# 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
* Academic – c. 1840 – 1900, began in France
* 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 (movement) – 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 –