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 –