Art Periods and Styles

Achaemenid Dynasty

The Persian dynasty begun by the ruler Cyrus in 549 BCE.  Through a succession of strict but benevolent rulers, this ruling family created the Achaemenid Empire which stretch from India to the boundaries of Greece.  The Achaemenid Dynasty fell under its conquest by Alexander the Great in 331 at the Battle of Issus.

Bauhaus

A famous art scholl founded in Weimar, Germany by the architect Walter Gropius.  It became the premier school of art, architecture, design and craftsmanship.  Its curriculum was unique because it encouraged experimentation, embraced machine technology, and fostered functional design, innovative architecture, and art fundamentals.

Blau Reiter

In 1911 the artists Wassily Kandinsky and Franz Marc began an artist group in Munich.  Since they both liked blue, Marc favored horses, and Kandinsky liked riders, they named the group “The Blue Rider,” in German, Der Blau Reiter.  Works by artists of this group were typically brightly colored with distorted forms that elicited a variety of intense emotions.

Chief-style

`Prestige blankets made by Navajo women.  These finely made blankets were designed with contrasting stripes that woven in a more difficult vertical position on the loom, not the easier horizontal.

Chilkat blanket style

Prestige blankets of the Tlingit people of the Pacific Northwest Coast.  Women used the twining technique to weave intricate patterns into these blankets with mountain goat wool and cedar bark fiber.

Conceptual Art

A style of art that stresses an idea or notion using simplified means as opposed to perceptual art that is based upon that which is actually seen.

Dadaism

A style developed out of the general disillusionment with tradition that marked the post-World War I era. 

Divisionism

Another term for Neo-Impressionism that refers to the analytical break-up of color.

Eye-Dazzler

Broad term describing a Navajo rug style created with aniline dyes in explosive colors and designs of great aggressiveness.

Faceting

Term that describes the short deliberate brushstrokes that Cezanne used to define the surfaces of objects.

Fauvism

A style which uses flat, strong colors.  In the French painter Henri Matisses’ Fauvist work, color, sometimes separated by black outlines, is used in and of itself, not as a descriptive or decorative accessory.

Fin de Siecle

Literally “end of the century,” used to describe the last years of the 19^th century; now generally used to describe decadence.

Futurist Manifesto

In 1909 Filippo Tommaso Marinetti (1876 – 1944) published his Manifesto del Futurismo, the first manifesto of Futurism, exhorting the youth of Italy to break tradition in art, poetry, and the novel, and face the challenges of a new machine age.

historicism

a theory, doctrine, or style that emphasizes the importance of history as a standard of value or as a determinant of events.  Historicism also can be applied to a style (as in

architecture) characterized by the use of traditional forms and elements

Ganado Red

A Navajo rug style created by the great Hubbel Trading Post (1878 – 1930) composed of strong aniline colors of red, grey, and white with bold crosses and diamonds on a bright red background.

Japanese prints

Also known as “ukiyo-e” (“oo key oyi”), this genre of printmaking developed from the 17^th through 19^th centuries.  In 1765 full-color prints were introduced.  Japanese prints are cut from wood blocks.  A block must be cut for each color.  Earliestw Japanese prints were of actors, courtesans, and subjects from the “fleeting world” of public entertainment.  Typically colors are bold yet sophisticated, compositions use daring simplicity, and shapes are flat, outlined in exquisitely graceful lines.  In the late 19^th century, Japanese prints had great influence on the development of Impressionism.

Metaphysical Style

A style of painting founded by Giorgio de Chirico (1888 9- 1978) whose style was influenced by the fantastic paintings of Arnold Bocklin.  The Metaphysical School of painting sought to create an alternate reality, as typified by de Chirico’s eerie juxtapositions of architecture, classical statuary, and deserted plazas.

naturalism

In art, the depiction of people and things with strict scientific objectivity and precision that goes beyond realism.

Neolithic

The “New Stone” age.  That period of art that accompanied the development of agriculture, roughly 9,000 – 6,000 bce when nomadic hunters became village farmers and herders.  The new settled lifestyle allowed for the development of early architecture and the crafts of weaving and pottery.

Paleolithic

Also known as the “Old Stone Age,” this period saw the beginnings of religion, ritual, and art in the form of representation.  Characteristic of this era are the cave paintings of ascaux and female fertility sculptures like the Female Figure of Willendorf.

Period of Persecution

100 – 325 ce when Christianity was an illegal religion.

Period of Recognition

325 – 500 ce when Christianity became legal after the Edict of Milan under Constantine.

Phalanx Group

In 1901 the Russian-born Wassily Kandinsky (1866 – 1944) founded the Phalanx Group in Munich in order to give young artists a chance to show their works.  He exhibited his first paintings with them and became president of the group a year later.

Poster Art

Advertising notices were raised to an art form through Toulouse-Lautrec’s creative use of lithographic techniques.

Primitivism

Artistic expressions derived from or suggestive of earlier ages or non-Western cultures.

Proto-Geometric Period (1050 – 900 bce)

A formative phase when painted pottery emerges which replaces the shoddy wares of the Dark Age.

realism

In art, the attempt to depict people and things as they really are. The art style titled Realism arose in the mid-19th century as a challenge to the complacency of the official Salon.  See also naturalism.

Renaissance Tradition

A general style that began in Florence, Italy during the 14th century with the revival of interest in classical art, literature and learning. The roots of the Renaissance began in the Middle Ages with the intellectual movement of Humanism, a concern for humans and the world. 

series painting

A method artists use to study a sequence or group of similar, related things.  For Monet, series painting allowed him to study the sequence of color changes at different times of day.  His famous series paintings included subjects of Rouen Cathedral, haystacks, poplar trees and train stations.  For Cezanne his series paintings focused on the depiction of three-dimensional objects on the two-dimensional surface and varying points of view.

Surrealism

This movement in art, literature, and film, developed out of Dada around 1922.  Led by Andre Breton, who produced the Surrealist Manifesto in 1924, the Surrealists followed Sigmund Freud’s theory of the unconscious and his “free association” technique for bypassing the conscious mind.  Surrealism was a revolt against the purely aesthetic and abstract values of modern art, laying stress on the value of instinctive e expression (sometimes referred to as “automatism”) and seeking to interpret the workings of the subconscious mind.  These artists explored varied styles and techniques, and the movement became the dominant force in Western art between World Wars I and II.

Synthetism

Late 19^th, early 20^th century art style pioneered by artists following Paul Gauguin’s interest in the “primitive” and the other-worldly through non-local, flat color and simplified shapes.  Synthetism was embraced by and morphed into Symbolism.

Theosophy

Literally “knowledge of divine things,” this philosophical system sought to establish direct contact with the divine principle through contemplation or revelation thereby gaining spiritual insight.  See Madame Blavatsky.

Two Grey Hills style

A Navajo weaving style typified by its symmetrical design of balanced geometrics, natural colors or greys and browns, with a black aniline border. Two Grey Hills rugs have some of the finest weaving, up to 110 threads per inch.

Wide Ruins style

A Navajo rug style typified by soft vegetal dye colors, horizontal bands, and no surrounding border.