Medieval Art
Art as faith, symbol, and spiritual storytelling.
Key artists
- Giotto
- Cimabue
- Duccio
- Hildegard of Bingen
Artlovers Stories · Art Movements
Early Netherlandish
1430–1530
Painting from the Burgundian Netherlands during the 15th and early 16th centuries, marked by oil-on-panel realism, jewel-like detail, and devotional or vanitas themes — Jan van Eyck, Rogier van der Weyden, Hans Memling and Hieronymus Bosch among its leading figures.
Every era paints the world its own way. Walk through the movements that changed how we look at art — and find where to see the works that defined them today.
Timeline
From Byzantine to now: a visual walk.
Scroll sideways to walk through 15 centuries of art.
Vertical view
The full chronology: main and secondary.
Main movements stand out; secondary ones flow alongside.
- Secondaryc. 500–1400
Medieval Art
Art as faith, symbol, and spiritual storytelling.
- Giotto
- Cimabue
- Duccio
- Hildegard of Bingen
- Secondaryc. 500–1450
Byzantine Art
Golden icons and sacred images made to feel eternal.
- Andrei Rublev
- Theophanes the Greek
- Cimabue
- Secondaryc. 1000–1200
Romanesque
Powerful church art: solid, symbolic, and deeply religious.
- Gislebertus
- Master of Taüll
- Mainc. 1150–1500
Gothic
Art reaching upward — light, height, emotion, and divine drama.
- Giotto
- Simone Martini
- Jan van Eyck
- Claus Sluter
- Mainc. 1400–1490
Early Renaissance
The rebirth of perspective, nature, and the human figure.
- Masaccio
- Donatello
- Fra Angelico
- Botticelli
- Piero della Francesca
- Mainc. 1490–1527
High Renaissance
The pursuit of perfect beauty, balance, and genius.
- Leonardo da Vinci
- Michelangelo
- Raphael
- Titian
- Bramante
- Secondaryc. 1520–1600
Mannerism
Elegant, strange, and exaggerated — Renaissance rules start to bend.
- Pontormo
- Parmigianino
- Bronzino
- El Greco
- Cellini
- Mainc. 1600–1750
Baroque
Drama, movement, light, and emotion turned up to full volume.
- Caravaggio
- Rubens
- Rembrandt
- Velázquez
- Bernini
- Secondaryc. 1700–1780
Rococo
Playful, decorative, intimate — art for pleasure and elegance.
- Fragonard
- Boucher
- Watteau
- Tiepolo
- Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun
- Mainc. 1750–1830
Neoclassicism
Ancient Greece and Rome reborn as order, reason, and heroic ideals.
- Jacques-Louis David
- Ingres
- Canova
- Angelica Kauffman
- Mainc. 1780–1850
Romanticism
Emotion over reason: nature, passion, freedom, and the sublime.
- Goya
- Delacroix
- Turner
- Caspar David Friedrich
- Théodore Géricault
- Mainc. 1840–1880
Realism
Art turns toward real life, ordinary people, and social truth.
- Courbet
- Millet
- Daumier
- Rosa Bonheur
- Ilya Repin
- Mainc. 1860–1886
Impressionism
Painting the fleeting moment — light, atmosphere, and modern life.
- Monet
- Renoir
- Degas
- Morisot
- Pissarro
- Mainc. 1886–1905
Post-Impressionism
Beyond the impression: emotion, structure, color, and personal vision.
- Van Gogh
- Cézanne
- Gauguin
- Seurat
- Toulouse-Lautrec
- Secondaryc. 1880–1910
Symbolism
Dreams, myths, and inner worlds take over the canvas.
- Odilon Redon
- Gustave Moreau
- Klimt
- Fernand Khnopff
- Munch
- Secondaryc. 1890–1910
Art Nouveau
Nature becomes design: flowing lines, beauty, and total decoration.
- Alphonse Mucha
- Klimt
- Gaudí
- Hector Guimard
- Aubrey Beardsley
- Secondaryc. 1905–1910
Fauvism
Color breaks free — wild, emotional, and unapologetically bright.
- Matisse
- Derain
- Vlaminck
- Dufy
- Kees van Dongen
- Mainc. 1905–1930
Expressionism
Art as inner emotion: anxiety, intensity, and raw feeling.
- Munch
- Kirchner
- Kandinsky
- Schiele
- Kokoschka
- Mainc. 1907–1920
Cubism
Reality shattered and rebuilt from multiple points of view.
- Picasso
- Braque
- Juan Gris
- Léger
- Sonia Delaunay
- Secondaryc. 1909–1944
Futurism
Speed, machines, energy, and the shock of the modern world.
- Boccioni
- Balla
- Severini
- Carrà
- Marinetti
- Secondaryc. 1916–1924
Dada
Anti-art for a broken world — absurd, rebellious, and radical.
- Duchamp
- Hannah Höch
- Tristan Tzara
- Man Ray
- Jean Arp
- Secondaryc. 1917–1931
De Stijl
Pure abstraction: lines, grids, primary colors, and universal harmony.
- Mondrian
- Theo van Doesburg
- Gerrit Rietveld
- Bart van der Leck
- Secondary1919–1933
Bauhaus
Art meets design, architecture, function, and modern life.
- Walter Gropius
- Paul Klee
- Kandinsky
- Josef Albers
- László Moholy-Nagy
- Mainc. 1924–1960s
Surrealism
Dreams, desire, and the unconscious made visible.
- Dalí
- Magritte
- Miró
- Leonora Carrington
- Max Ernst
- Secondaryc. 1910–present
Abstract Art
Art without direct representation — form, color, and feeling lead.
- Kandinsky
- Hilma af Klint
- Mondrian
- Malevich
- Rothko
- Secondaryc. 1920s–1950s
Social Realism
Art as political witness: workers, injustice, and collective struggle.
- Diego Rivera
- Ben Shahn
- Käthe Kollwitz
- Jacob Lawrence
- David Alfaro Siqueiros
- Mainc. 1940s–1960s
Abstract Expressionism
Gesture, scale, and emotion — painting as an act of freedom.
- Jackson Pollock
- Mark Rothko
- Willem de Kooning
- Lee Krasner
- Helen Frankenthaler
- Mainc. 1950s–1970s
Pop Art
Mass culture becomes art: advertising, comics, celebrities, and brands.
- Andy Warhol
- Roy Lichtenstein
- Richard Hamilton
- Claes Oldenburg
- Yayoi Kusama
- Secondaryc. 1960s–1970s
Fluxus
Art becomes an event — playful, experimental, anti-market, and radically open.
- George Maciunas
- Yoko Ono
- Nam June Paik
- Alison Knowles
- Joseph Beuys
- Mainc. 1960s–1970s
Minimalism
Less is everything — simple forms, space, repetition, and presence.
- Donald Judd
- Dan Flavin
- Agnes Martin
- Carl Andre
- Sol LeWitt
- Mainc. 1960s–present
Conceptual Art
The idea becomes the artwork.
- Joseph Kosuth
- Sol LeWitt
- Lawrence Weiner
- Jenny Holzer
- On Kawara
- Secondaryc. 1960s–1970s
Land Art
Nature becomes the canvas — art moves outside the museum.
- Robert Smithson
- Nancy Holt
- Michael Heizer
- Walter De Maria
- Richard Long
- Secondaryc. 1960s–present
Performance Art
The artist's body, action, and time become the work.
- Marina Abramović
- Joseph Beuys
- Yoko Ono
- Chris Burden
- Tehching Hsieh
- Secondaryc. 1960s–1980s
Body Art
The body becomes the canvas, the medium, and the battlefield.
- Marina Abramović
- Gina Pane
- Vito Acconci
- Ana Mendieta
- Carolee Schneemann
- Secondaryc. 1967–1972
Arte Povera
"Poor" materials, radical ideas — art against consumer culture.
- Michelangelo Pistoletto
- Jannis Kounellis
- Mario Merz
- Alighiero Boetti
- Marisa Merz
- Secondaryc. 1960s–1970s
Photorealism
Painting imitates the camera with obsessive precision.
- Chuck Close
- Richard Estes
- Audrey Flack
- Ralph Goings
- Duane Hanson
- Secondaryc. 1970s–1990s
Postmodernism
Art questions everything: originality, authorship, taste, and power.
- Cindy Sherman
- Barbara Kruger
- Jeff Koons
- Sherrie Levine
- Jenny Holzer