Art History Tours

Art Nouveau Highlights

The term Art Nouveau describes a movement in art, design and architecture that flourished in both Europe and America between 1890 and 1910. Drawing inspiration from the natural world, the style is characterised by swirling lines and curvaceous organic forms set within an eccentric geometry. The movement was a natural progression of two previous styles, both of which rebelled against the effects of mass production in the industrial age: The Arts and Crafts movement, which elevated the status of the decorative arts and craftsmanship, and the Aesthetic movement, which promoted ‘art for art’s sake’. An additional influence was that of Japonisme – a craze for Japanese art and design – as Japanese prints and artefacts flooded the Western market following government trade agreements in the 1860s. Japanese shunga (erotic prints) were particularly influential, feeding an increasing appetite for risqué and explicit imagery that was fuelled by the recent invention of photography and a growing market for pornographic imagery. Sensuality is an important part of the Art Nouveau style and artists made the most of a general relaxation of moral attitudes across Europe, often pushing at the boundaries of the risqué and the explicit.

Baroque through to Neoclassicism Highlights

The Baroque style flourished in European visual culture during the 17th and 18th centuries. Although the movement shared the naturalism and often religious or mythological subject matter of the Renaissance style, it is typified by an elaborate and extravagant application of decoration; in general, Baroque artists worked to distance themselves from their Renaissance predecessors. The style was greatly encouraged by the Catholic Church, who considered it an enticing contrast to the austere Protestant art and architecture that had been popularised following the Reformation in the 16th century. Most works of the Baroque period share a common goal: to convey a heightened sense of drama. In painting this is often achieved through energetic compositions and a luminous application of colour, whilst in sculpture, dynamic forms dominate. Such drama, the Catholic church believed, would instil piety among the congregation, and a sense of awe for the church.

Mediaeval Art Highlights

In the Western world, mediaeval art defines a period of some 1000 years, also known as the Middle Ages, which begins with the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 AD (the eastern Roman provinces form the Byzantine Empire, a mighty power into the 11th century) and eventually ushers in the Early Renaissance at the turn of the 15th century. Petrarch, the 14th-century Italian poet and scholar, famously referred to this period as the Dark Ages, a descriptor that is frequently, and misleadingly, deployed to this day. As a great admirer of Greco-Roman society, he considered classical learning to be the ‘light’ and thus considered the period between the fall of the Eastern Roman Empire and his own lifetime (c.1330s) a period of intellectual darkness. Subsequent historians would pick up on this idea, identifying the period as a ‘middle’ point between the end of antiquity and the rebirth of classical learning in the Renaissance.

However, the mediaeval period is a crucial bridge between these periods. As the Eastern Roman Empire splintered into various smaller feudal kingdoms, many artistic styles and periods emerged. Although these are difficult to concisely define, broadly speaking they include early Christian and Byzantine, Anglo-Saxon and Viking, Carolingian, Ottonian, Romanesque and Gothic. The rise and spread of Christianity throughout Europe saw the unification of various secular arts and a sophisticated visual culture built throughout the mediaeval period, producing prominent works in numerous disciplines – manuscripts, architecture, sculpture, mosaic, textiles, ivories and painting.

Modernism & Post-Modernism Highlights

Modernism is an overarching term used to describe a succession of art movements that occurred between the mid-19th and mid-20th centuries. Although these movements vary greatly in style, they are united by a common set of principles: a repudiation of tradition and conservative values (such as religious moralising in painting), a bold experimentation with form, often to the point of abstraction, and an innovation in technique, materials and process. As a broad movement, modernism reflected the rapid acceleration of societal and technological change brought about by the Industrial revolution in the first half of the 19th century, as artists worked to present, idealise and propel the possibilities of modern life. The invention of photography in the same century was of particular significance to the movement, driving innovations in artistic representation that were beyond the realms of photographic possibility, whilst simultaneously offering a new medium for experimentation. The key styles encompassed by the modernist movement include: Realism (notable for its depiction of daily life on a scale traditionally reserved for history painting), Impressionism, Post-impressionism, Fauvism, Cubism, Suprematism, Constructivism, De Stijl, Dada, Surrealism, Abstract expressionism and Minimalism.

Renaissance Art Highlights

Beginning in Italy in the early 1400s, the Renaissance spread north through Europe, flourishing throughout the 15th and 16th centuries. As a period, it is defined by the new Renaissance idea of ‘humanism’. This was inspired by the scholarly thinking and ideals of Ancient Greece and Rome, specifically the Roman concept of humanitas, an amalgamation of the Greek ideas of philanthrôpía (love of humanity) and paideia (education of the ideal citizen). Humanism promoted the worth of man as individual within society above all else. Coupled with a growing interest in nature, Renaissance art is characterised by an increasing adherence to realism, such as the introduction of perspective in painting. Although religious and mythological subject matter remained the dominant themes, depictions of holy or mythical figures were drawn from real life. The Renaissance period held classical learning in the highest esteem. Greco-Roman notions of symmetry, proportion and geometry are also reflected in the art and architecture of the period.