Painting styles

In art and painting, style can refer either to the aesthetic values followed in choosing what to paint (and how) or to the physical techniques employed. An aesthetic movement - such as Realism, Romanticism, Impressionism - can promote an entire world view, a way of interpreting reality and deciding which parts of it are worth observing and/or emphasizing, as well as to what extent the artists' emotions are expressed. Some of these movements are closely associated with certain techniques, such as Pointillism, while others are more flexible, but each has a characteristic "look" that becomes more and more distinctive as it develops until it reaches a saturation point, paving the way for the next style.
By changing the way they paint, apply colour, texture, perspective, or the way they see shapes and ideas, the artist establishes a certain set of "rules". If other artists see the rules as valid for themselves they might also apply these characteristics. The works of art then take on that specific "style". An artist may give the style a name such as "Expressionism", or a name may be applied later, as in the case of "abstract art".

Painting styles
Abstract
Baroque
Constructivism
Cubism
Fauvism
Graffiti
Hard-edge
Impressionism
Mannerism
Modernism
Naïve art
Neo-classicism
Opt-art
Orientalism
Pointillism
Pop-art
Postmodernism
Realism
Romanticism
Socialist realism
Surrealism

Abstract art
Abstract art is now generally understood to mean art that does not depict objects in the natural world, but instead uses shapes and colors in a non-representational or subjective way. In the very early 20th century, the term was more often used to describe art, such as Cubist and Futurist art, that depicts real forms in a simplified or rather reduced way - keeping only an allusion of the original natural subject. Such paintings were often claimed to capture something of the depicted objects' immutable intrinsic qualities rather than its external appearance.The term non-figurative is used as a synonym.
Non-objective art is not an invention of the twentieth century. In the Jewish and Islamic religion the depiction of human beings was not allowed. Consequently the Islamic and Jewish cultures developed a high standard of decorative arts. Calligraphy is also a form of non-figurative art. Abstract designs have also existed in western culture in many contexts. However, Abstract art is distinct from pattern-making in design, since it draws on the distinction between decorative art and fine art, in which a painting is an object of thoughtful contemplation in its own right.

Even before the widespread use of photography some artists, such as James McNeill Whistler were placing greater emphasis on visual sensation than the depiction of objects. Whistler argued that art should concern itself with the harmonious arrangement of colors, just as music deals with the harmonious arrangement of sounds. Whistler's painting Nocturne in Black and Gold: The Falling Rocket (1874) is often seen as a major move towards abstraction. Later artists such as Wassily Kandinsky argued that modern science dealt with dynamic forces, revealing that matter was ultimately spiritual in character: art should display the spiritual forces behind the visual world. Many of these artists were influenced by esotericist movements such as theosophy, in which abstract "thought forms" were used to illustrate the psychic forces supposedly generated by emotions, music and other events. The work of Wassily Kandinsky and Kasimir Malevich as well as Natalia Goncharova and Mikhail Larionov, are generally seen as the first fully abstract paintings in 1911. Movements in modern art are to be considered in terms of the concepts which they exemplify, accompanied as they were by manifestos and declarations.
Constructivism (1915) and De Stijl (1917) were parallel movements which took abstraction into the three dimensions of sculpture and architecture. The Constructivists believed that the artist's work was a revolutionary activity, to express the aspirations of the people, using machine production and graphic and photographic means of communication. Some of the American Abstract Expressionists are purely abstract and include : Barnett Newman, Mark Rothko and Robert Motherwell. Op Art (1962) and Minimalism (1965)[2] are the most recent idioms. It is, at present, more likely that an artist's work is seen as an individual entity rather than part of a movement. Sean Scully, John McLaughlin, Callum Innes, Robert Stark and Yuko Shiraishi are some abstract painters of today.

Baroque
In arts, the Baroque (or baroque) is both a period and the style that dominated it. Baroque style used exaggerated motion and clear, easily interpreted detail to produce drama, tension, exuberance, and grandeur from sculpture, painting, literature, and music. The style started around 1600 in Rome, Italy and spread to most of Europe. In music, the Baroque applies to the final period of dominance of imitative counterpoint.
(The name adapted a French adjective that is derived from the Portuguese noun "barroco"; both described a pearl of irregular shape. Some confusion can occur in using for the period and style the lower-cased version "baroque", which can instead mean merely "elaborate" (or especially "overly elaborate") without implying connection to the period.)
The popularity and success of the "Baroque" was encouraged by the Catholic Church when it decided that the drama of the Baroque artists' style could communicate religious themes in direct and emotional involvement. The secular aristocracy also saw the dramatic style of Baroque architecture and art as a means of impressing visitors and would-be competitors. Baroque palaces are built round an entrance sequence of courts, anterooms, grand staircases, and reception rooms of sequentially increasing magnificence. Many forms of art, music, architecture, and literature inspired each other in the "Baroque" cultural movement.

Evolution of the Baroque
The Baroque originated around 1600. The canon promulgated at the Council of Trent (1545–63), by which the Roman Catholic Church addressed the representational arts by demanding that paintings and sculptures in church contexts should speak to the illiterate rather than to the well-informed, is customarily offered as an inspiration of the Baroque, which appeared, however, a generation later. This turn toward a populist conception of the function of ecclesiastical art is seen by many art historians as driving the innovations of Caravaggio and the Carracci brothers, all of whom were working (and competing for commissions) in Rome around 1600.
The appeal of Baroque style turned consciously from the witty, intellectual qualities of 16th century Mannerist art to a visceral appeal aimed at the senses. It employed an iconography that was direct, simple, obvious, and dramatic (see the Prometheus sculpture below). Baroque art drew on certain broad and heroic tendencies in Annibale Caracci and his circle, and found inspiration in other artists like Correggio and Caravaggio and Federico Barocci, nowadays sometimes termed 'proto-Baroque'.
Prometheus, by Nicolas-Sébastien Adam, 1737 (Louvre): a hectic tour-de-force of violent contrasts of stress, multiple angles and viewpoints, and extreme emotionGerminal ideas of the Baroque can also be found in the work of Michelangelo.

Some general parallels in music make the expression "Baroque music" useful: there are contrasting phrase lengths, harmony and counterpoint have ousted polyphony, and orchestral color makes a stronger appearance. See the entry Baroque music. Similar fascination with simple, strong, dramatic expression in poetry, where clear, broad syncopated rhythms replaced the enknotted elaborated metaphysical similes employed by Mannerists such as John Donne and imagery that was strongly influenced by visual developments in painting, can be sensed in John Milton's Paradise Lost, a Baroque epic.
Though Baroque was superseded in many centers by the Rococo style, beginning in France in the late 1720s, especially for interiors, paintings and the decorative arts, Baroque architecture remained a viable style until the advent of Neoclassicism in the later 18th century. See the Neapolitan palace of Caserta, a Baroque palace (though in a chaste exterior) that was not even begun until 1752. Critics have given up talking about a "Baroque period".
In paintings, Baroque gestures are broader than Mannerist gestures: less ambiguous, less arcane and mysterious, more like the stage gestures of opera, a major Baroque artform. Baroque poses depend on contrapposto ("counterpoise"), the tension within the figures that moves the planes of shoulders and hips in counterdirections. See Benini's David (below, left).

Gian Lorenzo Bernini's David (1623–24): Baroque freeze-frame stopped action, contrapposto and theatrical emotionThe dryer, chastened, less dramatic and coloristic, later stages of 18th century Baroque architectural style are often seen as a separate Late Baroque manifestation. See the entry Claude Perrault. Academic characteristics in the neo-Palladian architectural style, epitomized by William Kent, are a parallel development in Britain and the British colonies: within doors, Kent's furniture designs are vividly influenced by the Baroque furniture of Rome and Genoa, hieratic tectonic sculptural elements meant never to be moved from their positions completing the wall elevation. Baroque is a style of unity imposed upon rich and massy detail.
The Baroque was defined by Heinrich Wölfflin as the age where the oval replaced the circle as the center of composition, that centralization replaced balance, and that coloristic and "painterly" effects began to become more prominent. Art historians, often Protestant ones, have traditionally emphasized that the Baroque style evolved during a time in which the Roman Catholic Church had to react against the many revolutionary cultural movements that produced a new science and new forms of religion— Reformation. It has been said that the monumental Baroque is a style that could give the Papacy, like secular absolute monarchies, a formal, imposing way of expression that could restore its prestige, at the point of becoming somehow symbolic of the Catholic Reformation. Whether this is the case or not, it was successfully developed in Rome, where Baroque architecture widely renewed the central areas with perhaps the most important urbanistic revision.

Baroque visual art
Aeneas flees burning Troy, Federico Barocci, 1598: a moment caught in a dramatic action from a classical source, bursting from the picture plane in a sweeping diagonal perspective.Main article: Baroque art
A defining statement of what Baroque signifies in painting is provided by the series of paintings executed by Peter Paul Rubens for Marie de Medici at the Luxembourg Palace in Paris (now at the Louvre), in which a Catholic painter satisfied a Catholic patron: Baroque-era conceptions of monarchy, iconography, handling of paint, and compositions as well as the depiction of space and movement. Another frequently cited work of Baroque art is Bernini's "Saint Theresa in ecstasy" for the Cornaro chapel in S. Maria della Vittoria, which brings together multiple arts, including opera.
The later baroque style gives way gradually to Rococo. A comparison with Rococo, will help define Baroque by contrast.

Constructivism
Constructivism was an artistic and architectural movement in Russia from 1914 onward (especially present after the October Revolution), and a term often used in modern art today, which dismissed "pure" art in favour of art used as an instrument for social purposes, namely, the construction of the socialist system. The term Construction Art was first used as a derisive term by Kazimir Malevich to describe the work of Alexander Rodchenko in 1917. Constructivism first appears as a positive term in Naum Gabo's Realistic Manifesto of 1920.

Cubism
Cubism was an avant-garde art movement that revolutionized European painting and sculpture in the early 20th century.
In cubist artworks objects are broken up, analyzed, and reassembled in an abstracted form — instead of rendering objects from a single fixed angle, the artist divides them into multiple facets, so several different aspects, or faces, of the objects are seen simultaneously. Often the surfaces of the facets, or planes, intersect at angles that show no recognizable depth.
Cubism began in 1906 with Georges Braque and Pablo Picasso, who lived in the Montmartre quarter of Paris, France. They met in 1907, and worked closely together until World War I began in 1914.
French art critic Louis Vauxcelles first used the term "cubism" "(bizarre cubiques)" in 1908. After which, the term was in wide use but the two creators of cubism refrained from using it for a quite some time.

The cubism movement, born in Montmartre, expanded by the gathering of artists in Montparnasse, and was promoted by art dealer Henry Kahnweiler. It became popular so quickly that by 1910 critics were referring to a "cubist school" of artists influenced by Braque and Picasso. However, many other artists who thought of themselves as cubists went in directions quite different from Braque and Picasso, who themselves went through several distinct phases before 1920. Famous became the Puteaux Group, an offshoot of the Cubist movement, to which artists like Guillaume Apollinaire, Robert Delaunay, Marcel Duchamp, Fernand Léger belonged.
Cubism influenced artists of the first decades of the 20th century and it gave rise to development of new trends in art like futurism, constructivism and expressionism.
Violon, verre, pipe et encrier by Pablo Picasso, 1912.Innovative artists, Braque and Picasso sought new ways to express space and form in painting. They were influenced by Paul Cezanne, Georges Seurat, Iberian sculpture, African tribal art (although Braque later disputed this), and by the Fauves.

Cubism (phases)
Analytical Cubism
Synthetic Cubism

Analytical cubism
Picasso and Braque worked alongside one another (1906-1909 pre-cubism) and then started to work hand-in-hand to further advance their concepts into what was later termed "analytical cubism" (autumn 1909 to winter 1911/1912), a style in which densely patterned near-monochrome surfaces of incomplete directional lines and modelled forms constantly play against one another.
Picasso's painting of the Les Demoiselles d'Avignon is not considered cubist, however it is considered essential in the development of the movement. In this work Picasso first experiments with seeing the same object, or figure in this case, from various directions. Impressed by the painting, Braque experimented further with this idea. The developments of both men in the field would lead to what would be cubism.
Some art historians have also identified a secondary phase in this analytical period, the "Hermetic" phase, in which the works are characterized by being monochromatic and hard to decipher. The painters gave clues as to what is portrayed by leaving some identifiable object. For example a pipe, which leads to identifying that a person is smoking it. During this time the cubists neared abstraction. Some alphabetic letters were introduced to the works during this phase, to also serve as clues. Braque introduced these which gave immediate connection to everyday objects like a bottle of rum or a newspaper.

Synthetic cubism
The second phase of cubism, beginning in 1912, is called "synthetic cubism".
These works of art are composed of distinct superimposed parts — painted or often pasted onto the canvas — and are characterized by brighter colours, something that they had previously tried to reintroduce, but were unsuccesful in doing so in a smooth transitory way. Unlike analytic cubism, which fragmented objects into its composing parts or facets, synthetic cubism attempted more to bring many different objects together to create new forms.
This phase constitutes the birth of the collage and of papier collé. Picasso invented the collage with his Still Life with Chair Caning, in which he pasted a patch of oil cloth painted with a chair-caning design to the canvass of the piece. Braque, interested by Picasso's technique, first employed papier collé in his piece Fruitdish and Glass. Papier collé consists of pasting material to a work much in the same way as a collage, except the shape of the patches are objects themselves. For example, the glass on the left in Fruitdish and Glass is a piece of newspaper cut into the shape of a glass.
While Braque had previously used lettering, the two artist's synthetic pieces began to take the idea to a new extreme. Letters that had hinted to the objects, became objects themselves. Newspaper scraps are among the most usual items the artists pasted to their canvases. They went further by adding paper with a wood print, or other types of scraps. Later they pasted advertisements, as well. This helped reintroduce color into the cubist works.

Well-known cubists
Georges Braque
Marcel Duchamp
Juan Gris
Fernand Leger
Jacques Lipchitz
Louis Marcoussis
Marie Marevna Vorobyev-Stebelska (for a specimen of her cubist paintings depicting herself, her
daughter Marika and Marika's father Diego Rivera – himself a "master cubist" – with friends from La
Ruche, cf. this Korean website where it is the 16th painting in sequence;)
Jean Metzinger
Francis Picabia
Pablo Picasso
Liubov Popova
Marie Vassilieff
Fritz Wotruba
There were also critics (Andre Salamon, Guillaume Apollinaire), poets (Max Jacob, Pierre Reverdy,
Gertrude Stein) and following Jacques Lipchitz, other sculptors such as Raymond Duchamp-Villon and
Elie Nadelman who were soon drawn into the sphere of cubism.
Robert Delaunay practiced what he called "Orphic cubism" which is identified with the Puteaux Group.

Fauvism
Les Fauves (French for wild beasts), a short-lived and loose grouping of early Modern artists that emphasized painterly qualities, and the use of deep color, over the representational values retained by Impressionism even with its focus on light and the moment. They were known as Les Fauves because of their use of strident colour and apparently wild brushwork. Fauvists simplified lines, whist making the subject of the painting easy to read, and brightened the colors. Les Fauves paintings also feature flat patterns and anti-naturalism.
The name was given the group by an art critic following their 1905 seminal show in Paris. The painter Gustave Moreau was the movement's inspirational teacher, and a professor at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris who pushed his students to think outside of the lines of formality and to follow their visions.

The leaders of the movement, Moreau's top students, were Henri Matisse and André Derain — friendly rivals of a sort, each with his own followers. The paintings, for example Matisse's 1908 The Dessert or Derain's The Two Barges, use powerful reds or other forceful colors to draw the eye. Matisse became the yang to Picasso's yin in the 20th century while time has trapped Derain at the century's beginning, a "wild beast" forever. Their disciples included Albert Marquet, Henri Manguin, Charles Camoin, the Belgian painter Henri Evenepoel, Jean Puy, Maurice de Vlaminck, Raoul Dufy, Emile-Othonriesz, Georges Rouault, the Dutch painter Kees van Dongen, and Picasso's partner in Cubism, Georges Braque.
Fauvism, as a movement, had no concrete theories, and was short lived (they only had three exhibitions). Matisse was seen as a leader of the movement. He said he wanted to create art to delight; art as a decoration was his purpose; therefore his use of bright colors tries to maintain serenity of composition.
Among those influenced by the movement were Gauguin and Vincent van Gogh, both of whom had begun using colors in a brighter more arbitrary manner.

Graffiti
Graffiti is a type of deliberately inscribed marking made by humans on surfaces, both private and public. It can take the form of art, drawings or words. When done without a property owner's consent it constitutes illegal vandalism. Graffiti has existed at least since the days of ancient civilizations such as classical Greece and the Roman Empire.
The word "graffiti" expresses the plural of "graffito", although the singular form has become obscure and has largely fallen into disuse. Both of these English words come from the Italian language, most likely descending from "graffiato", the past participle of "graffiare" (to scratch); ancient graffitists scratched their work into walls before the advent of spray-paint. These words derive in their turn from the Greek ??afe?? (graphein), meaning "to write". Historians continue to speculate over the vexed question as to where the term "graffiti" first referred to this form of marking.

History of graffiti : Ancient graffiti
The ordinary people of the Roman Empire used the language known as Vulgar Latin rather than the Classical Latin of literature, as in this political graffiti at PompeiiHistorically, the term graffiti originally referred to the inscriptions, figure drawings, etc., found on the walls of ancient sepulchers or ruins, as in the Catacombs of Rome or at Pompeii. Usage of the word has evolved to include any decorations (inscribed on any surface) that one can regard as vandalism; or to cover pictures or writing placed on surfaces, usually external walls and sidewalks, without the permission of an owner. Thus, inscriptions made by the authors of a monument are not classed as graffiti.
The first known example of "modern style" graffiti survives in the ancient Greek city of Ephesus (in modern-day Turkey) and appears to advertise prostitution, according to the tour guides of the city. It stands near the long mosaic and stone walkway and consists of a handprint, a vaguely heart-like shape, a footprint and a number. This purportedly indicates how many steps one would have to take to find a lover, with the handprint indicating payment.
Ancient Pompeiian graffiti caricature of a politician.The Romans carved graffiti into their own walls and monuments, and examples of their work also exist in Egypt. The eruption of Vesuvius preserved graffiti carved on the walls of Pompeii, and they offer us a direct insight into street life: everyday Latin, insults, magic, love declarations, political consigns. Hadrian's Villa at Tivoli also has several examples. One example has even survived that warns: "Cave Canem", which translates as "Beware of the dog," next to a picture of the dog in question.
However not only Greeks and Romans produced graffiti: the Mayan site of Tikal in Guatemala, also contains ancient examples. Viking graffiti survive in Rome and at Newgrange Mound in Ireland, and Varangians carved their runes in Hagia Sophia in Constantinople. The ancient Irish inscribed stones with an alphabet called Ogham -- this standard mode of writing may not fall into the category of graffiti.
Later, French soldiers carved their names on monuments during the Napoleonic campaign of Egypt in the 1790s.
Art forms like frescoes and murals involve leaving images and writing on wall surfaces. Like the prehistoric wall paintings created by cave dwellers, they do not comprise graffiti, as the artists generally produce them with the explicit permission (and usually support) of the owner or occupier of the walls.

Modern graffiti
A graffiti artist at work with spray paint at a graffiti competition in Spitalfields market London.In the 20th century, especially during World War II, 'Kilroy was here' became a famous graffito, along with Mr. Chad, a face with only the eyes and a nose hanging over the wall, saying "What No [scarce commodity]…?" during the time of rationing. Twentieth century warfare saw the advent of many new aviation technologies, closely followed by the advent of airplane graffiti, including the nose art made famous during World War II.
Starting with the large-scale urbanization of many areas in the post-war half of the 20th century, urban gangs would mark walls and other pieces of public property with the name of their gang (a "tag") in order to mark the gang's territory. Near the end of the 20th century, non-gang-related tagging became more common, practised for its own sake. Graffiti artists would sign their "tags" for the sake of doing so and sometimes to increase their reputation and prestige as a "writer" or a graffiti artist.
Taggers sometimes select tags, like screennames, to reflect some personal qualities. Some tags also contain subtle and often cryptic messages. The year in which the piece was created, and in some cases the writer's initials or other letters, sometimes become a part of the tag. In some cases, "writers" dedicate or create tags or graffiti in memory of a deceased friend, for example: "DIVA Peekrevs R.I.P. JTL '99".
In some cases, taggers have achieved such elaborate graffiti (especially those done in memory of a deceased person) on storefront gates that shopkeepers have hesitated to clean them off. In the Bronx after the death of rapper Big Pun, several murals dedicated to his life appeared virtually overnight; similar outpourings occurred after the deaths of The Notorious B.I.G. and Tupac Shakur.

BerzerkerOther works covering otherwise unadorned fences or walls may likewise become so highly elaborate that property-owners or the government may choose to keep them rather than cleaning them off. The wall in front of Abbey Road Studios in London became a favorite spot for Beatles-related graffiti once the band had recorded there in the 1960s: visitors from all over the world have left inscriptions in various languages. The studio makes no attempt to stop this graffiti; it has the wall repainted regularly, but only to provide a fresh surface for inscriptions.
Some graffiti has local or regional resonance, such as wall and street sign tagging in Southern California by gangs such as the Bloods and the Crips. The name Cool "Disco" Dan (including the quotation marks) occurs commonly in the Washington, D.C. area. One famous graffito in the DC Metro area appeared on the outer loop of the beltway on a railroad bridge near the Mormon temple as seen here. Its simple scrawl "Surrender Dorothy" summoned visions of the Emerald City of Oz and has remained on the bridge for nearly 30 years off and on beginning in late 1973. Pressure from the Temple saw it removed, only to reappear. This "giraffiti" became so well known among the Mormon community that their newsletters often mentioned it as a specific example demonstrating misunderstanding. (See "In View of Temple, Graffiti Again Seeks Dorothy's Surrender" and "Landmark to most, temple is sanctuary for area's Mormons" in Mormons Today.)
Theories on and the use of graffiti by avant-garde artists have a history dating back at least to the Scandinavian Institute of Comparative Vandalism of 1961.

Some of those who practise graffiti art wish to distance themselves from gang graffiti. Differences in both form and intent exist: graffiti art (its practioners claim) aims at self-expression and creativity, and may involve highly stylized letter-forms drawn with markers, or cryptic and colorful spray paint murals on walls, buildings, and even freight trains. Graffiti artists strive to improve their art, which constantly changes and progresses. Gang graffiti, on the other hand, functions to mark territorial boundaries, and therefore does not transcend a gang's neighborhood; it does not (in the eyes of lovers of graffiti-art) presuppose artistic intent.
The designs, while chosen to appear distinctive and recognizable, are more likely to be influenced by the speed with which a tagger can execute them (thus minimizing the chance of that tagger getting caught). Those who distinguish between tagging and graffiti generally accept tagging as gang-motivated or meant as vandalism (illegal) or viewed as too vulgar or controversial to have public value, while they can view graffiti as creative expression, whether charged with political meaning or not.
Many contemporary analysts and even art critics have begun to see artistic value in some graffiti and to recognize it as a form of public art. According to many art researchers, particularly in the Netherlands and in Los Angeles, that type of public art is, in fact an effective tool of social emancipation or in the achievement of a political goal.
The murals of Belfast and of Los Angeles offer another example of official recognition. In times of conflict, such murals have offered a means of communication and self-expression for members of these socially, ethnically and/or racially divided communities, and have proven themselves as effective tools in establishing dialog and thus of addressing cleavages in the long run.

Hard-edge
The term Hard-edge painting was coined by the critic Jules Langsner in 1958 for a exhibition of four painters in the summer 1959 in Los Angeles.They were named Four Abstract Classicists to describe those abstract painters, who in their reaction to the more painterly or gestural forms of Abstract Expressionism adopted a particularly impersonal paint application and delineated areas of colour with particular sharpness and clarity. The name of this painters are: Lorser Feitelson, John McLaughlin, Frederick Hammersley and Karl Benjamin. This exhibition was shown in 1960 in London too and the critic Lawrence Alloway coined the term West-Coast Hard-Edge this established a connection to painters as Ellsworth Kelly and Kenneth Noland.
Hard-edge painting is a style that uses very straight and clean linear patterns and/or lines to create a 3-D effect on a 2-D surface. Many tools can be used to do such work; most often, normal masking tape. Using a flat and very soft paintbrush or a roller can have a nice smooth look without seeing any of the marks usually left by rough bristles. Palette knives can also be used to create these patterns.
This kind of approach to abstract painting became extremely widespread in the 1960s.
Representative of this movement are Josef Albers, Al Held, Ellsworth Kelly, Alexander Libermann, Morris Louis, Kenneth Noland and Frank Stella

Impressionism
Impressionism was a 19th century art movement, that began as a loose association of Paris-based artists who began publicly exhibiting their art in the 1860s. The name of the movement is derived from Claude Monet's Impression, Sunrise (Impression, soleil levant). Critic Louis Leroy inadvertently coined the term in a satiric review published in Le Charivari.
The influence of Impressionist thought spread beyond the art world, leading to Impressionist music and Impressionist literature.
Characteristic of impressionist painting are visible brushstrokes, light colors, open composition, emphasis on light in its changing qualities (often accentuating the effects of the passage of time), ordinary subject matter, and unusual visual angles.
Impressionism also describes art done in this style, but outside of the late 19th century time period.

In an atmosphere of change as Emperor Napoleon III rebuilt Paris and waged war, the Académie des beaux-arts dominated the French art scene in the middle of the 19th century. Art at the time was considered a conservative enterprise whose innovations fell within the Académie's defined borders. The Académie set the standards for French painting.
In addition to dictating the content of paintings (historical and religious themes, and portraits were valued), the Académie commanded which techniques artists used. They valued somber, conservative colours. Refined images, mirroring reality when closely examined, were esteemed. The Académie encouraged artists to eliminate all traces of brush strokes — essentially isolating art from the artist's personality, emotions, and working techniques.
The Académie held an annual art show — Salon de Paris, and artists whose work displayed in the show won prizes and garnered commissions to create more art. Only art selected by the Académie jury exhibited in the show. The standards of the juries about suitable art for the salon reflected the values of the Académie.
The young artists painted in a lighter and brighter style than most of the generation before them, extending the realism style of Gustave Courbet, Winslow Homer and the Barbizon school. They submitted their art to the Salon, and the juries rejected the pieces. A core group of them, Claude Monet, Pierre Auguste Renoir and Alfred Sisley, studied under Charles Gleyre. The three of them became friends and often painted together.
In 1863, the jury rejected The Luncheon on the Grass (Le déjeuner sur l'herbe) by Édouard Manet primarily because it depicted a nude woman with two clothed men on a picnic. According to the jury nudes were acceptable in historical and allegorical paintings, but to show them in common settings was forbidden. Manet felt humiliated by the sharply worded rejection of the jury, which set off a firestorm among many French artists. Although Manet did not consider himself an impressionist, he led discussions at Café Guerbois where the impressionists gathered, and influenced the explorations of the artistic group.
After seeing the rejected works in 1863, Emperor Napoleon III decreed that the public be allowed to judge the work themselves, and the Salon des Refusés (Salon of the Refused) was organized.

For years art critics rebuked the Salon des Refusés, and in 1874 the impressionists (though not yet known by the name) organized their own exhibition.
After seeing the show, critic Louis Leroy (an engraver, painter, and successful playwright), wrote a scathing review in the Le Charivari newspaper. Targeting a painting by a then obscure artist he titled his article, The Exhibition of the Impressionists. Leroy declared that Impression, Sunrise (Impression, soleil levant) by Claude Monet was at most a sketch and could hardly be termed a finished work.Leroy wrote, in the form of a dialog between viewers,
Impression — I was certain of it. I was just telling myself that, since I was impressed, there had to be some impression in it … and what freedom, what ease of workmanship! Wallpaper in its embryonic state is more finished than that seascape.
The term "impressionists" gained favor with the artists, not as a term of derision, but as a badge of honor. The techniques and standards within the movement varied, but the spirit of rebellion and independence bound the movement together.

Impressionist techniques
Short, thick strokes of paint in a sketchy way, allowing the painter to capture and emphasize the essence of the subject rather than its details.
They left brush strokes on the canvas, adding a new dimension of familiarity with the personality of the artist for the viewer to enjoy.
Colours with as little pigment mixing as possible, allowing the eye of the viewer to optically mix the colors as they looked at the canvas, and providing a vibrant experience for the viewer.
Impressionists did not tint (mix with black) their colours in order to obtain darker pigments. Instead, when the artists needed darker shades, they mixed with complementary colours. (Black was used, but only as a colour in its own right.)
They painted wet paint into the wet paint instead of waiting for successive applications to dry, producing softer edges and intermingling of color.
Impressionist avoided the use of thin paints to create glazes which earlier artists built up carefully to produce effects. Rather, the impressionists put paint down thickly and did not rely upon layering.

Impressionists discovered or emphasized aspects of the play of natural light, including an acute awareness of how colours reflect from object to object.
In outdoor paintings, they boldly painted shadows with the blue of the sky as it reflected onto surfaces, giving a sense of freshness and openness that was not captured in painting previously. (Blue shadows on snow inspired the technique.)
They worked "en plein air" (outdoors)
Previous artists occasionally used these techniques, but impressionists employed them constantly. Earlier examples are found in the works of Frans Hals, Peter Paul Rubens, John Constable, Theodore Rousseau, Gustave Courbet, Camille Corot, Eugene Boudin, and Eugène Delacroix.
Impressionists took advantage of the mid-century introduction of premixed paints in tubes (resembling modern toothpaste tubes) which allowed artists to work more spontaneously both outdoors and indoors. Previously, each painter made their own paints by grinding and mixing dry pigment powders with linseed oil.

Content and composition
Even though, historically, painting was viewed as primarily a way to depict historical and religious subjects in a rather formal manner, painters portrayed everyday subjects. Many 17th century Dutch painters, like Jan Steen, focused on common subjects, but their works showed the influences of traditional composition in arrangement of the scene.
When impressionism began, there was interest among the artists in mundane subject matter, and a new method of capturing images became available. Photography was gaining popularity, and as cameras became more portable, photographs became more candid. Photography inspired impressionists to capture the moment, not only in the fleeting lights of a landscape, but in the day-to-day lives of people.
Photography and popular Japanese art prints (Japonism) combined to introduce to impressionists odd "snapshot" angles, and unconventional compositions.
Edgar Degas' The Dance Class (La classe de danse) shows both influences. A dancer is caught in adjusting her costume, and the lower right quadrant of the picture contains empty floor space.

Mannerism
Mannerism is the usual English term for an approach to all the arts, particularly painting but not exclusive to it, a reaction to the High Renaissance, emerging after the Sack of Rome in 1527 shook Renaissance confidence, humanism and rationality to their foundations, and even Religion had split apart.
Like "modernism", the term is one of the few style designations whose label was self-applied; it comes from the Italian maniera, or "style," in the sense of an artist's characteristic "touch" or recognizable "manner."
Giorgio Vasari, frontispiece to Lives of the Artists, 1568"Mannerism" was initially a contentious stylistic label among art historians when it resurfaced before World War I, first used by German art historians like Heinrich Wölfflin to categorize the seemingly uncategorizable art of the Italian 16th century, the style that introduced the Renaissance to France in the Fontainebleau schools and to Antwerp in quite another "manner", styles that were neither Renaissance nor Baroque. Mannerism is not easily pigeonholed; it scarcely affected the popular arts, and no definitions survived much examination, in the views of English art historians, partly perhaps because they already had sufficient local categories: "Elizabethan drama," "Jacobean architecture and furniture."
The framing of the engraved frontispiece to Mannerist artist Giorgio Vasari's Lives of the Artists (illustration, right) would be called "Jacobean" in an English-speaking context. In it, Michelangelo's Medici tombs inspire the anti-architectural "architectural" features at the top, the papery pierced frame, the satyr nudes at the base. In the vignette of Florence at the base, papery or vellum-like material is cut and stretched and scolled into a cartouche (cartoccia). The design is self-conscious, overcharged with rich, artificially "natural" detail in physically improbable juxtapositions of jarring scale changes, overwhelming as a mere frame: Mannerist.

Vasari's own opinions about the "art" of creating art come through in his praise of fellow artists in the great book that lay behind this frontispiece: he believed that excellence in painting demanded refinement, richness of invention (invenzione), expressed through virtuoso technique (maniera), and wit and study that appeared in the finished work, all criteria that emphasized the artist's intellect and the patron's sensibility. The artist was now no longer just a craftsman member of a local Gild of St Luke. Now he took his place at court with scholars, poets, and humanists, in a climate that fostered an appreciation for elegance and complexity. The coat-of-arms of Vasari's Medici patrons appear at the top of his portrait, quite as if they were the artist's own.
Mannerism is usually set in opposition to High Renaissance conventions. It was not that artists despaired of achieving the immediacy and balance of Raphael; it was that such balance was no longer relevant or appropriate. Mannerism developed among the pupils of two masters of the integrated classical moment, with Raphael's assistant Giulio Romano and among the students of Andrea del Sarto, whose studio produced the quintessentially Mannerist painters Pontormo and Rosso Fiorentino, and with whom Vasari apprenticed.
Baptism, by El GrecoAfter the realistic depiction of the human form and the mastery of perspective achieved in high Renaissance Classicism, some artists started to deliberately distort proportions in disjointed, irrational space for emotional and artistic effect. There are aspects of Mannerism in El Greco (illustration, left). In spite of the uniquely individual quality that sets him apart from simple style designations, you can detect Mannerism in El Greco's jarring "acid" color sense, his figures' elongated and tortured anatomy, the irrational perspective and light of his breathless and crowded composition, and obscure and troubling iconography.
In Italy mannerist centers were Rome, Florence and Mantua. Venetian painting, in its separate "school" pursued a separate course, epitomized in the long career of Titian.

Two works, one practical one metaphysical, by Gian Paolo Lomazzo, helped define the Mannerist artist's self-conscious relation to his art. His Trattato dell'arte della pittura, scoltura et architettura (Milan, 1584) is in part a guide to contemporary concepts of decorum, which the Renaissance inherited in part from Antiquity but Mannerism elaborated upon, which controlled a consonance between the functions of interiors and the kinds of painted and sculpted decors that would be suitable, in Lomazzo's systematic codification of esthetics, which typifies the more formalized and academic approaches typical of the later 16th century. Iconography, often convoluted and abstruse, is a more prominent element in the Mannersist styles
lomazzo's less practical and more metaphysical Idea del tempio della pittura ("The ideal temple of painting", Milan, 1590) offers a description along the lines of the "four temperaments" theory of the human nature and personality, containing the explanations of the role of individuality in judgment and artistic invention.

Some mannerist examples
Jacopo da Pontormo's Joseph in Egypt stood in what would have been considered contradicting colors and disunified time and space in the Renaissance. Neither the clothing, nor the buildings— not even the colors— accurately represented the Bible story of Joseph. It was wrong, but it stood out as an accurate representation of society's feelings.
Susanna and the elders, Alessandro Allori (1535 - 1607): waxy eroticism and consciously brilliant still life detail, in a crowded contorted compositionRosso Fiorentino, who had been a fellow-pupil of Pontormo in the studio of Andrea del Sarto, brought the Florentine maniera to Fontainebleau in 1530, where he became one of the founders of the French 16th century Mannerism called the "School of Fontainebleau". The examples of a rich and hectic decorative style at Fontainebleau transfered the Italian style, through the medium of engravings, to Antwerp and thence throughout Northern Europe, from London to Poland, and brought Mannerist design into luxury goods like silver and carved furniture. A sense of tense controlled emotion expressed in elaborate symbolism and allegory, and elongated proportions of female beauty are characteristics of his style.
Agnolo Bronzino's somewhat icy portraits put an uncommunicative abyss between sitter and viewer, concentrating on rendering of the precise pattern and sheen of rich textiles.
Giorgione's Tempest was just that, with no clue left as to what it meant or why it was even there. Art began to gain its own value.
Jacopo Tintoretto's Last Supper epitomized Mannerism by taking Jesus and the table out of the middle of the room. He showed all that was happening and even gave Judas Iscariot a halo. In sickly, disorienting colors he painted a scene of confusion that somehow separated the angels from the real world. He had removed the world from God's reach.
El Greco attempted to express the religious tension with exaggerated Mannerism. This exaggeration would serve to cross over the Mannerist line and be applied to Classicism.
Benvenuto Cellini created a salt cellar of gold and ebony in 1540 featuring Neptune and Amphitrite (earth and water) in elongated form and uncomfortable positions. It is considered a masterpiece of Mannerist sculpture.

List of Mannerist Painters
Pontormo
Parmigianino
Michelangelo (Last Judgment, Sistine Chapel; Rondanini Pieta)
Cellini
Giulio Romano
Rosso
Bronzino
Tintoretto
Hans von Aachen
El Greco

Modernism
Modernism in the cultural historical sense is generally defined as the new artistic and literary styles that emerged in the decades before 1914 as artists rebelled against the late 19th century norms of depiction and literary form, in an attempt to present what they regarded as an emotionally truer picture of how people really feel and think.
Some divide the 20th century into modern and post-modern periods, where as others see them as two parts of the same larger period. This article will focus on the movement that grew out of the late 19th and early 20th century, while Post-modernism has its own article.

Modernism.Historical outline
"Just as the ancients drew the inspiration for their arts from the world of nature...so we should draw ours from the mechanized environment we have created."
—Antonio Sant'Elia Manifesto of Futurist Architecture (1914)
The modernist movement emerged in the mid-19th century in France and was rooted in the idea that "traditional" forms of art, literature, social organization and daily life had become outdated, and that it was therefore essential to sweep them aside and reinvent culture. It encouraged the idea of re-examination of every aspect of existence, from commerce to philosophy, with the goal of finding that which was "holding back" progress, and replacing it with new, and therefore better, ways of reaching the same end. In essence, the Modern Movement argued that the new realities of the 20th century were permanent and imminent, and that people should adapt to their world view to accept that what was new was also good and beautiful.

Precursors to modernism
The first half of the 19th century for Europe was marked by a series of turbulent wars and revolutions, which gradually formed into a series of ideas and doctrines now identified as Romanticism, which focused on individual subjective experience, the supremacy of "Nature" as the standard subject for art, revolutionary or radical extensions of expression, and individual liberty. By mid-century, however, a synthesis of these ideas, and stable governing forms had emerged. Called by various names, this synthesis was rooted in the idea that what was "real" dominated over what was subjective. It is exemplified by Otto von Bismarck's realpolitik, philosophical ideas such as positivism and cultural norms now described by the word Victorian.
Central to this synthesis, however, was the importance of institutions, common assumptions and frames of reference. These drew their support from religious norms found in Christianity, scientific norms found in classical physics and doctrines which asserted that depiction of the basic external reality from an objective standpoint was possible. Cultural critics and historians label this set of doctrines Realism, though this term is not universal. In philosophy, the rationalist and positivist movements established a primacy of reason and system.
Against the current were a series of ideas. Some were direct continuations of Romantic schools of thought. Notable were the agrarian and revivalist movements in plastic arts and poetry (e.g. the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood and the philosopher John Ruskin). Rationalism also drew responses from the anti-rationalists in philosophy. In particular, Hegel's dialectic view of civilization and history drew responses from Friedrich Nietzsche and Søren Kierkegaard, who was a major precursor to Existentialism. All of these separate reactions together, however, began to be seen as offering a challenge to any comfortable ideas of certainty derived by civilization, history, or pure reason.

From the 1870s onwards, the views that history and civilization were inherently progressive, and that progress was inherently amicable, were increasingly called into question. Writers like Wagner and Ibsen had been reviled for their own critiques of contemporary civilisation, and warned that increasing "progress" would lead to increasing isolation and the creation of individuals detached from social norms and their fellow men. Increasingly, it began to be argued not merely that the values of the artist and those of society were different, but that society was antithetical to progress itself, and could not move forward in its present form. Moreover, there were new views of philosophy that called into question the previous optimism. The work of Schopenhauer was labelled "pessimistic" for its idea of the "negation of the will", an idea that would be both rejected and incorporated by later thinkers such as Nietzsche.
Two of the most disruptive thinkers of the period were, in biology Charles Darwin, and in political science Karl Marx. Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection undermined religious certainty of the general public, and the sense of human uniqueness of the intelligentsia. The notion that human beings were driven by the same impulses as "lower animals" proved to be difficult to reconcile with the idea of an ennobling spirituality. Karl Marx seemed to present a political version of the same problem: that problems with the economic order were not transient, the result of specific wrong doers or temporary conditions, but were fundamentally contradictions within the "capitalist" system. Both thinkers would spawn defenders and schools of thought that would become decisive in establishing modernism.
Separately, in the arts and letters, two ideas originating in France would have particular impact. The first was Impressionism, a school of painting that initially focused on work done, not in studios, but outdoors (en plein air). They argued that human beings do not see objects, but instead see light itself. The school gathered adherents, and despite deep internal divisions among its leading practitioners, became increasingly influential. Initially rejected from the most important commercial show of the time — the government sponsored Paris Salon — the art was shown at the Salon des Refusés, created by Emperor Napoleon III to display all of the paintings rejected by the Paris Salon. While most were in standard styles, but by inferior artists, the work of Manet attracted tremendous attention, and opened commercial doors to the movement.

The second school was Symbolism, marked by a belief that language is expressly symbolic in its nature, and that poetry and writing should follow whichever connection the sheer sound and texture of the words create. The poet Stéphane Mallarmé would be of particular importance to what would occur afterwards.
At the same time social, political, and economic forces were at work that would eventually be used as the basis to argue for a radically different kind of art and thinking.
Chief among these was industrialization, which produced buildings such as the Eiffel Tower that broke all previous limitations on how tall man-made objects could be, and at the same time offered a radically different environment in urban life. The miseries of industrial urbanity, and the possibilities created by scientific examination of subjects would be crucial in the series of changes that would shake European civilization, which, at that point, regarded itself as having a continuous and progressive line of development from the Renaissance.
The breadth of the changes can be seen in how many disciplines are described, in their pre-20th century form, as being "classical", including physics, economics, and arts such as ballet.

Naive art
Naive art is created by untrained artists. It is characterized by simplicity and a lack of the elements or qualities found in the art of formally trained artists.
The term naive art presumes the existence (by contrast) of an academy and of a generally accepted educated manner of art creation, most often painting. In practice, however, there are schools of naive artists. Over time it has become an acceptable style.
The characteristics of naive art are an awkward relationship to the formal qualities of painting; for example, difficulties with drawing and perspective that result in a charmingly awkward and often refreshing vision; strong use of pattern, unrefined colour, and simplicity rather than subtlety are all supposed markers of naive art. It has become such a popular and recognisable style that many example could be called pseudo-naive.
Primitive art is another term often applied to the art of those without formal training. This is distinguished from the self-conscious movement primitivism. Another term related to, but not completely synonymous with, naive art, is folk art.

Naive artists
Alfred Wallis
Bogosav Živkovic
Camille Bombois
Derold Page
Dragan Gaži
Dragiša Stanisavljevic
Dušan Jevtovic
Edward Hicks
Emerik Feješ
Ferenc Kalmar
Franjo Filipovic
Franjo Klopotan
Franjo Mraz
Grandma Moses
Heinz Steinmann
Henri Rousseau
Horace Pippin
Dragutin Aleksic
Ilija Bašicevic Bosilj
Ilija Filipovic
Ivan Generalic
Ivan Rabuzin
Ivan Veceraj
Janko Brašic
Josip Generalic
Milan Rašic
Milan Stanisavljevic
Milosav Jovanovic
Mirko Virius
Morris Hirschfield
Bryan Pearce
Sava Sekulic

Neoclassicism
Neoclassicism (sometimes rendered as Neo-Classicism or Neo-classicism) is the name given to quite distinct movements in the visual arts, literature, theatre, music, and architecture. These movements were in effect at various times between the 18th and the 20th centuries. What could these "neoclassicisms" have in common?
What any "neo"-classicism depends on most fundamentally is a consensus about a body of work that has achieved canonic status (illustration, right). These are the "classics." Ideally— and neoclassicism is essentially an art of an ideal— an artist, well-schooled and comfortably familiar with the canon, does not repeat it in lifeless reproductions, but synthesizes the tradition anew in each work. This sets a high standard, clearly; but though a neoclassical artist who fails to achieve it may create works that are inane, vacuous or even mediocre, gaffes of taste and failures of craftsmanship are not commonly neoclassical failings. Novelty, improvisation, self-expression, and blinding inspiration are not neoclassical virtues; neoclassicism exhibits perfect control of an idiom. It does not recreate art forms from the ground up with each new project, as modernism demanded. "Make it new" was the modernist credo of the poet Ezra Pound.

Late Baroque classicizing: G. P. Pannini assembles the canon of Roman ruins and Roman sculpture into one vast imaginary gallery (1756)Speaking and thinking in English, "neoclassicism" in each art implies a particular canon of "classic" models. We recognize them, even if we struggle against their power: Virgil, Raphael, Nicholas Poussin, Haydn. Other cultures have other canons of classics, however, and a recurring strain of neoclassicism appears to be a natural expression of a culture at a certain moment in its career, a culture that is highly self-aware, that is also confident of its own high mainstream tradition, but at the same time feels the need to regain something that has slipped away: Apollonius of Rhodes is a neoclassic writer; Ming ceramics pay homage to Sung celadon porcelains; Italian 15th century humanists learn to write a "Roman" hand we call italic (a.k.a. Carolingian); Neo-Babylonian culture is a neoclassical revival, and in Persia the "classic" religion of Zoroaster, Zoroastrianism, is revived after centuries, to "re-Persianize" a culture that had fallen away from its own classic Achaemenean past.

Op art
Op art is a term used to described certain paintings made primarily in the 1960s which exploit the fallibilty of the eye through the use of optical illusions.
Op art works are usually abstract, with many of the better known pieces made in only black and white. When the viewer looks at them, the impression is given of movement, flashing and vibration, or alternatively of swelling or warping.
The term first appeared in print in Time Magazine in October 1964, though works which might now be described as "op art" had been produced for several years previously. It has been suggested that Victor Vasarely's 1930s works such as Zebra (1938), which is made up entirely of diagonal black and white stripes curved in a way to give a three-dimensional impression of a seated zebra, should be considered the first works of op art.
In 1965, a show called The Responsive Eye, made up entirely of works of op art, was held in New York City. This show did a great deal to make op art prominent, and many of the artists now considered important in the style exhibited there. Op art subsequently became tremendously popular, and op art images were used in a number of commercial contexts. Bridget Riley tried to sue an American company, without success, for using one of her paintings as the basis of a fabric design.

Bridget Riley is perhaps the best known of the op artists. Taking Vasarely's lead, she made a number of paintings consisting only of black and white lines. Rather than giving the impression of some real-world object, however, Riley's paintings frequently give the impression of movement or colour.
Riley later produced works in full colour, and other op artists have worked in colour as well, although these works tend to be less well known. Violent contrasts of colour are sometimes used to produce similar illusions of movement.
Other noted op artists include Jesús-Rafael Soto, Cruz Diez, Youri Messen-Jaschin, Julio Leparque and Richard Anuszkiewicz.

Orientalism
Orientalism is the study of Near and Far Eastern societies and cultures by Westerners. It can also refer to the imitation or depiction of aspects of Eastern cultures in the West by writers, designers and artists. In the former meaning the term is becoming obsolete, increasingly being used only to refer to the study of the East during the historical period of European imperialism in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Because of this, the term "Orientalism" has come to acquire negative connotations in some quarters, implying old-fashioned and prejudiced interpretations of Eastern cultures and peoples. This viewpoint was most famously articulated by Edward Said in his book Orientalism (1978).

Orientalism in the arts
Similar ambivalence is evident in art and literature. From the Renaissance to the eighteenth century Western designers attempted to imitate the technical sophistication of Chinese ceramics with only partial success. "Chinoiserie" is the catch-all term for the fashion for Chinese themes in decoration in Western Europe, beginning in the late 17th century and peaking in waves, especially Rococo Chinoiserie, ca 1740 - 1770. Early hints of Chinoiserie appear, in the 17th century, in the nations with active East India Companies, Holland and England. Tin-glazed pottery made at Delft and other Dutch towns adopted genuine blue-and-white Ming decoration from the early 17th century, and early ceramic wares at Meissen and other centers of true porcelain imitated Chinese shapes for dishes, vases and tea wares. But in the true Chinoiserie décor fairyland, mandarins lived in fanciful mountainous landscapes with cobweb bridges, carried flower parasols, lolled in flimsy bamboo pavilions haunted by dragons and phoenixes, while monkeys swung from scrolling borders.
Pleasure pavilions in "Chinese taste" appeared in the formal parterres of late Baroque and Rococo German palaces, and in tile panels at Aranjuez near Madrid. Thomas Chippendale's mahogany tea tables and china cabinets, especially, were embellished with fretwork glazing and railings, ca 1753 - 70, but sober homages to early Xing scholars' furnishings were also naturalized, as the tang evolved into a mid- Georgian side table and squared slat-back armchairs suited English gentlemen as well as Chinese scholars. Not every adaptation of Chinese design principles falls within mainstream "chinoiserie." Chinoiserie media included imitations of lacquer and painted tin (tôle) ware that imitated japanning, early painted wallpapers in sheets, and ceramic figurines and table ornaments. Small pagodas appeared on chimneypieces and full-sized ones in gardens. Kew has a magnificent garden pagoda designed by Sir William Chambers.

Cover of the French magazine le Japon artistique showing one Hokusai's views on Mount Fuji.After 1860, Japonerie, sparked by the arrival of Japanese woodblock prints, became an important influence in the western arts. The paintings of James MacNeill Whistler and his "Peacock Room" are some of the finest works of the genre; other examples include the Gamble House and other buildings by California architects Greene and Greene.

Pointillism
Pointillism is a unique technique of painting that utilizes individual primary color dots to create a scene. The viewer’s eyes perceive the dots as combining together to create a scene. Pointillism is based on the Trichromatic color theory which states that the primary colors are red, green and blue and that these colors combined can form a mixture of colors and images. However, because pointillism relies on viewers fusing the individual dots together to perceive a scene, several flourishing pointillist artists worked to make their brushstrokes invisible. This removed the texture in paintings that was created by visible brushstrokes but adds many supplementary effects to the art piece such as vibrance and luminance, the results of sunlight on objects.

The brushstrokes in Paul Signac's "The windmills at Overschie" is visible while the brush strokes in Georges Seurat's "Une baignade, Asnieres" is not visible. Seurat's painting has a much more vibrant and luminant appearance.
Pointillism is frequently referred to as Post-Impressionism and is very much associated with Divisionism, another art form which focuses on separation of color. The difference between Pointillism and Divisionism is the method in which color is separated by brushstrokes - Pointillism uses only dots to segregate colors while Divisionism uses any means, whether it is dots, patches of color or brushstrokes to split the colors. Pointillism is also generally stated as an influence for Fauvism, a short lived style of art preferred by artists such as Paul Gauguin.
Georges-Pierre Seurat is one of the most well-known Pointillist artists. He created several famous pieces of art using this technique, including "Sunday Afternoon on the Island on La Grande Jatte". The Pointillism technique is also used by contemporary technologies such as television screens.

Pop art
Pop art was an artistic movement that emerged in the late 1950s in England and the United States. Characterized by themes and techniques drawn from mass culture, such as advertising and comic books, Pop Art is widely interpreted as a reaction to the then-dominant ideas of abstract expressionism. Pop art, like pop music, aimed to incorporate popular as opposed to elitist culture into art, and targeted a broad audience.
The term was coined in 1958 by British critic Laurence Alloway (in response to works by Richard Hamilton, among others) and a "pop" movement was widely recognized by the mid-1960s. In the meantime, the movement was sometimes called Neo-Dada, a name which reveals some of the thinking behind this type of art, and the strong influence of dada pioneer Marcel Duchamp on such seminal pop figures as Hamilton, Jasper Johns, and Andy Warhol.

Notable Pop artists
Peter Blake
Derek Boshier
Patrick Caulfield
Jim Dine
Richard Hamilton Robert Indiana
Jasper Johns
Allen Jones
Yayoi Kusama
Roy Lichtenstein
Peter Max
Claes Oldenburg
Mel Ramos
Robert Rauschenberg
James Rosenquist
Ed Ruscha
Wayne Thiebaud
Andy Warhol
Tom Wesselmann
Philip Guston

Postmodernism
Postmodernism may appear as the ultimate phase of modernism; it expresses what may happen in art after the modernist project appears to have ended. It is characterised by an ability to use a vocabulary of media, genres or styles as parts of an extended visual language that goes beyond the boundaries of what is usually thought of as the modernist project. Postmodernism is, by its very nature, impossible to define clearly. Some of the best expositions appear in the theoretical writings of Jean Baudrillard, who concludes that what motivates art historical change is not any 'authentic' or 'original' impulse, but simply fashion, pivoting on the desire for novelty, which he sees as an organic and integrated process.

Realism
Realism is commonly defined as a concern for fact or reality and rejection of the impractical and visionary. However, the term realism is used, with varying meanings, in several of the liberal arts; particularly painting, literature, and philosophy. It is also used in international relations. Realism is everyday people, doing everyday things in everyday life.
Realism in visual arts and literature
Burial at Ornans by Gustave CourbetIn the visual arts and literature, realism is a mid-19th century movement, which started in France. The realists sought to render everyday characters, situations, dilemmas, and events; all in an "accurate" (or realistic) manner. Realism began as a reaction to romanticism, in which subjects were treated idealistically. Realists tended to discard theatrical drama and classical forms of art to depict commonplace or 'realistic' themes.

Romanticism
Romanticism was an artistic and intellectual movement in the history of ideas that originated in late 18th century Western Europe. It stressed strong emotion—which now might include trepidation, awe and horror as esthetic experiences—the individual imagination as a critical authority, which permitted freedom within or even from classical notions of form in art, and overturning of previous social conventions, particularly the position of the aristocracy. There was a strong element of historical and natural inevitability in its ideas, stressing the importance of "nature" in art and language. Romanticism is also noted for its elevation of the achievements of what it perceived as heroic individuals and artists. It followed the Enlightenment period and was in part inspired by a revolt against aristocratic social and political norms from the previous period, as well as seeing itself as the fulfillment of the promise of that age.

Romanticism. Characteristics
In a general sense, "Romanticism" covers a group of related artistic, political, philosophical and social trends arising out of the late 18th and early 19th centuries in Europe. But a precise characterization and a specific description of Romanticism have been objects of intellectual history and literary history for all of the twentieth century without any great measure of consensus emerging. Arthur Lovejoy attempted to demonstrate the difficulty of this problem in his seminal article "On The Discrimination of Romanticisms;" some scholars see romanticism as completely continuous with the present, some see it as the inaugural moment of modernity, some see it as the beginning of a tradition of resistance to the Enlightenment, and still others date it firmly to the direct aftermath of the French Revolution.
Romanticism is often understood as a set of new cultural and aesthetic values. It might be taken to include the rise of individualism, as seen by the cult of the artistic genius that was a prominent feature in the Romantic worship of Shakespeare and in the poetry of Wordsworth, to take only two examples; a new emphasis on common language and the depiction of apparently everyday experiences; and experimentation with new, non-classical artistic forms.
Romanticism also strongly valued the past. Old forms were valued, ruins were sentimentalized as iconic of the action of Nature on the works of man, and mythic and legendary material which would previously have been seen as "low" culture became a common basis for works of "high" art and literature.

Socialist realism
Socialist realism is a teleologically-oriented style of realistic art which has as its purpose the furtherance of the goals of socialism and communism. It is related to, but should not be confused with, social realism. Rooted in traditions of Realism in Russian literature of 19th century that described the life of simple people and exemplified by the aesthetic philosophy of Maxim Gorki, it was supported by Soviet state officials, and from its adoption by the Union of Soviet Writers in 1934 at the Congress of Soviet Writers it was the official policy of the Soviet Union:"Socialist realism is the basic method of Soviet literature and literary criticism. It demands of the artist the truthful, historically concrete representation of reality in its revolutionary development. Moreover, the truthfulness and historically concreteness of the artistic representation of reality must be linked with the task of ideological transformation and education of workers in the spirit of socialism."

Surrealism
Surrealism is a philosophy, a cultural and artistic movement, and a term used to describe unexpected juxtapositions.
Philosophy. The philosophy of Surrealism aims for liberation of the mind by emphasizing the critical and imaginative faculties of the "unconscious mind", thus bringing about personal, cultural, political and social revolution. At various times surrealist groups aligned with communism and anarchism to advance radical political, as well as social and artistic, change.
Cultural and artistic movement. The Surrealism movement originated in post-World War I European avant-garde literary and art circles, and many early Surrealists were associated with the earlier Dada movement. Movement participants sought to revolutionize life with actions intended to bring about change in accordance with Surrealism philosophy. While the movement's most important center was Paris, it spread throughout Europe and to North America during the course of the 1920s, 1930s and 1940s. Some historians mark the end of the movement at World War II, some with the death of André Breton, while others believe that Surrealism continues as an identifiable movement.

Unexpected juxtapostion. The word "surreal" is often used to describe unexpected juxtapositions or use of non-sequiturs in art or dialog, particuarly where such juxtapositions argue for their own self-consistency. This usage is often independent of any direct connection to Surrealism the movement, and is used in both formal and informal contexts.
The term Surrealism was coined by Guillaume Apollinaire to in the program notes describing Parade (1917), a collaboration of Jean Cocteau, Erik Satie, Pablo Picasso and Léonide Massine:
From this new alliance, for until now stage sets and costumes on one side and choreography on the other had only a sham bond between them, there has come about, in 'Parade', a kind of super-realism ('sur-réalisme'), in which I see the starting point of a series of manifestations of this new spirit ('esprit nouveau').'