Art Movements in Order: a One-Page Timeline
2026-06-29
Confused about what came when? Here is the whole story in one scroll — each movement with its rough dates and one painter to anchor it.
1400–1600: Renaissance
Perspective, anatomy, balance. Remember Leonardo da Vinci. In the north, oil-paint precision: Van Eyck and the Northern Renaissance.
1600–1750: Baroque → Rococo
Drama, darkness and light (Caravaggio, Rembrandt), then aristocratic pastel play (Fragonard).
1750–1850: Neoclassicism vs Romanticism
Marble-cool antiquity (David) against storm and feeling (Friedrich, Turner).
1850–1900: Realism → Impressionism → Post-Impressionism
Courbet paints the truth; Monet paints the light; Van Gogh and Cézanne push past both.
1900–1945: the -isms explode
Fauvism (wild colour — Matisse), Expressionism (Munch), Cubism (Picasso), Abstraction (Kandinsky), Suprematism (Malevich), Surrealism (Dalí).
After 1945: America takes over
Abstract Expressionism (Pollock, Rothko), then Pop Art answers with soup cans and comics (Warhol, Lichtenstein).
Browse all movements on the Movements page — or make the timeline stick by playing today's 10 →