rational approach to perspective that characterized art at the dawn of the 16th century, the Mannerists sought instability, artifice, and doubt. The unperturbed faces and gestures of Piero della Francesca and the calm Virgins of Raphael are replaced by the troubled expressions of Pontormo and the emotional intensity of El Greco. Restless and unstable compositions, often extreme or disjunctive effects of perspective, and stylized poses are characteristic of Italian Mannerists such as Tintoretto, Pontormo, and Bronzino, and appeared later in the work of Northern Mannerists such as Hendrick Goltzius, Bartholomeus Spranger, and Joachim Wtewael.

Baroque and Rococo

• 
  Caravaggio, 1595–1597
• 
  Artemisia Gentileschi, 1614–1620
• 
  Peter Paul Rubens, 1632–1635
• 
  Frans Hals, 1624
• 
  Judith Leyster, 1630
• 
  Rembrandt van Rijn, 1642
• 
  Pieter de Hooch, 1658
• 
  Johannes Vermeer, c. 1660
• 
  Jan Steen, c. 1665
• 
  Jacob van Ruisdael, 1670
• 
  Willem Claesz. Heda, 1631
• 
  Diego Velázquez, 1656–1657
• 
  Jusepe de Ribera, 1620–1624
• 
  Nicolas Poussin, c. 1637–1638
• 
  Georges de La Tour, 1640s
• 
  Guido Reni, 1625
• 
  Salvator Rosa, c. 1645
• 
  Bartolomé Esteban Murillo, c. 1650–1655
• 
  Claude Lorrain, 1648
• 
  Anthony van Dyck, 1635–1636
• 
  Canaletto, 1723
• 
  Giovanni Battista Tiepolo, c. 1752–1753
• 
  Antoine Watteau, c. 1720
• 
  Jean-Honoré Fragonard, c. 1767–1768
• 
  François Boucher, 1751
• 
  Élisabeth Louise Vigée-Le Brun

  , after 1782
• 
  Maurice Quentin de La Tour, c. 1761
• 
  Thomas Gainsborough, c. 1770
• 
  Joshua Reynolds, 1769
• 
  Jean-Baptiste-Siméon Chardin

  , c. 1728
• 
  William Hogarth, c. 1757
• 
  Angelica Kauffman, c. 1780

Baroque painting is associated with the

Baroque painting is characterized by great drama, rich, deep color, and intense light and dark shadows. Baroque art was meant to evoke emotion and passion instead of the calm rationality that had been prized during the Renaissance. During the period beginning around 1600 and continuing throughout the 17th century, painting is characterized as Baroque. Among the greatest painters of the Baroque are

realistic

approach to the human figure, painted directly from life and dramatically spotlit against a dark background, shocked his contemporaries and opened a new chapter in the history of painting. Baroque painting often dramatizes scenes using light effects; this can be seen in works by Rembrandt, Vermeer, Le Nain, La Tour, and Jusepe de Ribera.

In Italy, the Baroque style is epitomized by religious and mythological paintings in the

lose their theatrical quality.

During the 18th century,

. Rococo still maintained the Baroque taste for complex forms and intricate patterns, but by this point, it had begun to integrate a variety of diverse characteristics, including a taste for Oriental designs and asymmetric compositions.

The Rococo style spread with French artists and engraved publications. It was readily received in the Catholic parts of Germany,

.

The French masters

painting, which became a popular medium during this period.

William Hogarth helped develop a theoretical foundation for Rococo beauty. Though not intentionally referencing the movement, he argued in his Analysis of Beauty (1753) that the undulating lines and S-curves prominent in Rococo were the basis for grace and beauty in art or nature (unlike the straight line or the circle in Classicism). The beginning of the end for Rococo came in the early 1760s as figures like Voltaire and Jacques-François Blondel began to voice their criticism of the superficiality and degeneracy of the art. Blondel decried the "ridiculous jumble of shells, dragons, reeds, palm-trees and plants" in contemporary interiors.^[45]

By 1785, Rococo had passed out of fashion in France, replaced by the order and seriousness of Neoclassical artists like Jacques-Louis David.

19th century: Neo-classicism, History painting, Romanticism, Impressionism, Post-Impressionism, Symbolism

• 
  Jacques-Louis David 1787
• 
  John Singleton Copley 1778
• 
  John Constable 1802
• 
  Antoine-Jean Gros, 1804
• 
  Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres

  1814
• 
  Francisco de Goya

  1814
• 
  Théodore Géricault 1819
• 
  Caspar David Friedrich c.1822
• 
  Eugène Delacroix 1830
• 
  J. M. W. Turner 1838
• 
  Gustave Courbet 1849–1850
• 
  Ivan Aivazovsky 1850
• 
  Albert Bierstadt 1866
• 
  Camille Corot c.1867
• 
  Ilya Repin 1870–1873
• 
  Camille Pissarro 1872
• 
  Claude Monet 1872
• 
  Pierre-Auguste Renoir 1876
• 
  Edgar Degas 1876
• 
  Édouard Manet 1882
• 
  Thomas Eakins 1884–1885
• 
  Georges Seurat 1884–1886
• 
  Valentin Serov 1887
• 
  Vincent van Gogh 1889
• 
  Albert Pinkham Ryder 1890
• 
  Paul Gauguin 1897–1898
• 
  Winslow Homer 1899
• 
  Paul Cézanne 1906

After

. This movement turned its attention toward landscape and nature as well as the human figure and the supremacy of natural order above mankind's will. There is opposition to Enlightenment ideals, as humanity is seen being at the whim of nature's chaos. The idea that human beings are not above the forces of Nature is in contradiction to Ancient Greek and Renaissance ideals where mankind was above all things and owned his fate. This thinking led romantic artists to depict the sublime, ruined churches, shipwrecks, massacres and madness.

By the mid-19th-century painters became liberated from the demands of their patronage to only depict scenes from religion, mythology, portraiture or history. The idea "art for art's sake" began to find expression in the work of painters like Francisco de Goya, John Constable, and J.M.W. Turner. Romantic painters saw landscape painting as an important genre to express the vanity of mankind in opposition to the grandeur of nature. Until then, landscape painting wasn't considered the most important genre for painters (like portraiture or history painting). But painters like J.M.W. Turner and Caspar David Friedrich managed to elevate landscape painting to an eminence rivalling history painting. Some of the major painters of this period are

.

The leading

.

Pissarro adopted some of the experiments of Post-Impressionism. Slightly younger Post-Impressionists like Vincent van Gogh, Paul Gauguin, and Georges Seurat, along with Paul Cézanne led art to the edge of modernism; for Gauguin Impressionism gave way to a personal symbolism; Seurat transformed Impressionism's broken color into a scientific optical study, structured on frieze-like compositions; Van Gogh's turbulent method of paint application, coupled with a sonorous use of color, predicted Expressionism and Fauvism, and Cézanne, desiring to unite classical composition with a revolutionary abstraction of natural forms, would come to be seen as a precursor of 20th-century art. The spell of Impressionism was felt throughout the world, including in the United States, where it became integral to the painting of

.

In the late 19th century there also were several, rather dissimilar, groups of

.

20th-century modern and contemporary

The heritage of painters like

.

Pioneers of the 20th century

• 
  Henri Matisse 1905, Fauvism
• 
  Pablo Picasso 1907, Proto-Cubism
• 
  Analytic Cubism
• 
  Henri Rousseau 1910 Primitive Surrealism

The heritage of painters like

and a large variety of merged subject matter.

Les Fauves (French for The Wild Beasts) were early-20th-century painters, experimenting with freedom of expression through color. The name was given, humorously and not as a compliment, to the group by art critic

,

How do you see these trees? They are yellow. So, put in yellow; this shadow, rather blue, paint it with pure ultramarine; these red leaves? Put in vermilion.

The leaders of the movement were

Fauvism, as a movement, had no concrete theories, and was short lived, beginning in 1905 and ending in 1907, they only had three exhibitions. Matisse was seen as the leader of the movement, due to his seniority in age and prior self-establishment in the academic art world. His 1905 portrait of Mme. Matisse The Green Line, (above), caused a sensation in Paris when it was first exhibited. He said he wanted to create art to delight; art as a decoration was his purpose and it can be said that his use of bright colors tries to maintain serenity of composition. In 1906 at the suggestion of his dealer

continued developing their narrative styles independent of any movement throughout the 20th century.

By 1907 Fauvism no longer was a shocking new movement, soon it was replaced by

Contemporary Art

of the time. In 1907 Appolinaire, commenting about Matisse in an article published in La Falange, said, "We are not here in the presence of an extravagant or an extremist undertaking: Matisse's art is eminently reasonable."^[50] and a large variety of merged subject matter.

During the years between 1910 and the end of World War I and after the heyday of

continued painting independent of any movement.

Pioneers of Modern art

• 
  André Derain, 1905, Le séchage des voiles (The Drying Sails), Fauvism
• 
  Henri Matisse, 1905, Woman with a Hat, Fauvism
• 
  Jean Metzinger, c.1905, Two Nudes in an Exotic Landscape, Divisionism, Proto-Cubism
• 
  Edvard Munch, Death of Marat I (1907), an example of Expressionism
• 
  Gustav Klimt, expressionism, 1907–1908
• 
  Pablo Picasso, 1908, Dryad, Proto-Cubism
• 
  Marc Chagall 1911, expressionism and surrealism
• 
  Marcel Duchamp, 1911–1912, Cubism and Dada
• 
  l'Homme au Balcon, Man on a Balcony (Portrait of Dr. Théo Morinaud), Cubism
• 
  Danseuse au café (Dancer in a café), Cubism
• 
  Franz Marc 1912, Der Blaue Reiter
• 
  Robert Delaunay, 1911, Orphism
• 
  Francis Picabia, 1912, La Source (The Spring), Abstract art
• 
  Wassily Kandinsky 1913, birth of abstract art
• 
  Soutine 1916, example of Expressionism
• 
  synthetic Cubism, tubism

In the first two decades of the 20th century and after

and others..

Other major pioneers of early abstraction include Russian painter

.

Expressionism and Symbolism are broad rubrics that involve several important and related movements in 20th-century painting that dominated much of the avant-garde art being made in Western, Eastern and Northern Europe. Expressionist works were painted largely between World War I and World War II, mostly in France, Germany, Norway, Russia, Belgium, and Austria. Expressionist artists are related to both Surrealism and Symbolism and are each uniquely and somewhat eccentrically personal. Fauvism, Die Brücke, and Der Blaue Reiter are three of the best known groups of Expressionist and Symbolist painters.

Artists as interesting and diverse as

sculptor, he made intense expressionist paintings as well.

Pioneers of abstraction

• 
  Piet Mondrian, 1912, early De Stijl
• 
  Kasimir Malevich 1916, Suprematism
• 
  Neo-Plasticism
• 
  Stanton Macdonald-Wright 1920, Synchromism

in the late 19th century. Blavatsky believed that it was possible to attain a knowledge of nature more profound than that provided by empirical means, and much of Mondrian's work for the rest of his life was inspired by his search for that spiritual knowledge.

De Stijl also known as neoplasticism, was a Dutch artistic movement founded in 1917. The term De Stijl is used to refer to a body of work from 1917 to 1931 founded in the Netherlands.^[52][53]

De Stijl is also the name of a journal that was published by the Dutch painter, designer, writer, and critic Theo van Doesburg propagating the group's theories. Next to van Doesburg, the group's principal members were the painters Piet Mondrian, Vilmos Huszár, and Bart van der Leck, and the architects Gerrit Rietveld, Robert van 't Hoff, and J. J. P. Oud. The artistic philosophy that formed a basis for the group's work is known as neoplasticism – the new plastic art (or Nieuwe Beelding in Dutch).

Proponents of De Stijl sought to express a new

De Stijl movement was influenced by

international style

of architecture as well as clothing and interior design. However, it did not follow the general guidelines of an "ism" (Cubism, Futurism, Surrealism), nor did it adhere to the principles of art schools like Bauhaus; it was a collective project, a joint enterprise.

Dada and Surrealism

• 
  Francis Picabia 1916, Dada
• 
  Kurt Schwitters, 1919, painted collage, Dada
• 
  Max Ernst, 1921, Surrealism
• 
  André Masson, 1922, early Surrealism

are also associated with Surrealism, the movement that dominated European painting in the 1920s and 1930s.

In 1924

were very influential, especially in the United States during the 1940s. Throughout the 1930s, Surrealism continued to become more visible to the public at large. A Surrealist group developed in Britain and, according to Breton, their 1936 London International Surrealist Exhibition was a high water mark of the period and became the model for international exhibitions. Surrealist groups in Japan, and especially in Latin America, the Caribbean and in Mexico produced innovative and original works.

Dalí and Magritte created some of the most widely recognized images of the movement. The 1928/1929 painting This Is Not A Pipe, by Magritte is the subject of a Michel Foucault 1973 book, This is not a Pipe (English edition, 1991), that discusses the painting and its paradox. Dalí joined the group in 1929, and participated in the rapid establishment of the visual style between 1930 and 1935.

Surrealism as a visual movement had found a method: to expose psychological truth by stripping ordinary objects of their normal significance, in order to create a compelling image that was beyond ordinary formal organization, and perception, sometimes evoking empathy from the viewer, sometimes laughter and sometimes outrage and bewilderment.

1931 marked a year when several Surrealist painters produced works which marked turning points in their stylistic evolution: in one example, liquid shapes become the trademark of Dalí, particularly in his The Persistence of Memory, which features the image of watches that sag as if they are melting. Evocations of time and its compelling mystery and absurdity.^[57]

The characteristics of this style – a combination of the depictive, the abstract, and the psychological – came to stand for the alienation which many people felt in the modernist period, combined with the sense of reaching more deeply into the psyche, to be "made whole with one's individuality."

Max Ernst whose 1920 painting Murdering Airplane, studied philosophy and psychology in Bonn and was interested in the alternative realities experienced by the insane. His paintings may have been inspired by the

During the 1920s

the importance of Masson as an example to him in his early years in Paris.

Long after personal, political and professional tensions have fragmented the Surrealist group into thin air and ether, Magritte, Miró, Dalí and the other Surrealists continue to define a visual program in the arts. Other prominent surrealist artists include Giorgio de Chirico, Méret Oppenheim, Toyen, Grégoire Michonze, Roberto Matta, Kay Sage, Leonora Carrington, Dorothea Tanning, and Leonor Fini among others.

Before and after the war

• 
  Egon Schiele, Symbolism and Expressionism 1912
• 
  Ernst Kirchner, Die Brücke

  1913
• 
  Amedeo Modigliani Symbolism and Expressionism 1917
• 
  American Modernism

  , 1921
• 
  Stuart Davis, American Modernism 1922
• 
  Chaïm Soutine, Expressionism, c. 1920

Wassily Kandinsky, Franz Marc, August Macke, Alexej von Jawlensky, whose psychically expressive painting of the Russian dancer Portrait of Alexander Sakharoff, 1909 is in the gallery above, Marianne von Werefkin, Lyonel Feininger and others founded the Der Blaue Reiter group in response to the rejection of Kandinsky's painting Last Judgement from an exhibition. Der Blaue Reiter lacked a central artistic manifesto, but was centered around Kandinsky and Marc. Artists Gabriele Münter and Paul Klee were also involved.

The name of the movement comes from a painting by Kandinsky created in 1903. It is also claimed that the name could have derived from Marc's enthusiasm for horses and Kandinsky's love of the colour blue. For Kandinsky, blue is the colour of spirituality: the darker the blue, the more it awakens human desire for the eternal.

In the USA during the period between World War I and World War II painters tended to go to Europe for recognition. Artists like

.

Social consciousness

• 
  Neue Sachlichkeit
• 
  Regionalism
• 
  American realism
• 
  Pop Art

  )

Man, Controller of the Universe), originally created in 1934, Mexican muralism

movement

During the 1920s and the 1930s and the

Magic Realism

movement in literature. The psychological drama in many of Kahlo's self portraits (above) underscore the vitality and relevance of her paintings to artists in the 21st century.

, the painting came to be seen as a depiction of steadfast American pioneer spirit.

Diego Rivera is perhaps best known by the public world for his 1933 mural, "

surrealist

renderings. While her paintings are not overtly Christian they certainly contain elements of the macabre Mexican Christian style of religious paintings.

Political activism was an important piece of

, a violent and chaotic period in Mexican history in which various social and political factions fought for recognition and power. The period from the 1920s to the 1950s is known as the Mexican Renaissance, and Siqueiros was active in the attempt to create an art that was at once Mexican and universal. He briefly gave up painting to focus on organizing miners in Jalisco.

World conflict

• 
  German Expressionism
• 
  Wassily Kandinsky Composition X 1939, Geometric abstraction

During the 1930s radical leftist politics characterized many of the artists connected to

to commemorate the horrors of the bombing.

Guernica

, 1937, protest against Fascism

In its final form, Guernica is an immense black and white, 3.5 metres (11 feet) tall and 7.8 metres (26 feet) wide mural painted in oil. The mural presents a scene of death, violence, brutality, suffering, and helplessness without portraying their immediate causes. The choice to paint in black and white contrasts with the intensity of the scene depicted and invokes the immediacy of a newspaper photograph.^[62] Picasso painted the mural sized painting called

's wish to give the painting to the people of Spain as a gift, it was sent to Spain in 1981.

The Night (Die Nacht), 1918–1919, Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen

, Düsseldorf

During the

. After this event there was a large feeling of gloominess over the country, a feeling that is portrayed in the painting. The urban street is empty outside the diner, and inside none of the three patrons is apparently looking or talking to the others but instead is lost in their own thoughts. This portrayal of modern urban life as empty or lonely is a common theme throughout Hopper's work.

The Dynamic for artists in Europe during the 1930s deteriorated rapidly as the Nazi's power in Germany and across Eastern Europe increased. The climate became so hostile for artists and art associated with

in nature, and those identified as degenerate artists were subjected to sanctions. These included being dismissed from teaching positions, being forbidden to exhibit or to sell their art, and in some cases being forbidden to produce art entirely.

Degenerate Art was also the title of an exhibition, mounted by the Nazis in Munich in 1937, consisting of modernist artworks chaotically hung and accompanied by text labels deriding the art. Designed to inflame public opinion against modernism, the exhibition subsequently traveled to several other cities in Germany and Austria. German artist Max Beckmann and scores of others fled Europe for New York. In New York City a new generation of young and exciting Modernist painters led by Arshile Gorky, Willem de Kooning, and others were just beginning to come of age.

Arshile Gorky's portrait of someone who might be Willem de Kooning (above) is an example of the evolution of abstract expressionism from the context of figure painting, cubism and surrealism. Along with his friends de Kooning and John D. Graham Gorky created bio-morphically shaped and abstracted figurative compositions that by the 1940s evolved into totally abstract paintings. Gorky's work seems to be a careful analysis of memory, emotion and shape, using line and color to express feeling and nature.

Towards mid-century

American Scene painting

The 1940s in New York City heralded the triumph of American

and others served as a kind of alternative to abstract expressionism.

Post-Second World War American painting called Abstract expressionism included artists like

.

Technically Surrealism was an important predecessor for abstract expressionism with its emphasis on spontaneous, automatic or subconscious creation. Jackson Pollock's dripping paint onto a canvas laid on the floor is a technique that has its roots in the work of André Masson. Another important early manifestation of what came to be abstract expressionism is the work of American Northwest artist Mark Tobey, especially his "white writing" canvases, which, though generally not large in scale, anticipate the "all over" look of Pollock's drip paintings.

Abstract expressionism

Additionally, Abstract expressionism has an image of being rebellious, anarchic, highly idiosyncratic and, some feel, rather nihilistic. In practice, the term is applied to any number of artists working (mostly) in New York who had quite different styles, and even applied to work which is not especially abstract nor expressionist. Pollock's energetic "

and Color Field painting.

Abstract expressionism has many stylistic similarities to the Russian artists of the early 20th century such as Wassily Kandinsky. Although it is true that spontaneity or of the impression of spontaneity characterized many of the abstract expressionists works, most of these paintings involved careful planning, especially since their large size demanded it. An exception might be the drip paintings of Pollock.

Why this style gained mainstream acceptance in the 1950s is a matter of debate. American

. It was after World War II and a time of political conservatism and extreme artistic censorship in the United States. Some people have conjectured that since the subject matter was often totally abstract, Abstract expressionism became a safe strategy for artists to pursue this style. Abstract art could be seen as apolitical. Or if the art was political, the message was largely for the insiders. However, those theorists are in the minority. As the first truly original school of painting in America, Abstract expressionism demonstrated the vitality and creativity of the country in the post-war years, as well as its ability (or need) to develop an aesthetic sense that was not constrained by the European standards of beauty.

Although Abstract expressionism spread quickly throughout the United States, the major centers of this style were New York City and California, especially in the New York School, and the San Francisco Bay area. Abstract expressionist paintings share certain characteristics, including the use of large canvases, an "all-over" approach, in which the whole canvas is treated with equal importance (as opposed to the center being of more interest than the edges). The canvas as the arena became a credo of action painting, while the integrity of the picture plane became a credo of the Color Field painters. Many other artists began exhibiting their abstract expressionist related paintings during the 1950s including Alfred Leslie, Sam Francis, Joan Mitchell, Helen Frankenthaler, Cy Twombly, Milton Resnick, Michael Goldberg, Norman Bluhm, Ray Parker, Nicolas Carone, Grace Hartigan, Friedel Dzubas, and Robert Goodnough among others.

During the 1950s Color Field painting initially referred to a particular type of

the artist used the stain technique for the first time.

In Europe there was the continuation of Surrealism, Cubism, Dada and the works of

among others are considered important figures in post-war European painting.

Eventually abstract painting in America evolved into movements such as

.

Pop art

Earlier in England in 1956 the term Pop Art was used by Lawrence Alloway for paintings that celebrated consumerism of the post World War II era. This movement rejected abstract expressionism and its focus on the hermeneutic and psychological interior, in favor of art which depicted, and often celebrated material consumer culture, advertising, and iconography of the mass production age.^[68] The early works of David Hockney and the works of Richard Hamilton Peter Blake and Eduardo Paolozzi were considered seminal examples in the movement.

. Eventually by 1963 the movement came to be known worldwide as pop art.

American pop art is exemplified by artists:

Pasadena Art Museum

sent shock waves across the Western United States.

While in the downtown scene in New York City's

(who became known for his parodies of portrait photography and suburban life), Claes Oldenburg, Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein and the others.

While throughout the 20th century many painters continued to practice landscape and figurative painting with contemporary subjects and solid technique, like Milton Avery, John D. Graham, Fairfield Porter, Edward Hopper, Balthus, Francis Bacon, Nicolas de Staël, Andrew Wyeth, Lucian Freud, Frank Auerbach, Philip Pearlstein, David Park, Nathan Oliveira, David Hockney, Malcolm Morley, Richard Estes, Ralph Goings, Audrey Flack, Chuck Close, Susan Rothenberg, Eric Fischl, Vija Celmins and Richard Diebenkorn.

Figurative, landscape, still-Life, seascape, and Realism

During the 1930s through the 1960s abstract painting in America and Europe evolved into movements such as

Head VI, 1949 is a painting by the Irish born artist Francis Bacon and is an example of Post World War II European Expressionism. The work shows a distorted version of the Portrait of Innocent X painted by the Spanish artist Diego Velázquez in 1650. The work is one of a series of variants of the Velázquez painting which Bacon executed throughout the 1950s and early 1960s, over a total of forty-five works.^[74] When asked why he was compelled to revisit the subject so often, Bacon replied that he had nothing against the Popes, that he merely "wanted an excuse to use these colours, and you can't give ordinary clothes that purple colour without getting into a sort of false fauve manner."^[75] The Pope in this version seethes with anger and aggression, and the dark colors give the image a grotesque and nightmarish appearance.^[76] The pleated curtains of the backdrop are rendered transparent, and seem to fall through the Pope's face.^[77] Italian painter

. He died in Bologna in 1964.

After World War II the term

's bold and intensely vivid color in his last paintings predict the direction of much of contemporary painting that came after him including Pop art of the 1960s.

Art brut, New Realism, Bay Area Figurative Movement, neo-Dada, photorealism

• 
  John Baeder, Photorealism

During the 1950s and 1960s as abstract painting in America and Europe evolved into movements such as

.

Also during the 1960s and 1970s, there was a reaction against painting. Critics like Douglas Crimp viewed the work of artists like

Neo-Dada is also a movement that started in the 1950s and 1960s and was related to Abstract expressionism only with imagery. Featuring the emergence of combined manufactured items, with artist materials, moving away from previous conventions of painting. This trend in art is exemplified by the work of Jasper Johns and Robert Rauschenberg, whose "combines" in the 1950s were forerunners of Pop Art and Installation art, and made use of the assemblage of large physical objects, including stuffed animals, birds and commercial photography. Robert Rauschenberg, Jasper Johns, Larry Rivers, John Chamberlain, Claes Oldenburg, George Segal, Jim Dine, and Edward Kienholz among others were important pioneers of both abstraction and Pop Art; creating new conventions of art-making; they made acceptable in serious contemporary art circles the radical inclusion of unlikely materials as parts of their works of art.

New abstraction from the 1950s through the 1980s

• 
  Yves Klein, 1962, Monochrome painting

. During the 1960s and 1970s abstract painting continued to develop in America through varied styles. and Op art.

Josef Albers, Hans Hofmann, Ilya Bolotowsky, Burgoyne Diller, Victor Vasarely, Bridget Riley, Richard Anuszkiewicz, Frank Stella, Morris Louis, Kenneth Noland,^[81] Ellsworth Kelly, Barnett Newman, Larry Poons, Ronald Davis, Larry Zox, Al Held and some others like Mino Argento,^[82] are artists closely associated with Geometric abstraction, Op art, Color Field painting, and in the case of Hofmann and Newman Abstract expressionism as well.

In 1965, an exhibition called

. Although sometimes the term used for it is perceptual abstraction.

Op art is a method of painting concerning the interaction between illusion and picture plane, between understanding and seeing.[83] 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.

Color Field painting sought to rid art of superfluous rhetoric. Artists like Clyfford Still, Mark Rothko, Hans Hofmann, Morris Louis, Jules Olitski, Kenneth Noland, Helen Frankenthaler, John Hoyland, Larry Zox, and others often used greatly reduced references to nature, and they painted with a highly articulated and psychological use of color. In general these artists eliminated recognizable imagery. Certain artists quoted references to past or present art, but in general color field painting presents abstraction as an end in itself. In pursuing this direction of modern art, artists wanted to present each painting as one unified, cohesive, monolithic image.

Washington Color School, Shaped canvas, Abstract illusionism, Lyrical abstraction

Abstract Illusionism

were often closely associated with each other. In actuality by the early 1970s both movements became decidedly diverse.

Another related movement of the late 1960s,

Lyrical Abstraction

Lyrical Abstraction is a type of freewheeling abstract painting that emerged in the mid-1960s when abstract painters returned to various forms of painterly, pictorial, expressionism with a predominate focus on process, gestalt and repetitive compositional strategies in general.

Lyrical Abstraction shares similarities with color field painting and abstract expressionism,

Hard-edge painting, minimalism, postminimalism, monochrome painting

painting in New York City during the 1960s.

During the 1960s and 1970s artists such as

, and dozens of others produced a wide variety of paintings.

During the 1960s and 1970s, there was a reaction against abstract painting. Some critics viewed the work of artists like

among others.

However still other important innovations in abstract painting took place during the 1960s and the 1970s characterized by

, Lyrical Abstraction and postminimal painting.

Neo Expressionism

In the late 1960s an

in painting, abandoning the so-called "pure abstraction" of abstract expressionism in favor of more cartoonish renderings of various personal symbols and objects. These works were inspirational to a new generation of painters interested in a revival of expressive imagery. His painting Painting, Smoking, Eating 1973, seen above in the gallery is an example of Guston's final and conclusive return to representation.

In the late 1970s and early 1980s, there was also a return to painting that occurred almost simultaneously in Italy, Germany, France and

. The theme of all the work is the trauma experienced by entire societies, and the continual rebirth and renewal in life.

During the late 1970s in the United States painters who began working with invigorated surfaces and who returned to imagery like

in America.

Neo-expressionism was a style of modern painting that became popular in the late 1970s and dominated the art market until the mid-1980s. It developed in Europe as a reaction against the conceptual and minimalistic art of the 1960s and 1970s. 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. The veteran painters Philip Guston, Frank Auerbach, Leon Kossoff, Gerhard Richter, A. R. Penck and Georg Baselitz, along with slightly younger artists like Anselm Kiefer, Eric Fischl, Susan Rothenberg, Francesco Clemente, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Julian Schnabel, Keith Haring, and many others became known for working in this intense expressionist vein of painting.

Painting still holds a respected position in contemporary art. Art is an open field no longer divided by the objective versus non-objective dichotomy. Artists can achieve critical success whether their images are representational or abstract. What has currency is content, exploring the boundaries of the medium, and a refusal to recapitulate the works of the past as an end goal.

Contemporary painting into the 21st century

At the beginning of the 21st century Contemporary painting and Contemporary art in general continues in several contiguous modes, characterized by the idea of pluralism. The "crisis" in painting and current art and current art criticism today is brought about by pluralism. There is no consensus, nor need there be, as to a representative style of the age. There is an anything goes attitude that prevails; an "everything going on", and consequently "nothing going on" syndrome; this creates an aesthetic traffic jam with no firm and clear direction and with every lane on the artistic superhighway filled to capacity. Consequently magnificent and important works of art continue to be made albeit in a wide variety of styles and aesthetic temperaments, the marketplace being left to judge merit.

, are a few continuing and current directions in painting at the beginning of the 21st century.

Americas

During the period before and after European exploration and settlement of the Americas, including North America, Central America, South America and the Islands of the Caribbean, the

colonial powers

in the Americas during and after the 15th century. By the 19th century cultural influence began to flow both ways across the Atlantic

Mexico and Central America

• 
  Great Goddess of Teotihuacan mural from the site at Tetitla, Mexico
• 
  Mural from the Complex of Tepantitla in Teotihuacan, a reproduction in the National Museum of Anthropology in Mexico City
• 
  A portion of the mural from the Complex of Tepantitla, represent the

  Tlalocan

  one of the levels in the Underworld, Mexico
• 
  Mural of the Jaguars compound in Teotihuacan.
• 
  Portic A from Cacaxtla, represent the Man-jaguar
• 
  Detail from the Red Temple, c.600–700, Cacaxtla, Mexico
• 
  Reconstruction of the Tomb 105 from Monte Alban.
• 
  A Mayan mural from Bonampak, Mexico, 580–800 AD.
• 
  A Mayan mural from Bonampak, 580–800 AD
• 
  A

  Mayan mural from San Bartolo

  , Pre-Classical period (1–250 AD)
• 
  Painting on the Lord of the jaguar pelt throne vase, a scene of the Maya court, 700–800 AD.
• 
  Painting on a Maya vase from the Late Classical Period (600–900)
• 
  Painted pottery figurine of a King from the burial site at Jaina Island, Mayan art, 400–800 AD
• 
  Painted relief of the Maya site

  K'inich Ahkal Mo' Naab' III

  (678–730s?, r. 722–729).
• 
  Painting from a Dresden Codex.
• 
  A Mixtec painting from the Codex Zouche-Nuttall.
• 
  An

  Mictlantecuhtli and Quetzalcoatl

  .
• 
  An

  Tlaloc

  .
• 
  A painting from Matrícula de Tributos showing the Ichcahuipilli, Mexico.
• 
  A painting from Codex Mendoza showing the Aztec legend of the foundation of Tenochtitlán, c.1553

South America

• 
  Moche murals from the Huaca de la Luna site, Peru

  , 100–700 AD.
• 
  A

  Moche mural of a decapitator from the Huaca de la Luna site, Peru

  , 100–700 AD.
• 
  Mural in Huaca Cao Viejo, Peru
• 
  Painted pottery from the Moche culture of Peru
• 
  Killer Whale, painted pottery,

  Lima, Peru
• 
  Painted pottery from the

  Huari culture of Peru

  , 500–1200 AD
• 
  Body painting, Indigenous peoples in Brazil, Pataxo tribe.

North America

United States

• 
  The Great Gallery,

  Horseshoe Canyon, Utah

  , 15 by 200 feet (4.6 by 61.0 m), c. 1500 BCE
• 
  Pueblo culture
• 
  Painted pottery,

  Chaco Canyon, New Mexico

  , c. 700 AD–1100 AD
• 
  Painted ceramic jug showing the underwater panther from the Mississippian culture, found at Rose Mound in Cross County, Arkansas, c. 1400–1600.
• 
  A Haida wolf mask, 1880.
• 
  A Hopi jar by Nampeyo (c.1860–1942), made in Arizona, 1880.
• 
  A girl from the

  Zuni tribe of New Mexico

  with a painted pottery jar, photographed in c. 1903.
• 
  sepia photogravure

  c. 1907
• 
  Navajo

  man in ceremonial dress with mask and body paint, c. 1904
• 
  Black Hawk (Lakota

  ).
• 
  Kiowa ledger art, possibly of the 1874 Buffalo Wallow battle, Red River War.
• 
  Detail of ledger painting on muslin by Silver Horn (1860–1940), ca. 1880, Oklahoma History Center
• 
  Work on Paper, by Arapaho painter, Carl Sweezy (1881–1953), 1904
• 
  An

  Uncompaghre Ute

  , Shaved Beaver Hide Painting. The Northern Ute would trap beavers, shave images into the animals' stretched and cured hides, and use them to decorate their personal and ceremonial dwellings, c. 19th century.
• 
  Tlingit totem pole in Ketchikan, Alaska

  , circa 1901.
• 
  The K'alyaan Totem Pole of the

  Tlingit Kiks.ádi Clan, erected at Sitka National Historical Park to commemorate the lives lost in the 1804 Battle of Sitka

  .
• 
  A

  Tlingit

  style.
• 
  From Saxman Totem Park, Ketchikan, Alaska
• 
  From Saxman Totem Park, Ketchikan, Alaska

Canada

• 
  A totem pole in Totem Park, Victoria, British Columbia.
• 
  From Totem Park, Victoria, British Columbia.

Caribbean

• 
  Rock petroglyph overlaid with chalk, Caguana Indigenous Ceremonial Center. Utuado, Puerto Rico.

Islamic

• 
  Yahyâ ibn Mahmûd al-Wâsitî, Iraq, 1237
• 
  Yahyâ ibn Mahmûd al-Wâsitî, Iraq, 1237
• 
  Syrian painter, 1315 Metropolitan Museum of Art
• 
  Ilkhanid Shahnameh, ca. 1330–1340,

  Smithsonian
• 
  Kamal-ud-din Bihzad (c. 1450 – c. 1535), The construction of castle Khavarnaq (الخورنق) in al-Hira, c. 1494–1495 C.E. British Museum
• 
  Persian miniature painting, CE 1550
• 
  Reza Abbasi, 1609
• 
  Razmnama, 1616, British Museum
• 
  Two Lovers by Reza Abbasi, 1630
• 
  Thousand and One Nights
• 
  Reza Abbasi (1565–1635), Prince Muhammad-Beik of Georgia, 1620
• 
  Safavid Iran, from a Falnama

  (book of Omens) c. 1550 AD.
• 
  A painting depicting Abû Zayd, 1335 AD.
• 
  A scene from the book of Ahmad ibn al-Husayn ibn al-Ahnaf, showing two galloping horsemen, 1210 AD.
• 
  The angel Isrâfîl, Iraq, 1280 AD.
• 
  The Clerk, Iraq, 1287.
• 
  An ornamental

  Qur'an

  , by al-Bawwâb, 11th century AD.
• 
  Mehmet II, from the Sarai Albums of Istanbul

  , Turkey, 15th century AD
• 
  Maiden in a fur cap, by Muhammad 'Alî, Isfahan, Iran, mid-17th century
• 
  Youth and Suitors, Mashhad, Iran, 1556–1565 AD

The depiction of humans, animals or any other figurative subjects is forbidden within Islam to prevent believers from

) re-introduced abstract floral patterns into western art.

Note that despite the taboo of figurative visualization, some Muslim countries did cultivate a rich tradition in painting, though not in its own right, but as a companion to the written word. Iranian or Persian art, widely known as Persian miniature, concentrates on the illustration of epic or romantic works of literature. Persian illustrators deliberately avoided the use of shading and perspective, though familiar with it in their pre-Islamic history, in order to abide by the rule of not creating any lifelike illusion of the real world. Their aim was not to depict the world as it is, but to create images of an ideal world of timeless beauty and perfect order.

Iran

Oriental historian Basil Gray believes "Iran has offered a particularly unique [sic] art to the world which is excellent in its kind". Caves in Iran's Lorestan province exhibit painted imagery of animals and hunting scenes. Some such as those in Fars Province and Sialk are at least 5,000 years old. Painting in Iran is thought to have reached a climax during the Tamerlane era, when outstanding masters such as Kamaleddin Behzad gave birth to a new style of painting.

Paintings of the Qajar period are a combination of European influences and Safavid miniature schools of painting such as those introduced by Reza Abbasi and classical works by Mihr 'Ali. Masters such as Kamal-ol-molk further pushed forward the European influence in Iran. It was during the Qajar era when "Coffee House painting" emerged. Subjects of this style were often religious in nature depicting scenes from Shia epics and the like.

• 
  Farrukh Beg (ca. 1545 – ca. 1615), A Drunken Babur Returns to Camp at Night, Lahore, Pakistan, 1589
• 
  Mihr 'Ali (fl. 1795–1830), Fat'h Ali Shah Qajar (1813–14)
• 
  Kamal-ol-molk (1847–1940), Predictor of the Future, 1892, Museum of Sadabad, Tehran

Pakistan

• 
  Lubna Agha, Star – a painting inspired by the artisans of Morocco
• 
  AR Chughtai, Anarkali

Oceania

Australia

New Zealand

Africa

• 
  body paint

  symbolic of the earth and of blood, and also worn for protection from the sun.
• 
  A

  Kĩkũyũ

  woman in traditional dress. Ceremonial face painting.
• 
  Young

  face painting

  .
• 
  Dogon, circumcision cave, with paintings Mali c. contemporary

African traditional culture and tribes do not seem to have great interest in two-dimensional representations in favour of sculpture and

masks

in their varied styles. Contemporary African artists follow western art movements and their paintings have little difference from occidental art works.

Sudanese

The

medieval Nubia.^[98]

Ethiopian

Main article: Ethiopian art

The Christian tradition of painting in Ethiopia dates back to the 4th century AD, during the ancient Kingdom of Aksum.^[99] During their exile to Axum, the 7th-century followers of Muhammad described paintings decorating the Church of Our Lady Mary of Zion.^[100] However, the earliest surviving examples of church paintings in Ethiopia come from the church of Debre Selam Mikael in the Tigray Region, dated to the 11th century AD.^[100] Ethiopian paintings in illuminated manuscripts predate the earliest surviving church paintings. For instance, the Ethiopian Garima Gospels of the 4th-6th centuries AD contain illuminated scenes imitating the contemporary Byzantine illuminated style.^[101]

• 
  An illuminated Bible from a monastery on Lake Tana, Ethiopia, 12th-13th century AD
• 
  A 15th-century

  Gebre Mesqel Lalibela

  (r. 1181–1221 AD)
• 
  A 17th-century Gondarene-style Ethiopian painting depicting Saint Mercurius, originally from Lalibela, now housed in the National Museum of Ethiopia in Addis Ababa
• 
  A 1748 portrait of the Ethiopian Empress Mentewab, an important figure of the Zemene Mesafint, prostrating herself before Mary and Jesus, from the Narga Selassie church.

Influence on Western art

See also: Picasso's African Period and Contemporary African art

At the start of the 20th century, artists like

avant garde was straining against the constraints imposed by serving the world of appearances, African Art demonstrated the power of supremely well organised forms; produced not only by responding to the faculty of sight, but also and often primarily, the faculty of imagination, emotion and mystical and religious experience. These artists saw in African art a formal perfection and sophistication unified with phenomenal expressive power.^{[103][104][105][106][107]}

See also

• 20th-century Western painting
• Art periods
• Hierarchy of genres
• List of painters
• Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects
• Timeline of Italian artists to 1800

References

Further reading

• Clement Greenberg, Art and Culture, Beacon Press, 1961
• Whitney Museum of American Art
  , NYC, 1971.
• O'Connor, Francis V.
  OCLC 165852
• Pictures of Nothing: Abstract Art since Pollock (A.W. Mellon Lectures in the Fine Arts), Kirk Varnedoe, 2003
• The Triumph of
  ISBN 0-15-666370-8
• Piper, David (1986). The Illustrated Library of Art: History, Appreciation, and Tradition. Portland House.
  ISBN 978-0-517-62336-7
  .

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to History of painting.

• History of Art: From Paleolithic Age to Contemporary Art Archived 19 November 2020 at the Wayback Machine
• Kandinsky Kandinsky (translated by Michael T. H. Sadler), Wassily. "Concerning the Spiritual in Art". mnstate.edu. Archived from the original on 28 May 2010. Retrieved 30 November 2010.
• Metropolitan Museum of Art Timeline of Art History
• Ancient Roman Wall-Painting