So, you've never been trained in traditional art, but you'd really like to broaden your understanding. Not a problem. Here are the 25 fundamental art styles that you should be familiar with. Ancient art is basically any art that predates the fall of the Western Roman Empire. This also includes the great works from ancient Greece, Egypt, Babylon, India, China, and the rest. Folk art is any art that is created specifically for the purpose of culture and tradition. It's not about expressing individualism or personal feelings in emotion. Renaissance was the distinct style of Italy in the 1400s. This included the works from all the classics that you would expect like Michelangelo, Da Vinci, Botticelli, Ticin, and Raphael. This era took a lot of inspiration from the incredible Greek and Roman art that came before it. Baroque. This style is a fan favorite for the Catholic Church and immersion you're up in the 17th century. It's often extremely beautiful and detailed and does its best to inspire awe with emotion, contrast, chaos, and rich color. Roque co. An extremely ornamental and theatrical style of art. It's often super decorated with nature, curves, gliding, and light pastel colors to create surprise in the illusion of motion and drama. It's kind of like Baroque, but a little less serious and a much lighter and happier tone. LINE art is generally any image consisting of a distinct, straight or curved line against a usually plain background. It's one of the oldest styles, but it's still one of everyone's favorites. Geometric. This art uses geometric and often mathematical shapes from points, lines, and angles. It often includes simple shapes like triangles, squares, and circles, and unlike the natural form of organic shapes, geometric art styles favor precision and may even require using tools like a straight edge or a compass to create. Pointalism. Also known as dot art is the technique of creating art by dotting a bunch of colors. Famously used by George Sorat, but it's also quite popular and fun due to the simplicity of the technique. Cubism. Started around the 1900s popularized by Picasso and Bracay, despite kind of looking abstract, it's actually more related to realism, because even if the dimensions look off, you can still identify things in Cubist art. For example, despite the sharp geometry and multi-colored shapes, you know that these are eyes. These are lips, and this is a face, compared to actual abstract art where you really can't describe anything that you're seeing. Minimalism. This art tries to express an idea with the fewest amount of visual cues. Picasso was awesome at this. For example, this is how he depicted a bull. This is how he depicted it now. This is his fox. I think you get the idea. It's also an extremely popular architectural style because it makes room seem a lot more modern and spacious. Romanticism. Started in the 19th century when industrialization was taking over, this art style emphasized emotions and individualism glorifying the past. Often depicting things in medieval history works in this style often depicted intense feelings of beauty, love, anger, and horror. Fantasy. This style often originates from folk and mythology and is commonly born from stories and illustrating narratives. It's a favorite for people to escape to the mystical and magical lands with monsters, fairies, dragons, spirits, and anything else you can really imagine. Art Navao. It's an international style for decorative and intricate design. Often inspired by the natural forms of plants and flowers, this beautiful style is characterized by curvy shapes, mustard olive, deep red hues, and a lot of asymmetrical patterns. This style is an effort to rebel against the harsh blocky structures of industrialization. Uki-O-A. It is the Japanese art of the Edo era. My personal favorite version of this art style is called Bijinga, which literally means beautiful person art, which often depicts the gauges and other beautiful Japanese ornate fashionable women. Impressionist art. Formalized in Paris in the 1860s, this kind of art is largely identified with light brushstrokes and often seems dreamlike. It does not concern itself with the sharp clear details, and you can often just barely recognize what it's trying to be depicted. But somehow your brain knows that these are people. And that's a tree, even though people and trees don't look anything like that. This is a lot of people's favorite art style. Post-impressionism. This was similar to Impressionism, however, it took the extra liberty of removing the need to stay faithful and true to realistic lighting and colors. The most famous of this style was Vincent Van Gogh, who used his color and brushstrokes to convey his own emotions and the state of his mind, rather than the qualities of the actual landscape he was painting. Realism. This is basically any art that depicts reality, and it attempts to depict the subject as it really is without any interpretation or stylization or abstraction. Artists who work in this style often spend substantial amounts of time replicating the feel of depth, light, and shadows as they are depicted in real life. It's also a common style throughout history when it comes to depicting everyday life without any attempt to glorify or undercut the subject at hand. So realism. Just remember that this is the weird art that looks like stuff you would imagine on a dream or an acid trip. The name comes from surpassing realism, and often takes real world ideas and objects and puts them in an unrealistic depiction. Expressionism. Appearing at the turn of the 20th century, this style aims to represent life as it feels or appears to the artist. Unlike realism where the depth, light, shadows, and colors are intended to reflect reality, expressionism often uses the color and shape as a tool to express emotions and feelings. This often results in bold and unrealistic styles. Pop art. Start it around the 1950s is fun and pops out at you. It takes full advantage of extremely popular images, characters, comics, books, and cultural events that everyone recognizes. Modern art. Contrary to the name, modern art refers to what created from the 1860s to the 1970s. Basically refers to art that started to deviate from the traditional real life depictions of paintings of the real world. Generally, it's much more experimental and colorful. This is the kind of stuff that you'll see if you walk into any moment museum around the world. Contemporary. This is the actual art term for quote-unquote, new art. Or art that was created within the last 10 years or this generation. Because of this, contemporary art is a category that is constantly changing, depending on the new art that comes out. Contemporary art is also affected by the limitations of modern technology and rendering abilities of the era. But because of this, it's often one of the most exciting styles because you really don't know what to expect from it. Graffiti. While generally known for being painted on public walls and considered vandalism by many, it's often colorful, unrefined, and raw. Regardless of the legality of it, it's a popular style and is constantly evolving. Figurative. This tends to be any art that retains strong references to the real world. When you're looking at this kind of art, you can easily identify what the shapes are supposed to be and what they're supposed to represent. And finally, we have abstract. This is the kind of art that you think is dumb when you're a kid, but as you get older, you really appreciate. Abstract art is when you try and convey an idea without drawing the idea directly. Let's say you were tasked to paint happiness. A figurative artist would probably draw something like a smiley face or a happy person. An abstract artist on the other hand would draw something like a warm collage of yellow in or in shapes, or some combination of color and shape that triggers the emotion of happiness for the audience. Abstract art is extremely difficult for most people. And if you ever have the chance to meet a professional abstract artist in person, I highly recommend you take them out for coffee because they're usually really deep. And you'll have an amazing conversation. So those are the 25 styles that I think everyone should know. Hope that helps. And as always, hope you have a fantastic day. Now see you around.