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

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
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 (arts) – 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 –