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125-686: Art of Central Asia Art of East Asia Art of South Asia Art of Southeast Asia Art of Europe Art of Africa Art of the Americas Art of Oceania The history of Western painting represents a continuous, though disrupted, tradition from antiquity until the present time. Until the mid-19th century it was primarily concerned with representational and traditional modes of production, after which time more modern , abstract and conceptual forms gained favor. Initially serving imperial, private, civic, and religious patronage, Western painting later found audiences in

250-593: A nomadic people who lived in Central Asia , the Caucasus , and Eastern Europe between the 4th and 6th century AD. The nomadic nature of Hun society means that they have left very little in the archaeological record. Archaeological finds have produced a large number of cauldrons that have since the work of Paul Reinecke in 1896 been identified as having been produced by the Huns. Although typically described as "bronze cauldrons",

375-432: A "dado" of lines or ornament beneath the main image, typical of Minoan painting . In MM III, from c. 1700 on a class of " talismanic seals" appear, that are thought to have had a magical function. Often they are too deeply cut to be very effective in sealing, and may have been just carried as amulets . They are less often found outside Crete than other types. Their designs are typically bold and deeply cut, "executed in

500-478: A 'single bird'. In a large group of sealings from the palace at Phaistos that seem to be early MM II, or around 1800 BC, over two thirds of the nearly 300 designs abstract patterns, some very simple, but others complicated and sophisticated. The sharp curving of bodies, typical of human bull-leaper figures, is often seen in animals in round images, though others are seen in a natural profile. Some seals seem to show their dependence on images from frescos by having

625-518: A 5–6 meter tall statue (which had to be seated to fit within the height of the columns supporting the Temple). Since the sandal of the foot fragment bears the symbolic depiction of Zeus ' thunderbolt , the statue is thought to have been a smaller version of the Statue of Zeus at Olympia . Due to the lack of proper stones for sculptural work in the area of Ai-Khanoum, unbaked clay and stucco modeled on

750-464: A brisk and time-saving technique". What may be a regional style on large sealings from Zakros in LM I has exotic hybrid monsters such as "Eagle Ladies", a pair of breasts with wings and either a bird's head or a helmet with no head. Another has male human legs, bird's wings and a horned goat's head, and a third large breasts, the wings of a butterfly, a human head with crown and animal legs. Though "no doubt

875-607: A change in the court artists and general artistic fashion. The 1730s represented the height of Rococo development in France exemplified by the works of Antoine Watteau and François Boucher . Rococo still maintained the Baroque taste for complex forms and intricate patterns, but by this point, it had begun to integrate a variety of diverse characteristics, including a taste for Oriental designs and asymmetric compositions. The Rococo style spread with French artists and engraved publications. It

1000-495: A characteristic appearance, with belted jackets with a unique lapel of their tunic being folded on the right side, a style which became popular under the Hephthalites, the cropped hair, the hair accessories, their distinctive physionomy and their round beardless faces. The figures at Bamiyan must represent the donors and potentates who supported the building of the monumental giant Buddha. These remarkable paintings participate "to

1125-513: A citadel, a Classical theater, a huge palace in Greco-Bactrian architecture, somehow reminiscent of formal Persian palatial architecture, a gymnasium (100 × 100m), one of the largest of Antiquity, various temples, a mosaic representing the Macedonian sun, acanthus leaves and various animals (crabs, dolphins etc...), numerous remains of Classical Corinthian columns. Many artifacts are dated to

1250-759: A complex of peoples known collectively in India as the Huna , and in Europe as the Chionites (from the Iranian names Xwn / Xyon ), and may even be considered as identical to the Chionites. The 5th century Byzantine historian Priscus called them Kidarites Huns, or "Huns who are Kidarites". The Huna/ Xionite tribes are often linked, albeit controversially, to the Huns who invaded Eastern Europe during

1375-637: A deep intense tonality. The illusion of glowing light with a porcelain-like finish characterized Early Netherlandish painting and was a major difference to the matte surface of tempera paint used in Italy. Unlike the Italians, whose work drew heavily from the art of ancient Rome, the northerners retained a stylistic residue of the sculpture and illuminated manuscripts of the Middle Ages (especially its naturalism). Another important Netherlandish painter of this period

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1500-407: A few years in the late 1880s Pissarro adopted some of his methods. Van Gogh's turbulent method of paint application, coupled with a sonorous use of color, predicted Expressionism and Fauvism , and Cézanne, desiring to unite classical composition with a revolutionary abstraction of natural forms, would come to be seen as a precursor of 20th-century art. The spell of Impressionism was felt throughout

1625-424: A grave. Archaeological finds indicate that the Huns wore gold plaques as ornaments on their clothing, as well as imported glass beads. Ammianus reports that they wore clothes made of linen or the furs of marmots and leggings of goatskin. The Kidarites , or "Kidara Huns", were a dynasty that ruled Bactria and adjoining parts of Central Asia and South Asia in the 4th and 5th centuries. The Kidarites belonged to

1750-452: A hieratic feeling and icons were and still are seen as a representation of divine revelation. There were many frescos , but fewer of these have survived than mosaics . Byzantine art has been compared to contemporary abstraction , in its flatness and highly stylised depictions of figures and landscape. Some periods of Byzantine art, especially the so-called Macedonian art of around the 10th century, are more flexible in approach. Frescoes of

1875-525: A higher level through the use of perspective , the study of human anatomy and proportion, and through their development of an unprecedented refinement in drawing and painting techniques. A somewhat more naturalistic High Renaissance style emerged in Venice . Painters of the Venetian school , such as Giovanni Bellini , Giorgione , Titian , and Veronese , were less concerned with precision in their drawing than with

2000-471: A means of personal expression in the work of painters like Francisco de Goya , John Constable , and J. M. W. Turner . Romantic painters turned landscape painting into a major genre, considered until then as a minor genre or as a decorative background for figure compositions. Some of the major painters of this period are Eugène Delacroix , Théodore Géricault , J. M. W. Turner, Caspar David Friedrich and John Constable. Francisco Goya's late work demonstrates

2125-535: A native and nearly insular realism, as richly embodied in the figurative work of Thomas Eakins , the Ashcan School , and the landscapes and seascapes of Winslow Homer , all of whose paintings were deeply invested in the solidity of natural forms. The visionary landscape, a motive largely dependent on the ambiguity of the nocturne, found its advocates in Albert Pinkham Ryder and Ralph Albert Blakelock . In

2250-479: A new verisimilitude in depicting this naturalism. The medium of oil paint was already present in the work of Melchior Broederlam (who died in 1409), but Robert Campin (previously known as the Master of Flémalle ) and van Eyck brought its use to new heights and employed it to represent the naturalism for which they were aiming. With this new medium, the painters of this period were capable of creating richer colors with

2375-415: A new character and slim, fashionably dressed court women were shown in their landscapes. This style soon became known as International Gothic style and was dominant from 1375 to 1425 with and tempera panel paintings and altarpieces gaining importance. The Renaissance (French for 'rebirth'), a cultural movement roughly spanning the 14th through the mid-17th century, was driven by Renaissance humanism and

2500-547: A particularly informative glimpse into the way society in ancient Greece functioned. Many fine examples of black-figure vase painting and red-figure vase painting still exist. Some famous Greek painters who worked on wood panels and are mentioned in texts are Apelles , Zeuxis and Parrhasius ; however, with the single exception of the Pitsa panels , no examples of ancient Greek panel painting survive, only written descriptions by their contemporaries or later Romans. Zeuxis lived in

2625-583: A rather larger number of copies of them from the Early Medieval period. The rise of Christianity imparted a different spirit and aim to painting styles. Byzantine art , once its style was established by the 6th century, placed great emphasis on retaining traditional iconography and style, and gradually evolved during the thousand years of the Byzantine Empire and the living traditions of Greek and Russian Orthodox icon -painting. Byzantine painting has

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2750-489: A round medallion plate describing the goddess Cybele on a chariot, in front of a fire altar, and under a depiction of Helios , a fully preserved bronze statue of Herakles , various golden serpentine arm jewellery and earrings, a toilet tray representing a seated Aphrodite , a mold representing a bearded and diademed middle-aged man. Various artefacts of daily life are also clearly Hellenistic: sundials , ink wells, tableware. An almost life-sized dark green glass phallus with

2875-477: A similar period. They are entirely different from the Hephthalites , who replaced them about a century later. The Hephthalites ( Bactrian : ηβοδαλο , romanized:  Ebodalo ), sometimes called the "White Huns", were a people who lived in Central Asia during the 5th to 8th centuries. They existed as an Empire, the "Imperial Hephthalites", and were militarily important from 450 AD, when they defeated

3000-816: A small owl on the back side and other treasures are said to have been discovered at Ai-Khanoum, possibly along with a stone with an inscription, which was not recovered. The artefacts have now been returned to the Kabul Museum after several years in Switzerland by Paul Bucherer-Dietschi, Director of the Swiss Afghanistan Institute. Some traces remain of the presence of the Kushans in the areas of Bactria and Sogdiana . Archaeological structures are known in Takht-I-Sangin , Surkh Kotal (a monumental temple), and in

3125-469: A strong Byzantine influence and an aspiration to recover classical monumentality and poise. Walls of Romanesque and Gothic churches were decorated with frescoes as well as sculpture and many of the few remaining murals have great intensity, and combine the decorative energy of Insular art with a new monumentality in the treatment of figures. Far more miniatures in Illuminated manuscripts survive from

3250-433: A thin circular edge, and there are many "prism" ones with three flat faces. A seal-carving workshop from MM I excavated at Malia mostly made this type; here, as throughout the surviving seals, there are wide variations in the quality of the carving. Often seals are pierced, so they can be worn around the neck or wrist on a string. Probably many early examples were in wood, and have not survived. Ivory and soft stone were

3375-430: A total of six known Hunnish diadems. Hunnic women seem to have worn necklaces and bracelets of mostly imported beads of various materials as well. The later common early medieval practice of decorating jewelry and weapons with gemstones appears to have originated with the Huns. They are also known to have made small mirrors of an originally Chinese type, which often appear to have been intentionally broken when placed into

3500-589: A wooden frame were often used, a technique which would become widespread in Central Asia and the East, especially in Buddhist art . In some cases, only the hands and feet would be made in marble. In India, only a few Hellenistic sculptural remains have been found, mainly small items in the excavations of Sirkap. A variety of artefacts of Hellenistic style, often with Persian influence, were also excavated at Ai-Khanoum, such as

3625-529: Is often bilingual, combining Greek with the Indian Brahmi script or Kharoshthi . Apart from Ai-Khanoum, Indo-Greek ruins have been positively identified in few cities such as Barikot or Taxila , with generally much fewer known artistic remains. Numerous artefacts and structures were found, particularly in Ai-Khanoum, pointing to a high Hellenistic culture, combined with Eastern influences, starting from

3750-691: The Early Renaissance . In the Flanders area of the Low Countries, following developments made in the illumination of manuscripts , especially by the Limbourg Brothers , who died in 1416, artists became fascinated by the tangible in the visible world and began representing objects in an extremely naturalistic way. The adoption of oil painting whose first use on panel paintings was traditionally, but erroneously, credited to Jan van Eyck , made possible

3875-462: The Gravettian . Most of these statuettes show stylized clothes. Quite often the face is depicted. The tradition of Upper Paleolithic portable statuettes being almost exclusively European, it has been suggested that Mal'ta had some kind of cultural and cultic connection with Europe during that time period, but this remains unsettled. The Bactria–Margiana Archaeological Complex (BMAC, also known as

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4000-548: The Kidarites , to 560 AD, date of their defeat to combined First Turkic Khaganate and Sasanian Empire forces. The Hepthalites appears in several mural paintings in the area of Tokharistan , especially in banquet scenes at Balalyk tepe and as donors to the Buddha in the ceiling painting of the 35-meter Buddha at the Buddhas of Bamiyan . Several of the figures in these paintings have

4125-843: The Mal'ta culture and slightly later the Afontova Gora-Oshurkovo culture . The Mal'ta culture culture, centered around at Mal'ta , at the Angara River , near Lake Baikal in Irkutsk Oblast , Southern Siberia , and located at the northeastern periphery of Central Asia, created some of the first works of art in the Upper Paleolithic period, with objects such as the Venus figurines of Mal'ta . These figures consist most often of mammoth ivory. The figures are about 23,000 years old and stem from

4250-627: The Russian Symbolists such as Mikhail Vrubel . Central Asian art Art of Central Asia Art of East Asia Art of South Asia Art of Southeast Asia Art of Europe Art of Africa Art of the Americas Art of Oceania Central Asian art is visual art created in Central Asia , in areas corresponding to modern Kyrgyzstan , Kazakhstan , Uzbekistan , Turkmenistan , Tajikistan , Afghanistan , and parts of modern Mongolia, China and Russia. The art of ancient and medieval Central Asia reflects

4375-771: The Siberian permafrost , in the Altay Mountains , Kazakhstan and nearby Mongolia . The mummies are buried in long barrows (or kurgans ) similar to the tomb mounds of Scythian culture in Ukraine . The type site are the Pazyryk burials of the Ukok Plateau . Many artifacts and human remains have been found at this location, including the Siberian Ice Princess , indicating a flourishing culture at this location that benefited from

4500-630: The Soviet archaeologist Viktor Sarianidi (1976). Bactria was the Greek name for Old Persian Bāxtriš (from native * Bāxçiš ) (named for its capital Bactra, modern Balkh ), in what is now northern Afghanistan, and Margiana was the Greek name for the Persian satrapy of Margu , the capital of which was Merv , in today's Turkmenistan. Fertility goddesses, named "Bactrian princesses", made from limestone, chlorite and clay reflect agrarian Bronze Age society, while

4625-767: The ancient Middle East . Roundels containing a dot serve the same purpose on the stag and other animal renderings executed by contemporary Śaka metalworkers. Animal processions of the Assyro-Achaemenian type also appealed to many Central Asian tribesmen and are featured in their arts. Certain geometric designs and sun symbols , such as the circle and rosette , recur at Pazyryk but are completely outnumbered by animal motifs. The stag and its relatives figure as prominently as in Altai-Sayan. Combat scenes between carnivores and herbivores are exceedingly numerous in Pazyryk work;

4750-644: The aristocracy and the middle class. From the Middle Ages through the Renaissance painters worked for the church and a wealthy aristocracy. Beginning with the Baroque era artists received private commissions from a more educated and prosperous middle class. The idea of " art for art's sake " began to find expression in the work of the Romantic painters like Francisco de Goya , John Constable , and J. M. W. Turner . During

4875-462: The griffin , sphinx and Minoan Genius also appear. Figurative designs gradually become more complicated, to include dance and goddesses . One common iconographic motif in Minoan art , especially frescoes , is bull-leaping ; the example illustrated shows leapers and a bull. Other themes are varied, including for example: 'pottery and a plant'-(with 5 moon/planet crescents), ' confronted -goats', and

5000-479: The "Oxus civilization") is the modern archaeological designation for a Bronze Age archaeological culture of Central Asia , dated to c. 2200–1700 BC, located in present-day eastern Turkmenistan , northern Afghanistan, southern Uzbekistan and western Tajikistan , centred on the upper Amu Darya (known to the ancient Greeks as the Oxus River), an area covering ancient Bactria. Its sites were discovered and named by

5125-526: The 1490s, traveled to Italy to see works of the Italian High Renaissance and they incorporated the features of the Italian art into their own to varying degrees. A generation later, the start of genre painting as a subject for large works began with Peter Aertsen and Pieter Bruegel . A later generation of Northern Renaissance painters who traveled to Rome and adopted much of the idealized approach of

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5250-401: The 17th century. Among the greatest painters of the Baroque are Rubens , Velázquez , Rembrandt , Frans Hals , Johannes Vermeer , Le Nain , Jusepe de Ribera , Poussin , Tour , and Claude Lorraine , who focused on landscape painting. Poussin, Claude and La Tour, all French, adopted a "classical" Baroque style with less focus on emotion and greater attention to the outine of the figures in

5375-478: The 19th century commercial galleries became established and continued to provide patronage in the 20th century. Western painting reached its zenith in Europe during the Renaissance, in conjunction with the refinement of drawing, use of perspective , ambitious architecture, tapestry , stained glass , sculpture, and the period before and after the advent of the printing press . Following the depth of discovery and

5500-709: The 280–250 BC period. Overall, Aï-Khanoum was an extremely important Greek city (1.5 sq kilometer), characteristic of the Seleucid Empire and then the Greco-Bactrian Kingdom , remaining one of the major cities at the time when the Greek kings started to occupy parts of India, from 200 to 145 BC. It seems the city was destroyed, never to be rebuilt, about the time of the death of king Eucratides around 145 BC. Archaeological missions unearthed various structures, some of them perfectly Hellenistic, some other integrating elements of Persian architecture , including

5625-515: The 2nd century BC, which corresponds to the early Indo-Greek period. Various sculptural fragments were also found at Ai-Khanoum , in a rather conventional, classical style, rather impervious to the Hellenizing innovations occurring at the same time in the Mediterranean world. Of special notice, a huge foot fragment in excellent Hellenistic style was recovered, which is estimated to have belonged to

5750-887: The 5th century BC and was said to be the first to use sfumato . According to Pliny the Elder , the realism of his paintings was such that birds tried to eat the painted grapes. Apelles is described as the greatest painter of antiquity , and is noted for perfect technique in drawing, brilliant color, and modeling. Roman art was influenced by Greece and can in part be taken as a descendant of ancient Greek painting. However, Roman painting does have important unique characteristics. Surviving Roman paintings include wall paintings and frescoes , many from villas in Campania , in Southern Italy at sites such as Pompeii and Herculaneum . Such painting can be grouped into 4 main "styles" or periods and may contain

5875-537: The 8th century BC. The Chinese adopted the Scythian-style animal art of the steppes (descriptions of animals locked in combat), particularly the rectangular belt-plaques made of gold or bronze, and created their own versions in jade and steatite . Following their expulsion by the Yuezhi , some Saka may also have migrated to the area of Yunnan in southern China. Saka warriors could also have served as mercenaries for

6000-439: The Greek mainland at this point, so these objects, usually thought to be of Minoan workmanship, were apparently treated as jewellery for women. The tholos or beehive tomb at Vaphio (or Vapheio) near Sparta is another famous find that has generated much discussion as to the origin of many pieces; the two gold cups are now usually thought to be Cretan in the case of one, and the other Mycenaen, made to match. The 43 seals in

6125-559: The Italian Renaissance became known as Romanists . Renaissance painting reflects the revolution of ideas and science ( astronomy , geography ) that occurred in this period, the Reformation , and the invention of the printing press . Printmaking became increasingly important, and practiced by many painters. Dürer, considered one of the greatest of printmakers, states that painters are not mere artisans but thinkers as well. With

6250-565: The Minoan culture remain rather mysterious. Sinclair Hood described an "essential quality of the finest Minoan art, the ability to create an atmosphere of movement and life although following a set of highly formal conventions". The largest and best collection of Minoan art is in the Heraklion Archaeological Museum ("AMH") near Knossos , on the northern coast of Crete. Minoan art and other remnants of material culture , especially

6375-1082: The Palaeologian Renaissance of the early 14th century survive in the Chora Church in Istanbul. In post-Antique Catholic Europe the first distinctive artistic style to emerge that included painting was the Insular art of the British Isles, where the only surviving examples are miniatures in Illuminated manuscripts such as the Book of Kells . These are most famous for their abstract decoration, although figures, and sometimes scenes, were also depicted, especially in Evangelist portraits . Carolingian and Ottonian art also survives mostly in manuscripts, although some wall-painting remain, and more are documented. The art of this period combines Insular and "barbarian" influences with

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6500-545: The Pazyryk beasts are locked in such bitter fights that the victim's hindquarters become inverted. Tribes of Europoid type appear to have been active in Mongolia and Southern Siberia from ancient times. They were in contact with China and were often described for their foreign features. The art of the Saka was of a similar styles as other Iranian peoples of the steppes, which is referred to collectively as Scythian art . In 2001,

6625-532: The Pazyryk burials include the oldest woollen knotted-pile carpet known, the oldest embroidered Chinese silk, and two pieces of woven Persian fabric (State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg). Red and ochre predominate in the carpet, the main design of which is of riders, stags, and griffins. Many of the Pazyryk felt hangings, saddlecloths, and cushions were covered with elaborate designs executed in appliqué feltwork, dyed furs, and embroidery. Of exceptional interest are those with animal and human figural compositions,

6750-443: The Rococo era Jean-Baptiste Greuze (the favorite painter of Denis Diderot ), excelled in portraits and history paintings , and Maurice Quentin de La Tour and Élisabeth Vigée-Lebrun were highly accomplished portrait painters . La Tour specialized in pastel painting, which became a popular medium during this period. William Hogarth helped develop a theoretical foundation for Rococo beauty. Though not intentionally referencing

6875-442: The Romantic interest in the irrational, the work of Arnold Böcklin evokes mystery, the work of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood in England combines assiduous devotion to nature with nostalgia for medieval culture, and the paintings of Aesthetic movement artist James Abbott McNeill Whistler evoke sophistication, decadence , and the philosophy of "art for art's sake". In the United States the Romantic tradition of landscape painting

7000-605: The Tokharistan school such as Balalyk tepe , in the depiction of clothes, and especially in the treatment of the faces. Minoan seals Minoan seals are of a small size, 'pocket-size', in the manner of a personal amulet. Many of the images are a similar size to a human fingernail, with a high proportion that of the nail of a little finger. They might be thought of as equivalent to the pocket-sized, 1 inch (3 cm) scaraboid seals of Ancient Egypt , which were sometimes imitated in Crete. However Minoan seals can be larger, with largest examples of many inches. Minoan seals are

7125-467: The art of Gandhara, thanks to the patronage of the Kushans . The Kushans apparently favoured royal portraiture, as can be seen in their coins and their dynastic sculptures. A monumental sculpture of King Kanishka I has been found in Mathura in northern India, which is characterized by its frontality and martial stance, as he holds firmly his sword and a mace. His heavy coat and riding boots are typically nomadic Central Asian, and are way too heavy for

7250-457: The art of the cities of Ai-Khanoum and Nysa . At Khalchayan, rows of in-the-round terracotta statues showed Kushan princes in dignified attitudes, while some of the sculptural scenes are thought to depict the Kushans fighting against the Sakas . The Yuezis are shown with a majestic demeanour, whereas the Sakas are typically represented with side- wiskers , displaying expressive and sometimes grotesque features. According to Benjamin Rowland,

7375-438: The art. Blondel decried the "ridiculous jumble of shells, dragons, reeds, palm-trees and plants" in contemporary interiors. By 1785, Rococo had passed out of fashion in France, replaced by the order and seriousness of Neoclassical artists such as Jacques-Louis David , whose imposing history paintings depicting both historical and contemporary events embodied the ideals of the French Revolution . After Rococo there arose in

7500-400: The artistic tradition of the Hephthalite ruling classes of Tukharistan ". The paintings related to the Hephthalites have often been grouped under the appellation of "Tokharistan school of art", or the "Hephthalite stage in the History of Central Asia Art". The paintings of Tavka Kurgan , of very high quality, also belong to this school of art, and are closely related to other paintings of

7625-464: The cauldrons are often made of copper, which is generally of poor quality. Maenchen-Helfen lists 19 known finds of Hunnish cauldrons from all over Central and Eastern Europe and Western Siberia. They come in various shapes, and are sometimes found together with vessels of various other origins. Both ancient sources and archaeological finds from graves confirm that the Huns wore elaborately decorated golden or gold-plated diadems . Maenchen-Helfen lists

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7750-590: The century. In place of the balanced compositions and rational approach to perspective that characterized art at the dawn of the 16th century, the Mannerists sought instability, artifice, and doubt. The calm Virgins of Raphael and serene expressions of Leonardo's subjects are replaced by the troubled expressions of Pontormo and the emotional intensity of El Greco . Restless and unstable compositions, often extreme or disjunctive effects of perspective, and stylized poses are characteristic of Italian Mannerists such as Tintoretto , Pontormo, and Bronzino , and appeared later in

7875-456: The chiaroscuro and dark backgrounds derived from Caravaggio and the Utrecht Caravaggists lose their theatrical quality. Dutch Baroque painting is often referred to as Dutch Golden Age Painting . During the 18th century, Rococo painting followed as a lighter extension of Baroque, often frivolous and erotic and using light pastel colours. Rococo developed first in the decorative arts and interior design in France. Louis XV 's succession brought

8000-653: The complexity of innovations of the Renaissance, the rich heritage of Western painting continued from the Baroque period to Contemporary art . The history of painting reaches back in time to artifacts from pre-historic artists, and spans all cultures. The oldest known paintings are at the Grotte Chauvet in France, claimed by some historians to be about 32,000 years old. They are engraved and painted using red ochre and black pigment and show horses, rhinoceros, lions, buffalo, mammoth, or humans often hunting. Prehistoric European cave paintings share common themes with other prehistoric paintings that have been found throughout

8125-410: The continent, can also be found in Kofun era Japan. Margiana and Bactria belonged to the Medes for a time, and were then annexed to the Achaemenid Empire by Cyrus the Great in sixth century BC , forming the twelfth satrapy of Persia. Under Persian rule, many Greeks were deported to Bactria, so that their communities and language became common in the area. During the reign of Darius I ,

8250-441: The conventional subject matter and licked finish of academic art , but inspired many younger artists. The leading Barbizon School painter Jean-François Millet also painted landscapes and scenes of peasant life. Loosely associated with the Barbizon School was Camille Corot , who painted in both a romantic and a realistic vein; his work prefigures Impressionism , as did the paintings of Johan Jongkind and Eugène Boudin (who

8375-450: The depiction of volume in his figures, and in portraying emotions on the faces of his figures in the 1420s. Then, artists such as Paolo Uccello , Fra Angelico , Piero della Francesca , Andrea Mantegna , Filippo Lippi , and Sandro Botticelli , in the Early Renaissance period lasting to about 1495, and then Leonardo da Vinci , Michelangelo Buonarroti , and Raphael during the High Renaissance from about 1495 to 1520, took painting to

8500-546: The designs had some magical import", there seems also to be a strong element of whimsical fantasy. When metal, mostly as gold rings, was used, complex designs with many figures were possible. At Mycenae , the shaft grave circles A and B are groups of elite burials with rich grave goods that include many seals that are thought to be Minoan, certainly in terms of their tradition, and probably in terms of their place of manufacture. For Sinclair Hood , these objects (specifically those from Circle A) "raise in an acute form

8625-401: The development of easel painting in the Renaissance, painting gained independence from architecture. Easel paintings—movable pictures which could be hung easily on walls—became a popular alternative to paintings fixed to furniture, walls or other structures. Following centuries dominated by religious imagery, secular subject matter slowly returned to Western painting. Artists included visions of

8750-462: The discovery of an undisturbed royal Scythian burial-barrow illustrated Scythian animal-style gold that lacks the direct influence of Greek styles. Forty-four pounds of gold weighed down the royal couple in this burial, discovered near Kyzyl , capital of the Siberian republic of Tuva . Ancient influences from Central Asia became identifiable in China following contacts of metropolitan China with nomadic western and northwestern border territories from

8875-447: The expense of the declining Kushans . They captured the provinces of Sogdiana , Bactria and Gandhara from the Kushans in 225 AD. The Kushano-Sassanids traded goods such as silverware and textiles depicting the Sassanid emperors engaged in hunting or administering justice. The example of Sassanid art was influential on Kushan art, and this influence remained active for several centuries in northwest South Asia. The Huns were

9000-520: The extensive corpus of metal objects point to a sophisticated tradition of metalworking. Wearing large stylised dresses, as well as headdresses that merge with the hair, "Bactrian princesses" embody the ranking goddess, character of the central Asian mythology that plays a regulatory role, pacifying the untamed forces. The Pazyryk culture is a Scythian nomadic Iron Age archaeological culture (of Iranian origin; c. 6th to 3rd centuries BC) identified by excavated artifacts and mummified humans found in

9125-691: The famous head of a Yuezhi prince from Khalchayan, and the head of Gandharan Bodhisattvas , giving the example of the Gandharan head of a Bodhisattva in the Philadelphia Museum of Art . The similarity of the Gandhara Bodhisattva with the portrait of the Kushan ruler Heraios is also striking. According to Rowland the Bactrian art of Khalchayan thus survived for several centuries through its influence in

9250-571: The first examples of trompe-l'œil , pseudo-perspective, and pure landscape. Almost the only painted portraits surviving from the ancient world are a large number of coffin-portraits of bust form found in the Egyptian cemetery of Al-Fayum . Although these were neither of the best period nor the highest quality, they are impressive in themselves, and give an idea of the quality that the finest ancient work must have had. A very small number of miniatures from Late Antique illustrated books also survive, and

9375-771: The human subject. Both Manet and Degas reinterpreted classical figurative canons within contemporary situations; in Manet's case the re-imaginings met with hostile public reception. Renoir, Morisot, and Cassatt turned to domestic life for inspiration, with Renoir focusing on the female nude. While Sisley most closely adhered to the original principals of the Impressionist perception of the landscape, Monet sought challenges in increasingly chromatic and changeable conditions, culminating in his series of monumental works of Water Lilies painted in Giverny . Post-Impressionists such as Paul Cézanne and

9500-699: The inhabitants of the Greek city of Barca , in Cyrenaica , were deported to Bactria for refusing to surrender assassins. In addition, Xerxes also settled the "Branchidae" in Bactria; they were the descendants of Greek priests who had once lived near Didyma (western Asia Minor) and betrayed the temple to him. Herodotus also records a Persian commander threatening to enslave daughters of the revolting Ionians and send them to Bactria. Persia subsequently conscripted Greek men from these settlements in Bactria into their military, as did Alexander later. The Greco-Bactrians ruled

9625-517: The last decade of the century. Caravaggio is recognized as one of the greatest Baroque painters and an heir of the humanist painting of the High Renaissance . His realistic approach to the human figure, painted directly from life and dramatically spotlit against a dark background, shocked his contemporaries and opened a new chapter in the history of painting. Baroque was the dominant style of painting beginning around 1600 and continuing throughout

9750-459: The late 18th century, in architecture, and then in painting severe neo-classicism , best represented by such artists as David and his heir Ingres . Ingres' work already contains much of the sensuality, but none of the spontaneity, that was to characterize Romanticism . By the mid-19th century, painters became liberated from the demands of their patronage to only depict scenes from religion, mythology, portraiture or history. Art became more purely

9875-528: The late 19th century there also were several, rather dissimilar, groups of Symbolist painters whose works resonated with younger artists of the 20th century, especially with the Fauvists and the Surrealists . Among them were Gustave Moreau , Odilon Redon , Pierre Puvis de Chavannes , Henri Fantin-Latour , Arnold Böcklin , Ferdinand Hodler , Edvard Munch , Félicien Rops , Jan Toorop , and Gustav Klimt , and

10000-513: The late second millennium BC until very recently, the grasslands of Central Asia – stretching from the Caspian Sea to central China and from southern Russia to northern India – have been home to migrating herders who practised mixed economies on the margins of sedentary societies. The prehistoric 'animal style' art of these pastoral nomads not only demonstrates their zoomorphic mythologies and shamanic traditions but also their fluidity in incorporating

10125-455: The main surviving materials for early seals, the body of which were quite often formed as animals or birds. From the Middle Minoan period fast rotary drills were used, enabling harder stones to be utilized. Later, some are extremely fine engraved gems ; other seals are in gold, usually on signet rings . The subjects shown cover the full range of Minoan art. The so-called Theseus Ring

10250-506: The mainland conquest of Crete c. 1450". In 2015, an international team of archaeologists led by University of Cincinnati researchers discovered the Griffin Warrior Tomb , an undisturbed Bronze Age warrior's tomb at Pylos in southwestern Greece. The grave contained more than 50 gold or hardstone seal-stones, with intricate carvings in Minoan style showing goddesses, altars, reeds, lions and bulls, some with bull-jumpers soaring over

10375-408: The many trade routes and caravans of merchants passing through the area. The Pazyryk are considered to have had a war-like life. Other kurgan cemeteries associated with the culture include those of Bashadar, Tuekta, Ulandryk, Polosmak and Berel . There are so far no known sites of settlements associated with the burials, suggesting a purely nomadic lifestyle. The remarkable textiles recovered from

10500-414: The modern world, sometimes painted with little or no preparatory study, relying on deftness of drawing and a highly chromatic palette. Monet, Pissarro, and Sisley used the landscape as their primary motif, the transience of light and weather playing a major role in their work. Following a practice that had become increasingly popular by mid-century, they often ventured into the countryside together to paint in

10625-449: The most common surviving type of Minoan art after pottery, with several thousand known, from EM II onwards, in addition to over a thousand impressions, few of which match surviving seals. Cylinder seals are common in early periods, much less so later. Seals with different shapes and multiple faces are especially common, unusually so by comparison with later and neighbouring cultures: " lentoid " ones have two faces, usually curving towards

10750-678: The most notable of which are the repeat design of an investiture scene on a felt hanging and that of a semi-human, semi-bird creature on another (both in the State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg ). Clothing, whether of felt, leather, or fur, was also lavishly ornamented. Horse reins either had animal designs cut out on them or were studded with wooden ones covered in gold foil. Their tail sheaths were ornamented, as were their headpieces and breast pieces. Some horses were provided with leather or felt masks made to resemble animals, with stag antlers or rams' horns often incorporated in them. Many of

10875-422: The move towards naturalism. Churches were built with more and more windows and the use of colorful stained glass become a staple in decoration. One of the most famous examples of this is found in the cathedral of Notre Dame de Paris . By the 14th century Western societies were both richer and more cultivated and painters found new patrons in the nobility and even the bourgeoisie . Illuminated manuscripts took on

11000-518: The movement, he argued in his Analysis of Beauty (1753) that the undulating lines and S-curves prominent in Rococo were the basis for grace and beauty in art or nature (unlike the straight line or the circle in Classicism ). The beginning of the end for Rococo came in the early 1760s as figures like Voltaire and Jacques-François Blondel began to voice their criticism of the superficiality and degeneracy of

11125-418: The open air, but not for the traditional purpose of making sketches to be developed into carefully finished works in the studio. By painting in sunlight directly from nature, and making bold use of the vivid synthetic pigments that had become available since the beginning of the century, they developed a lighter and brighter manner of painting. Manet, Degas, Renoir, Morisot, and Cassatt concentrated primarily on

11250-621: The painting than on colour. Most of these painters traveled to Italy as part of their training and would then take the Baroque style back to their homelands, although in some cases they remained in Italy for large portions of their career (Claude and Poussin). In Italy, the Baroque style is epitomized by religious and mythological paintings in the Grand Manner by artists such as the Carracci , Guido Reni , and Luca Giordano . Illusionistic church ceiling frescoes by Pietro da Cortona seemed to open to

11375-454: The palace of Khalchayan . Various sculptures and friezes are known, representing horse-riding archers, and, significantly, men with artificially deformed skulls , such as the Kushan prince of Khalchayan (a practice well attested in nomadic Central Asia). The art of Khalchayan of the end of the 2nd–1st century BC is probably one of the first known manifestations of Kushan art. It is ultimately derived from Hellenistic art , and possibly from

11500-547: The period, showing the same characteristics, which continue into the Gothic period . Panel painting becomes more common during the Romanesque period, under the heavy influence of Byzantine icons. Towards the middle of the 13th century, Medieval art and Gothic painting became more realistic, with the beginnings of interest in the depiction of volume and perspective in Italy with Cimabue and then his pupil Giotto . From Giotto on,

11625-465: The related questions of how to distinguish mainland from Cretan work, and the significance of any distinction that may exist". The eight seals (three stone, five gold) found in Shaft Grave Circle A are of the large multi-figure type. Although scenes of combat and hunting predominate, all were found in the graves of women. It does not seem that seals were actually used for making impressions on

11750-486: The result of a basic need of expression that is innate to human beings, or they may be recordings of the life experiences of the artists and related stories from the members of their circle. Minoan painting is the art produced by the Bronze Age Aegean Minoan civilization from about 3000 to 1100 BC, though the most extensive and finest survivals come from approximately 2300 to 1400 BC. It forms part of

11875-424: The rich history of this vast area, home to a huge variety of peoples, religions and ways of life. The artistic remains of the region show a remarkable combinations of influences that exemplify the multicultural nature of Central Asian society. The Silk Road transmission of art , Scythian art , Greco-Buddhist art , Serindian art and more recently Persianate culture, are all part of this complicated history. From

12000-546: The richness of color and unity of effect that could be achieved by a more spontaneous approach to painting. Flemish, Dutch and German painters of the Northern High Renaissance such as Albrecht Dürer , Lucas Cranach , Matthias Grünewald , and Hans Holbein the Younger had a different approach than their Italian counterparts, one that is more realistic and less idealized. Some northern painters, beginning with Dürer in

12125-551: The same periods, even after Crete was occupied by the Mycenaeans, but only some aspects of the tradition survived the Greek Dark Ages after the collapse of Mycenaean Greece . Around 1100 BC, tribes from the north of Greece conquered Greece and its art took a new direction. The culture of ancient Greece is noteworthy for its outstanding contributions to the visual arts. Painting on pottery of ancient Greece and ceramics gives

12250-437: The sequence of ceramic styles, have been used by archaeologists to define the three main phases of Minoan culture (EM, MM, LM), and their many sub-phases. The dates to be attached to these remain much discussed, although within narrowing ranges. The relationship of Minoan art to that of other contemporary cultures and later Ancient Greek art has been much discussed. It clearly dominated Mycenaean art and Cycladic art of

12375-600: The sky. A much quieter type of Baroque emerged in the Dutch Republic , where easel paintings of everyday subjects were popular with middle-class collectors, and many painters became specialists in genre , others in landscape or seascape or still life. Vermeer, Gerard ter Borch , and Pieter de Hooch brought great technical refinement to the painting of domestic scenes, as did Willem Claesz. Heda to still life. In contrast, Rembrandt excelled in painting every type of subject, and developed an individual painterly style in which

12500-472: The slightly younger Vincent van Gogh , Paul Gauguin , and Georges-Pierre Seurat led art to the edge of modernism . For Gauguin Impressionism gave way to a personal symbolism. Seurat transformed Impressionism's broken color into a scientific optical study, structured on frieze-like compositions. The painting technique he developed, called Divisionism , attracted many followers such as Paul Signac , and for

12625-464: The southern part of Central Asia from the 3rd to the 2nd century BC, with their capital at Ai-Khanoum . The main known remains from this period are the ruins and artifacts of their city of Ai-Khanoum , a Greco-Bactrian city founded circa 280 BC which continued to flourish during the first 55 years of the Indo-Greek period until its destruction by nomadic invaders in 145 BC, and their coinage, which

12750-525: The study of classical sources. In painting, in the 1420s and 1430s leading painters in Italy and the Low Countries separately developed new ways of painting which allowed the paintings to appear more realistic than in the works of established painters, whose style is referred to as International Gothic , or in some cases as Proto-Renaissance (mainly in Italy). This period, lasting until about 1495, became known as

12875-485: The style spread throughout Western Europe. Baroque painting is characterized by great drama, rich, deep color, and intense light and dark shadows with the purpose of the art being to evoke emotion and passion instead of the calm rationality that had been prized during the Renaissance. The earliest Baroque painters included the Caracci brothers, Annibale and Agostino , in the last score of the 16th century, and Caravaggio in

13000-454: The styles and ethnic type visible in Kalchayan already anticipate the characteristics of the later Art of Gandhara and may even have been at the origin of its development. Rowland particularly draws attention to the similarity of the ethnic types represented at Khalchayan and in the art of Gandhara, and also in the style of portraiture itself. For example, Rowland find a great proximity between

13125-613: The symbols of sedentary society into their own artworks. Central Asia has always been a crossroads of cultural exchange, the hub of the so-called Silk Road – that complex system of trade routes stretching from China to the Mediterranean. Already in the Bronze Age (3rd and 2nd millennium BC), growing settlements formed part of an extensive network of trade linking Central Asia to the Indus Valley, Mesopotamia and Egypt. The arts of recent centuries are mainly influenced by Islamic art , but

13250-477: The tomb include a variety of fine stones, and gold, and several have parallels in Cretan finds. The princely figure buried there seems to have worn them on his wrists, like a modern charm bracelet . Sinclair Hood believed that at this date "it was broadly speaking possible to classify the finer seals as being of Cretan, the more crudely engraved of mainland manufacture", but that "this criterion no longer applies after

13375-476: The trappings took the form of iron, bronze, and gilt wood animal motifs either applied or suspended from them; and bits had animal-shaped terminal ornaments. Altai-Sayan animals frequently display muscles delineated with dot and comma markings, a formal convention that may have derived from appliqué needlework. Such markings are sometimes included in Assyrian , Achaemenian , and even Urartian animal representations of

13500-491: The treatment of composition by the best painters also became much more free and innovative. They are considered to be the two great medieval masters of painting in western culture. Cimabue, within the Byzantine tradition, used a more realistic and dramatic approach to his art. His pupil, Giotto, took these innovations to a higher level which in turn set the foundations for the western painting tradition. Both artists were pioneers in

13625-562: The trousers and boots, the heavy tunics, and heavy belts. The Kushano-Sasanian Kingdom (also called "Kushanshas" KΟÞANΟ ÞAΟ Koshano Shao in Bactrian ) is a historiographic term used by modern scholars to refer to a branch of the Sasanian Persians who established their rule in Bactria and in northwestern Indian subcontinent (present day Pakistan ) during the 3rd and 4th centuries AD at

13750-469: The varied earlier cultures were influenced by the art of China, Persia and Greece, as well as the Animal style that developed among the nomadic peoples of the steppes . The first modern human occupation in the difficult climates of North and Central Asia is dated to circa 40,000 ago, with the early Yana culture of northern Siberia dated to circa 31,000 BCE. By around 21,000 BCE, two main cultures developed:

13875-521: The various kingdoms of ancient China. Excavations of the prehistoric art of the Dian civilisation of Yunnan have revealed hunting scenes of Caucasoid horsemen in Central Asian clothing. Saka influences have been identified as far as Korea and Japan. Various Korean artifacts, such as the royal crowns of the kingdom of Silla , are said to be of "Scythian" design. Similar crowns, brought through contacts with

14000-507: The warm climate of India. His coat is decorated by hundreds of pearls, which probably symbolize his wealth. His grandiose regnal title is inscribed in the Brahmi script : "The Great King, King of Kings, Son of God, Kanishka". As the Kushans progressively adapted to life in India, their dress progressively became lighter, and representation less frontal and more natural, although they retained characteristic elements of their nomadic dress, such as

14125-452: The wider grouping of Aegean art , and in later periods came for a time to have a dominant influence over Cycladic art . Since wood and textiles have decomposed, the best-preserved (and most instructive) surviving examples of Minoan art are its pottery , palace architecture (with frescos which include "the earliest pure landscapes anywhere"), small sculptures in various materials, jewellery, metal vessels, and intricately-carved seals . It

14250-471: The work of Northern Mannerists such as Hendrick Goltzius , Bartholomeus Spranger , and Joachim Wtewael . Baroque painting is associated with the Baroque cultural movement , a movement often identified with Absolutism and the Counter Reformation or Catholic Revival; the existence of important Baroque painting in non-absolutist and Protestant states also, however, underscores its popularity, as

14375-409: The world around them, or the products of their own imaginations in their paintings. Those who could afford the expense could become patrons and commission portraits of themselves or their family. The High Renaissance in Italy gave rise to a stylized art known as Mannerism after 1520, although some painters, such as Titian and Paolo Veronese , continued painting in a High Renaissance style late into

14500-517: The world, including in the United States, where it became integral to the painting of American Impressionists such as Childe Hassam , John Henry Twachtman , and Theodore Robinson . It also exerted influence on painters who were not primarily Impressionistic in theory, like the portrait and landscape painter John Singer Sargent . At the same time in America at the turn of the 20th century there existed

14625-455: The world; implying the universality of purpose and similarity of the impulses that might have inspired the artists to create the imagery. Various conjectures have been made as to the meaning these paintings had to the artists who made them. Prehistoric men may have painted animals to "catch" their soul or spirit in order to hunt them more easily, or the paintings may represent an animistic vision and homage to surrounding nature , or they may be

14750-459: Was Rogier van der Weyden , a pupil of Campin, whose compositions stressed human emotion and drama, demonstrated for instance in his Descent from the Cross , which ranks among the most famous works of the 15th century and was the most influential Netherlandish painting of Christ's crucifixion. Other important artists were Hugo van der Goes (whose work was highly influential in Italy), Dieric Bouts (who

14875-554: Was among the first northern painters to demonstrate the use of a single vanishing point), Petrus Christus , Hans Memling and Gerard David . Collectively, the advances in painting in Europe north of the Alps is known as the Northern Renaissance . In Italian Renaissance painting , the art of Classical antiquity inspired a style of painting that emphasized the ideal. Masaccio is credited with making advances in linear perspective,

15000-539: Was considered by some as the best French painter of the 18th century – the Anti-Rococo . Portraiture was an important component of painting in all countries, but especially in England, where the leaders were William Hogarth , in a blunt realist style, and Francis Hayman , Angelica Kauffman (who was Swiss), Thomas Gainsborough and Joshua Reynolds in more flattering styles influenced by Anthony van Dyck . In France during

15125-1036: Was found in Athens ; it is gold, with a bull-leaping scene in intaglio on the flat bezel . The Pylos Combat Agate is an exceptionally fine engraved gem , probably made in the Late Minoan, but found in a Mycenaean context. This is a common issue: Minoan art was exported around the Aegean Sea and beyond, and many finds in Mycenaean and other contexts are thought to be either made in Crete or by Cretan or Cretan-trained artists working outside Crete. Some seals are carved on more than one face, as many as eight in one case. Some have Minoan hieroglyphs . Most early seals carry geometric patterns or plant-like designs. Birds and animals, both land and marine, generally appear rather earlier than human figures. Mythological and fantastic creatures such as

15250-417: Was influenced by the neighbouring cultures of Ancient Egypt and the ancient Near East , which had produced sophisticated urban art for much longer, but the character of the small but wealthy mercantile Minoan cities was very different, with little evidence of large temple-based religion, monarchs, or warfare, and "all the imaginative power and childlike freshness of a very young culture". All these aspects of

15375-639: Was known as the Hudson River School : exponents include Thomas Cole , Frederic Edwin Church , Albert Bierstadt , Thomas Moran , and John Frederick Kensett . Luminism was a movement in American landscape painting related to the Hudson River School. A major force in the turn towards Realism at mid-century was Gustave Courbet , whose unidealized paintings of common people offended viewers accustomed to

15500-591: Was one of the first French landscape painters to paint outdoors). Boudin was an important influence on the young Claude Monet , whom in 1857 he introduced to plein air painting. In the latter third of the century Impressionists such as Édouard Manet , Claude Monet, Pierre-Auguste Renoir , Camille Pissarro , Alfred Sisley , Berthe Morisot , Mary Cassatt , and Edgar Degas worked in a more direct approach than had previously been exhibited publicly. They eschewed allegory and narrative in favor of individualized responses to

15625-554: Was readily received in the Catholic parts of Germany, Bohemia , and Austria, where it was merged with the lively German Baroque traditions. German Rococo was applied with enthusiasm to churches and palaces, particularly in the south, while Frederician Rococo developed in the Kingdom of Prussia . The French masters Watteau , Boucher and Fragonard represent the style, as do Giovanni Battista Tiepolo and Jean-Baptiste-Siméon Chardin who

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