Panchronia

Art and styles

64 styles from cave painting to postmodernism and 408 works from around the world. For each style: how to recognise it, why it emerged and where to see examples.

◍ Open on the globe

Styles: Antiquity · Middle Ages · Renaissance and Baroque · 18th–19th centuries · 20th century
Works: Architecture · Painting · Sculpture · Decorative arts · Literature · Music

Antiquity

Paleolithic cave paintingc. 40,000 BC – 10,000 BC · EuropeAnimals of the hunters' world in ochre and charcoal on cave walls — the first images people madeMegalithsc. 4500 BC – 1500 BC · EuropeHuge rough stones set upright, in circles or as houses for the deadMesopotamian artc. 3500 BC – 539 BC · Middle EastClay, brick and relief serving king and god: ziggurats, victory steles, winged guardiansAncient Egyptian artc. 3100 BC – 30 BC · AfricaArt for eternity: a strict canon of proportion, frontal poses, stone meant to last millenniaAegean artc. 3000 BC – 1100 BC · EuropeA maritime Bronze Age: lively frescoes of Minoan Crete and the Cyclopean walls of MycenaeShang and Zhou bronzesc. 1600 BC – 221 BC · AsiaCast vessels for offerings to ancestors, covered in animal masks and inscriptionsOlmec artc. 1200 BC – 400 BC · AmericasMesoamerica's first great sculpture: basalt ruler heads and were-jaguar infantsNok terracottasc. 1000 BC – 300 · AfricaClay heads and figures with triangular eyes — the oldest large sculpture in sub-Saharan AfricaAncient Greek art: Archaic and Classicalc. 800 BC – 323 BC · EuropeMan as the measure: the ideal nude body, the column orders and proportions set by numberScythian animal stylec. 700 BC – 200 BC · Eastern Europe & RussiaCoiled and twisted beasts in gold and felt — the art of the Great Steppe's nomadsHellenistic artc. 323 BC – 31 BC · EuropeGreek form after Alexander: passion, motion and theatrical scale from the Nile to the IndusAncient Roman artc. 200 BC – 400 · EuropeConcrete, arch and dome serving the empire; truthful portraits and chronicle reliefsGandhara artc. 100 BC – 500 · AsiaThe Buddha in a Greek mantle: Hellenistic sculpture in the service of BuddhismClassic Maya artc. 250 – 900 · AmericasStepped temple-pyramids and carved stelae where kings and gods speak in glyphsByzantine artc. 330 – 1453 · EuropeGold mosaics and a heaven-like dome: the church as paradise, the icon as a window to eternity

Middle Ages

Insular art (Ireland and Britain)c. 600 – 900 · EuropeCeltic knots and interlaced beasts on Gospel pages: ornament as prayerEarly Islamic art (Umayyad and Abbasid)c. 661 – 1258 · Middle EastInscriptions, ornament and arches instead of images: a space of prayer with no depiction of GodMoorish style (al-Andalus)756 – 1492 · EuropeHorseshoe arches, carved stucco and water in courtyards: al-Andalus's paradise in stoneKhmer art of Angkorc. 802 – 1220 · AsiaSandstone temple-mountain: a model of the cosmos with five towers and miles of reliefsYamato-e, Heian Japanese paintingc. 900 – 1300 · AsiaJapanese stories on long scrolls: a view from above through removed roofs, mood in dense colourSong landscape painting960 – 1279 · AsiaMountains dwarf people: monumental ink landscape as an image of cosmic orderPre-Mongol architecture of Rus988 – 1240 · Eastern Europe & RussiaCross-in-square churches of thin brick or white stone: Byzantine plan, Rus silhouetteRomanesquec. 1000 – 1200 · EuropeThick walls, round arches and stone vaults: a fortress-church for pilgrimsIfe and Benin bronzesc. 1100 – 1897 · AfricaBrass heads and plaques: Ife naturalism and Benin's court chronicle in metalGothicc. 1140 – 1500 · EuropePointed vaults, flying buttresses and stained glass: the wall dissolves into coloured lightPersian miniaturec. 1300 – 1650 · Middle EastThe book painting as a garden: jewel-bright pigments, high horizon, no shadowsAztec Artc. 1325 – 1521 · AmericasImperial propaganda in stone: cosmos, sacrifice and the ruler's power carved in basaltMing and Qing Porcelainc. 1368 – 1912 · AsiaThin white porcelain painted in cobalt and enamels: the first global brand, carried across the seasRussian Icon Painting: Theophanes, Rublev, Dionisiusc. 1370 – 1520 · Eastern Europe & RussiaThe Byzantine canon recast as stillness: light instead of shadow, rhythm of silhouettes instead of volume

Renaissance and Baroque

Italian Renaissancec. 1400 – 1600 · EuropeAntiquity measured anew: linear perspective, anatomy and proportion as the measure of manNorthern Renaissancec. 1430 – 1580 · EuropeOil paint and a magnifying eye: the world as an endless sum of exact, symbol-laden thingsInca Architecturec. 1438 – 1572 · AmericasStone fitted without mortar so tightly no blade slips in, and set into the mountainsideClassical Ottoman Architecture (Sinan)c. 1500 – 1700 · Middle EastAn answer to Hagia Sophia: a central dome on cascading half-domes and pencil-thin minaretsMannerismc. 1520 – 1600 · EuropeRenaissance harmony deliberately unbalanced: stretched bodies, cold colour, crowded spaceMughal Artc. 1526 – 1748 · AsiaPersian garden, Timurid dome and Indian stone: paradise symmetry in white marble and red sandstoneTented Churchesc. 1530 – 1650 · Eastern Europe & RussiaThe wooden tent spire recast in brick: a tower-church instead of a domed churchBaroquec. 1600 – 1750 · EuropeArt designed to overwhelm: motion, dramatic light and theatre that pulls the viewer inDutch Golden Age Paintingc. 1600 – 1700 · EuropePainting for the burgher's parlour: portrait, landscape, still life and genre instead of altarpiecesLatin American Baroquec. 1650 – 1800 · AmericasIberian Baroque reworked by Indigenous and mestizo craftsmen into dense, gilded church frontsUkiyo-ec. 1660 – 1868 · AsiaPictures of the floating world: actors, beauties and views of Edo in mass-printed colour woodblocksNaryshkin Baroquec. 1680 – 1720 · Eastern Europe & RussiaA tiered Muscovite church laced with European orders in white stone on red brickRocococ. 1730 – 1770 · EuropeBaroque moved from the state hall to the boudoir: asymmetric shell-work, pastels and playful loveElizabethan Baroquec. 1740 – 1765 · Eastern Europe & RussiaRastrelli's lavish court Baroque: turquoise-and-white palaces with gilding on Russian soil

18th–19th centuries

Neoclassicismc. 1750 – 1830 · EuropeA return to Greece and Rome after the excavations: strict orders, clear contour, civic virtueRomanticismc. 1800 – 1850 · EuropeFeeling and the elements over reason: the lone hero, storm, ruins and the national pastRealismc. 1840 – 1880 · EuropePaint what you see: peasants, labourers and the provinces at the scale of history paintingImpressionismc. 1867 – 1886 · EuropeA fleeting moment of light and air, caught outdoors in separate strokes of pure colourPeredvizhniki (The Wanderers)1870 – 1923 · Eastern Europe & RussiaPainting as social verdict: Russian life, history and landscape, toured across the empirePost-Impressionismc. 1886 – 1905 · EuropeAfter Impressionism: colour and form serve structure, symbol and emotion, not the passing momentArt Nouveauc. 1890 – 1914 · EuropeA new style of living lines: stems, waves and flowing hair rendered in iron, glass and stone

20th century

Expressionismc. 1905 – 1925 · EuropeNot how the world looks but how it feels: anguish turned outward in distorted form and raw colourCubismc. 1907 – 1920 · EuropeObjects broken into facets and shown from several viewpoints at once on the flat canvasRussian avant-gardec. 1907 – 1932 · Eastern Europe & RussiaDropping depiction for pure form, colour and invented language: art as a new reality of its ownHarlem Renaissancec. 1918 – 1937 · AmericasThe 'New Negro' speaking for himself: blues, jazz and African roots as high artModern architecture (International Style)c. 1919 – 1975 · Whole worldA house as a machine for living: no ornament, function first, concrete, glass and the free planConstructivismc. 1920 – 1932 · Eastern Europe & RussiaArt as engineering: form follows structure, and buildings and posters build a new way of lifeArt Decoc. 1920 – 1939 · EuropeMachine-age luxury: geometry, gleaming metal and the stepped silhouetteMexican muralismc. 1920 – 1955 · AmericasA nation's history painted on public walls: art for the people, not the salonSurrealismc. 1924 – 1950 · EuropeDream and the unconscious over reason: an impossible reality painted with precisionSocialist realismc. 1932 – 1988 · Eastern Europe & RussiaLife not as it is but as it should become under socialism — legible and heroicAbstract expressionismc. 1943 – 1965 · AmericasA huge canvas as an arena for gesture or a field of colour: no subject, all feelingPop artc. 1956 – 1970 · AmericasAds, comics and celebrities as fine-art subjects: the mass-produced imagePostmodernismc. 1966 – 2000 · Whole worldIrony and quotation instead of one truth: columns, pediments and games with the viewerWestern Desert dot paintingsince 1971 · OceaniaSacred Dreaming maps moved from sand to canvas in dots of acrylic paint

Architecture (136)

Painting (127)

Sculpture (49)

Decorative arts (8)

Literature (63)

Music (25)