13 Revolutionary Art Movements That Have Shaped Our Visual History

“David” by Michelangelo. From the 14th through 17 century, Italy underwent an unprecedented age of enlightenment. Known as the Renaissance—a term derived from the Italian word Rinascimento, or “rebirth”—this period saw increased attention to cultural subjects like art and architecture.

“The Ecstasy of St. Teresa” by Bernini. 1647-1652. Cornaro Chapel, Santa Maria della Vittoria, Rome Toward the end of the Renaissance, the Baroque movement emerged in Italy. Like the preceding genre, Baroque art showcased artistic interests in realism and rich color. Unlike Renaissance art and architecture, however, Baroque works also emphasized extravagance.

“The Gleaners” by Jean-François Millet. 1857. Musee d’Orsay, Paris Realism is a genre of art that started in France after the French Revolution of 1848. A clear rejection of Romanticism, the dominant style that had come before it, Realist painters focused on scenes of contemporary people and daily life. What may seem normal now was revolutionary after centuries of painters depicting exotic scenes from mythology and the Bible, or creating portraits of the nobility and clergy.

“The Starry Night” by Vincent van Gogh. 1889. MoMA, New York.
Again originating from France, this type of art developed between 1886 and 1905 as a response to the Impressionist movement. This time, artists reacted against the need for the naturalistic depictions of light and color in Impressionist art. As opposed to earlier styles, Post-Impressionism covers many different types of art, from the Pointillism of Georges Seurat to the Symbolism of Paul Gauguin.

“Water Lilies”by Claude Monet. 1906. Art Institute of Chicago.
Breakingtyoes of art impressionis from Realism,Impressionist painters moved away from realistic representations to use visible brushstrokes, vivid colors with little mixing,and open compositions to capture the emotion of light and movement. Impressionism started when a group of French artists broke with academic tradition by painting en plein air shocking decision when most landscape painters executed their work indoors in a studio.

“Les Demoiselles d’Avignon” by Pablo Picasso. 1907.
A truly revolutionary style of art, Cubism is one of the most important art movements of the 20th century. Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque developed Cubism in the early 1900s, with the term being coined by art critic Louis Vauxcelles in 1907 to describe the artists. Completely breaking with any previous art movement, objects were analyzed and broken apart, only to be reassembled into an abstracted form.

“The Persistence of Memory” by Salvador Dalí. 1931.
A precise definition of Surrealism can be difficult to grasp, but it’s clear that this once avant-garde movement has staying power, remaining one of the most approachable art genres, even today. Imaginative imagery spurred by the subconscious is a hallmark of this type of art, which started in the 1920s. The movement began when a group of visual artists adopted automatism, a technique that relied on the subconscious for creativity.

Autumn Rhythm (Number 30)” by Jackson Pollock.
bstract Expressionism is an American art movements the first to explode on an international scale—that started after World War II.The genre developed in the 1940s and 1950s, though the term was also used to describe work by earlier artists like Wassily Kandinsky. This style of art takes the spontaneity of Surrealism and injects it with the dark mood of trauma that lingered post-War.

Pop Art is a pivotal movement that heralds the onset of contemporary art. This post-war style emerged in Britain and America, including imagery from advertising, comic books, and everyday objects. Often satirical, Pop Art emphasized banal elements of common goods, and is frequently thought of as a reaction against the subconscious elements of Abstract Expressionism.

The seemingly contemporary art movement actually has its roots in Impressionism, when artists first began attempting to express movement in their art. In the early 1900s, artists began to experiment further with art in motion, with sculptural machine and mobiles pushing kinetic art forward. Russian artists Vladimir Tatlin and Alexander Rodchenko were the first creators of sculptural mobiles, something that would later be perfected by Alexander Calder.

In the middle of the 20th century, avant-garde artists in America and Europe began producing Installation Art. Installations are three-dimensional constructions that play with space to interactively engage viewers. Often large-scale and site-specific, these works of art transform museums, galleries, and even outdoor locations into immersive environments.

Photorealism is a style of art that is concerned with the technical ability to wow viewers. Primarily an American art movement, it gained momentum in the late 1960s and 1970s as a reaction against Abstract Expressionism. Here, artists were most concerned with replicating a photograph to the best of their ability, carefully planning out their work to great effect and eschewing the spontaneity that is the hallmark of Abstract Expressionism. Similar to Pop Art,.

Lowbrow, also called pop surrealism, is an art movement that grew out of an underground California scene in the 1970s. Traditionally excluded from the fine art world, lowbrow art moves from painted artworks to toys, digital art, and sculpture. The genre also has its roots in underground comix, punk music, and surf culture, with artists not seeking acceptance from mainstream galleries. By mixing surrealism imagery with pop colors or figures, artists achieve dreamlike results that often play on.