Famous art movements and styles
Throughout history, artists have produced art in a variety of media and styles following different philosophies and ideals. Although the name of a style can often be reductive, different artistic trends or styles can be grouped under collective titles known as art movements.
Kuadros offers you the main terms of artistic movements and styles, from classicism to futurism, through the baroque to the avant-garde.
Abstract Expressionism
The designation 'Abstract Expressionism' encompasses a wide variety of 20th century American art movements in abstract art. Also known as the New York School, this movement includes large painted canvases, sculpture, and other mediums as well. The term 'action painting' is associated with abstract expressionism, describing a highly dynamic and spontaneous application of vigorous brush strokes and the effects of dripping and spilling paint onto the canvas.
Learn more about Abstract Expressionism
Art deco
Emerged in France before the First World War, Art Deco exploded in 1925 on the occasion of the Exposition des Arts Décoratifs (Exhibition of Decorative Arts). Blurring the line between different mediums and fields, from architecture and furniture to clothing and jewelry, Art Deco fused modern aesthetics with skillful craftsmanship, advanced technology, and elegant materials.
Art Nouveau
A decorative style that flourished between 1890 and 1910 throughout Europe and the US, Art Nouveau, also called Jugendstil (Germany) and Sezessionstil (Austria), is characterized by sinuous, asymmetrical lines based on organic forms. Although it influenced painting and sculpture, its main manifestations were architecture and the decorative and graphic arts, with the aim of creating a new style, free from the imitative historicism that dominated much of the art movements and design of the 19th century.
Avant-garde
Mazoni, Merda d'Artista. avant-garde example
In French, avant-garde means “advanced guard” and refers to innovative or experimental concepts, works, or the group or people who produce them, particularly in the fields of culture, politics, and the arts.
Learn more about the Avant Garde Movement
Baroque
The term Baroque, derived from the Portuguese 'barocco' meaning 'pearl or irregular stone', is a movement in art and architecture developed in Europe from the early 17th century to the mid 18th century. Baroque emphasizes dramatic, exaggerated movement and clear, easy-to-interpret detail, which is a far cry from Surrealism, to produce drama, tension, exuberance, and grandeur.
Bauhaus
The school of art and design was founded in Germany by Walter Gropius in 1919 and closed by the Nazis in 1933. The college brought together artists, architects, and designers, and developed an experimental pedagogy that focused on materials and function rather than traditional methodologies of art schools. In its successive incarnations in Weimar, Dessau, and Berlin, it became the site of influential conversations about the role of modern art and design in society.
Classicism
The principles embodied in the styles, theories or philosophies of the different types of art of ancient Greece and Rome, concentrating on traditional forms with an emphasis on elegance and symmetry.
Cobra
CoBrA, an ephemeral but innovative international art movement
Founded in 1948 in Paris, CoBrA was a short-lived but innovative postwar group that brought together international artists who advocated spontaneity as a means of creating a new society. The name 'CoBrA' is an acronym for the cities of origin of its founders, Copenhagen, Brussels and Amsterdam, respectively.
Color Field Painting
Often associated with abstract expressionism, Color Field painters were concerned with the use of pure abstraction, but rejected the active gestures typical of action painting in favor of expressing the sublime through large, flat surfaces of contemplative color. and open compositions.
Conceptual Art
Conceptual art, sometimes simply called conceptualism, was one of several 20th-century art movements that emerged during the 1960s, emphasizing theoretical ideas and practices rather than the creation of visual forms. The term was coined in 1967 by artist Sol LeWitt, who gave the new genre its name in his essay "Paragraphs on Conceptual Art," in which he wrote: "The idea itself, though not visual, is as much a work of art like any finished product.
Constructivism
Developed by the Russian avant-garde around 1915, constructivism is an offshoot of abstract art, rejecting the idea of "art for art's sake" in favor of art as a practice aimed at social ends. The movement's work was primarily geometric and precisely composed, sometimes through mathematical and measurement tools.
Cubism
An artistic movement initiated in 1907 by the artists Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque, who developed a visual language whose geometric planes challenged the conventions of representation in different types of art, by reinventing traditional themes such as nudes, landscapes and still lifes that were increasingly fragmented. compositions
Dadaism
Dada / Dadaism
Artistic and literary movement in art formed during the First World War as a negative response to the traditional social values and conventional artistic practices of the different types of art of the time. Dadaist artists represented a protest movement with an anti-establishment manifesto, seeking to expose accepted and often repressive conventions of order and logic by shocking people into self-awareness.
Expressionism
Expressionism is an international artistic movement in art, architecture, literature, and performance that flourished between 1905 and 1920, especially in Germany and Austria, that sought to express meaning from emotional experience rather than physical reality. The conventions of the expressionist style include distortion, exaggeration, fantasy, and the vivid, jarring, violent, or dynamic application of color to express the artist's inner feelings or ideas.
Fauvism
Coined by critic Louis Vauxcelles, Fauvism (French for "wild beasts") is one of the art movements of the early 20th century. Fauvism is especially associated with Henri Matisse and André Derain, whose works are characterized by strong, vibrant colors and bold brushstrokes over realistic or figurative qualities.
Futurism
Quite unique among different types of art movements, it is an Italian development in abstract art and literature, founded in 1909 by Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, with the aim of capturing the dynamism, speed, and energy of the modern mechanical world.
Harlem Renaissance
Emerging after World War I in the predominantly African-American neighborhood of Harlem in New York, the Harlem Renaissance was an influential movement in African-American art that spanned the visual arts, literature, music, and theater. Artists associated with the movement rejected stereotypical representations and expressed their pride in black life and identity.
Impressionism
Impressionism is a 19th-century art movement, associated especially with French artists such as Claude Monet, Pierre Auguste Renoir, Camille Pissarro, and Alfred Sisley, who attempted to accurately and objectively record visual "impressions" through the use of small, thin brushstrokes. visible. that come together to form a single scene and emphasize the movement and changing qualities of light.
Installation art
Installation art is a movement developed at the same time as pop art in the late 1950s, characterized by large-scale mixed-media constructions, often designed for a specific place or temporary time period. Installation art often involves creating an immersive aesthetic or sensory experience in a particular environment, often inviting the viewer to actively participate or immerse.
Land Art
Land Art, also known as Earth art, Environmental art, and Earthworks, is a simple art movement that emerged in the 1960s and 1970s, characterized by work done directly on the landscape, sculpting the land itself into earthworks, or making structures. in the landscape using natural materials such as rocks or twigs. It could be seen as a natural version of installation art. Land Art is largely associated with Great Britain and the United States, but includes examples from many countries.
Minimalism
Another of the art movements of the 1960s, and typified by works made up of simple art, such as geometric shapes devoid of figurative content. The minimal vocabulary of forms made from humble industrial materials challenged traditional notions of craftsmanship, the illusion of spatial depth in painting, and the idea that a work of abstract art must be unique.
Neo-impressionism
Neo-Impressionism is a term applied to an avant-garde art movement that flourished primarily in France from 1886 to 1906. Led by the example of Georges Seurat and Paul Signac, Neo-Impressionists who renounced the spontaneity of Impressionism in favor of a measured and a systematic painting technique known as pointillism, based on science and the study of optics.
Neoclassicism
Almost the opposite of pop art in terms of inspiration, this style is one that emerged in the second half of the 18th century in Europe, drawing inspiration from the classical art and culture of Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome, which is not uncommon for Artistic movements.
Neon-art
In the 1960s, Neon Art turned a commercial medium used for advertising into an innovative artistic medium. Neon lighting allowed artists to explore the relationship between light, color, and space while drawing on pop culture imagery and the mechanisms of consumerism.
Optical Art or Op Art
Op Art, a famous art movement of the late 20th century.
Op Art is an abbreviation for Op Art, a geometric abstract art form that explores optical sensations through the use of visual effects such as the repetition of simple shapes, vibrant color combinations, moiré patterns, confusion of foreground and background, and a exaggerated sense of depth. Op Art paintings and works employ tricks of visual perception such as the manipulation of perspective rules to give the illusion of three-dimensional space.
Performance Art
A term that emerged in the 1960s to describe different types of art that are created through actions performed by the artist or other participants, which may be live or recorded, spontaneous or written. The performance challenges the conventions of traditional visual art forms such as painting and sculpture by embracing a variety of styles including happenings, body art, actions and events.
Pop Art
Pop art emerged in the 1950s and was made up of British and American artists drawing inspiration from "popular" images and products of commercial culture as opposed to "elitist" fine art. Pop art reached its peak of activity in the 1960s, emphasizing the banal or kitsch elements of everyday life in such forms as mechanically reproduced screen prints, large-scale facsimiles, and soft pop art sculptures.
Postimpressionism
'Post-Impressionism' is a term coined in 1910 by the English art critic and painter Roger Fry to describe the reaction against the naturalistic representation of light and color in Impressionism. Artists such as Paul Cézanne, Paul Gauguin, and Vincent van Gogh developed a personal yet unified style out of their interest in expressing their emotional and psychological responses to the world through striking color and often symbolic imagery.
Precisionism
Precisionism was the first real indigenous modern art movement in the United States and contributed to the rise of American modernism. Drawing inspiration from cubism and futurism, Precisionism was driven by a desire to return structure to art and celebrated the new American landscape of skyscrapers, bridges, and factories.
Rococo
Rococo is a movement in art, particularly architecture and decorative art, that originated in France in the early 18th century. Characteristics of Rococo art consist of elaborate ornamentation and a light, sensuous style, including scrollwork, foliage, and animal forms.
Surrealism
Founded by the poet André Breton in Paris in 1924, Surrealism was an artistic and literary movement that was active during World War II. The main goal of surrealist painting and surrealist works of art was to liberate thought, language and human experience from the oppressive limits of rationalism by defending the irrational, the poetic and the revolutionary.
Suprematism
He was found to be a relatively unknown member of the different types of abstract art movements, outside of the art world. Term coined by the Russian artist Kazimir Malevich in 1915 to describe an abstract style of painting that fit his belief that art expressed in the simplest geometric forms and dynamic compositions was superior to earlier forms of figurative art, leading to to the "supremacy of pure feeling". or perception in the pictorial arts”.
Symbolism
The symbolism arises in the second half of the 19th century, mainly in Catholic European countries where industrialization had developed to a great extent. Beginning as a literary movement, Symbolism soon became identified with a young generation of painters who wanted art to reflect emotions and ideas rather than represent the natural world in an objective way, united by a shared pessimism and weariness of decadence in modern society.
Zero Group
Zero Group Iconic Illustration
Emerging in Germany and spreading to other countries in the 1950s, the Zero Group was a group of artists united by a desire to move away from the subjectivity of postwar movements, focusing instead on materiality, color, vibration, light and movement of pure abstract art. The main protagonists of the group were Heinz Mack, Otto Piene and Günther Uecker.
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