Happy Scribbles Kids Art Site

Art Timeline

Art Through Time

30,000 BC - 3000 BC: Prehistoric Art

30,000 BC - 10,000 BC: Paleolithic (Old Stone Age)
Cave paintings and small sculptures.

10,000 - 8000 BC: Mesolithic (Middle Stone Age) People paint (with animal fat and dirt) themes about hunting and farming.

8000 - 3000 BC: Neolithic (New Stone Age)
People build simple architectural places and use pottery to decorate. Prehistoric art continues in several parts of the world.

3000 BC - 331 BC Ancient Civilizations

3500 - 331 BC: Mesopotamian Art

~3500 - 1750 BC: Sumerian/Akkadian
~1000 - 539 BC: Assyrian/Neo-Babylonian
~539 - 331 BC: Persian

People do bronze sculptures, wooden musical instruments and rock carvings. 

3200 - 1070 BC: Egyptian Art

~3200 - 2185 BC: Old Kingdom
~2040 - 1650 BC: Middle Kingdom
~1550 - 1070 BC: New Kingdom
~1370 - 1340 BC: Amarna Art

People create sculptures and paintings to decorate tombs (they strongly belief in the afterlife). Sandstone is used to construct The Great Sphinx and the base of the temples and pyramids are formed by limestone.

3000 - 1100 BC: Aegean Art

~3000 - 1475 BC: Minoan (Crete)
~1650 - 1100 BC: Mycenean (Greece)

Aegean art is created. Beautiful ceramic ware and wonderful wall murals.

Non-Western Styles
1766 - 1045 BC: Shang Dynasty, China
1045 - 256 BC: Zhou Dynasty, China   

800 BC - 337 AD: Classical Civilizations

800 - 323 BC: Greek Art

Greeks create well proportioned male and female statues. Vase painting grows and The Parthenon is built and columns are used.

323-150 BC: Hellenistic Art

The Etruscans make sculptures and pottery for funeral offerings. Art is symbolic emotions.
6th - 5th century BC: Etruscan Art

509 BC - 337 AD: Roman Art

Romans take over Greece and destroy many Greek
sculptures, yet they build with similar art concepts large scale mosaics, arches and fresco paintings.

Non-Western Styles
800 BC - 600 AD Olmec, Mexico
100 - 200 AD Zapotec, Mexico
2nd - 3rd c. AD Gandhara, India  

622 - 900 Islamic Art

Islamic mosques are constructed.

732 - 900 Carolingian Art

Manuscripts are created.

900 – 1050 Ottonian Art
1000 - 1140 Romanesque Style

French Cathedrals, symbolism and large statues. Gothic style starts by using art to embellish.

Non-Western Styles
320 - 647 Gupta, India
300 – 1500 Mayan, Mexico
618 - 907 Tang, China
645 - 791 Nara, Japan
960 - 1279 Song, China
1185 – 1333 Kamakura, Japan
1350 - 1520 Aztec, Mexico
1100 - 1532 Inca, Peru

1400 – 1800 Renaissance/Baroque

1400 - 1600 Renaissance

Art is born again in Italy and moves through Western Europe. The Renaissance begins and oil painting. The Mona Lisa and The Sistine Chapel ceiling are created.

1600 - 1700 Baroque

Emotional and dramatic art is made. Bold self-portraits, curvy figures and genre paintings are popular.

1700 - 1750 Rococo

A more playful and relaxed style of art starts in France.

Non-Western Styles
1368 - 1644 Ming, China
1392 - 1573 Muromachi, Japan
1550 - 1680 Benin, Africa
1615 - 1868 Edo, Japan
1644 - 1912 Qing, China 

1800 - 1880 Pre-Modern Styles

1750 - 1880 Neo-Classicism

In Rome Neo-Classicism starts and Roman history scenes are popular as well as copies of antique art. Artist Jackques Louis David records the French Revolution.

1800 - 1880 Romanticism

Bold brush strokes and rich colors are used to appeal to the senses.

1830's - 1870 Realism

Life and nature is captured.

1848 – 1854 Pre-Raphaelites /Victorians

Photography is invented.

1870's - 1890's Impressionism

Artists care more about the effects of light on objects and do most of their artwork outdoors.

1880 – 1945 Modernism

1880 – 1920’s Post Impressionism

Used to describe the work of artists with a freely expressive use of form and color. 

1890’s – 1920’s Expressionism

Emotions were depicted and primitive art is important.

1903-1907 Fauvism

Artists known as wild beasts are part of this art movement.

1904-1939 Cubism

Pablo Picasso & Georges Braque created Cubism. Cube like shapes of images are put on canvases and collages are made.

1916 -1922 Dada

Ordinary objects are signed and called art. This word in French means hobbyhorse.

1920s – 1940’s Bauhaus

Some of the concepts of Cubism are used in architecture and art, influenced by a German school of design.
1920s - 1940's Harlem Renaissance
1924 - 1930s Surrealism

Art is made in a sort of strange dream like world.  

1945 – Present: Modern to Post-Modern

1945 – Present: Abstract Expressionism

Non-recognizable subjects in art.

1950’s/1960’s: Op Art

Art showing optical illusions. Cultural images are popular.

1960’s – Present: Pop Art

1970’s – Present: Minimalism/Conceptual/ Performance art

Minimalism returns to art.

1980’s – present: Conceptual/Post-Modern/ Contemporary Art

Art is experienced through different known concepts to digital art.