Art History School

Late 19th Century: Breaking from Tradition

• Realism (1850–1900)
  • A direct rejection of Romanticism. Artists like Gustave Courbet began depicting every day, unembellished life and working-class people with truthful accuracy.
• Impressionism (1860s–1880s)
  • Pioneered by Claude Monet and Edgar Degas, this movement abandoned academic finishes in favour of visible brushstrokes, vivid colours, and capturing the fleeting, subjective “impression” of light and time.
• Post-Impressionism (1880s–1905)
  • Artists like Vincent van Gogh and Paul Cézanne expanded on Impressionism but pushed further into emotional expression, bold colour theory, and geometric structure.

Early to Mid-20th Century: The Rise of Modernism

• Cubism (1907–1914)
  • Led by Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque, Cubism revolutionized visual art by deconstructing subjects and analysing them from multiple, fragmented viewpoints simultaneously.
• Surrealism (1920s–1950s)
  • Drawing heavily on psychoanalysis, Surrealism sought to unleash the creative potential of the unconscious mind. Salvador Dalí and René Magritte used dream-like, bizarre imagery to challenge reality
• Abstract Expressionism (1940s–1950s)
  
  • Centred in New York, artists like Jackson Pollock (Action Painting) and Mark Rothko (Colour Field) abandoned recognizable subjects to prioritize spontaneous, subconscious emotional expression

Post-War to Late 20th Century: Challenging the Establishment

• Pop Art (1950s–1960s)
  • A vibrant, consumer-driven reaction against elitist “high art.” Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein utilized mass-media, comic strips, and advertising imagery.
• Minimalism (1960s–1970s)
  • Stripping art to its absolute essentials. Painters like Frank Stella focused on pure, geometric shapes, raw materials, and literal presence rather than symbolic meaning.
• Conceptual Art (1960s–Present)
  • Moving away from the physical aesthetic object entirely, conceptual artists like Sol LeWitt and Joseph Kosuth argued that the idea or concept behind the art is more important than the finished product.

The Contemporary Era

• Postmodernism (1970s–1990s)
  • A sceptical response to Modernism that embraced irony, pastiche, and a blend of “high” and “low” culture. Artists like Damien Hirst and Tracy Emin are prominent examples.
• Digital and New Media Art (1990s–Present)
  • With the advent of the internet and digital technology, artists began using software, code, virtual reality, and artificial intelligence to create interactive and generative installations.
• Global Contemporary Art (2000s–Present)
  • Today’s art landscape is highly diverse, decentralized, and socially engaged. It frequently tackles themes like globalization, identity politics, and climate change, with creators increasingly utilizing interactive digital platforms to display and distribute their work.