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Paleolithic Period, also known as the Old Stone Age, is an ancient cultural stage of human development, characterized by the use of rudimentary chipped stone tools (The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica, 2021).

Important facts:

Protohumans are nomadic

Use of stone tools for survival and others

Cave paintings had didactic function

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The Mesolithic Age was a period of transition between the Paleolithic and Neolithic eras. Cave paintings and engravings, miniature sculptural items, and early megalithic architecture all evolved throughout the mesolithic age.

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The Neolithic period is the period in art wherein the semi-nomadic lifestyle was abandoned and the final stages of cultural evolution (such as the use of metallurgy, farming, and animal husbandry) or technological advancements of prehistoric humans happened.

Weaving, architecture, megaliths, and better pictographs (assumed to be a way of writing) emerged from this era. A lot of statuettes were made, most being a woman's fertility charm. Sculptures were no longer just carved, they were also fashioned out of clay. Painting also became a purely decorative element and pottery became more decorated.

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Mesopotamia, being the first civilization, is a marvel in terms of its exploration and usage of different art forms. Their art was predominantly created for cultural and/or religious purposes. The ancient writing system, Cuneiform, allowed the Mesopotamians to write down information about resources and accounting. The Ziggurat allowed Mesopotamian priests and priestesses to communicate with their deities.

Sumerians were the first inhabitants in Mesopotamia, they built the first civilization known in history invented the potter's wheel.

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Painting, sculpture, architecture, and other types of ancient Egyptian art. The majority of this artwork was extremely symbolic in nature. Paintings on the stone were common and depicted pleasant scenes from the afterlife in tombs.

Egyptian paintings have a visual hierarchy to them. Egyptians utilized this to demonstrate their subjects' social position.  Egyptians draw humans in a strict order, the subject will be divided into 18 equal parts. That is why foreshortening is never adopted by the artists in the Egyptian period, as it was believed that it will distort the subject.

Hieroglyphs is the writing system ancient Egyptians used for inscriptions mostly on walls of temples and tombs, as well as statues, coffins, and sarcophagi. These were created for eternity, either for the gods or for the afterlife.

Bird Lady, is female figure who appears to have the head of a bird as in Egypt, Gods were in combinations of human and animal. In Egypt, bird symbolise as fertility, life and generation. However, who she is still a mystery which gives a great open interpretations to the audience.

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Greek period is known for its Archaic, Classical, and Hellenistic distinction in its culture and visual arts.
During Archaic period, red and black painting are common and created using a firing technique that involves iron and kiln to create images on pottery. Classical period introduced a different yet sophisticated kind of art. Classical Greek sculptures are aiming for an accurate and perfect representation of the human anatomy. Attention to details is also evident when Greek sculptors put emphasis on drapery. Hellenistic period elevates Greek art production to its peak and continues to show an increasing emphasis on representing an accurate human anatomy and high attention to detail.

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The Renaissance was a historical period characterized by the rebirth of culture and the economy. In the aspect of art, The Renaissance saw the introduction of representational art. Subjects now included portraits, episodes from Classical religion, and events from contemporary life. Human figures are often rendered in dramatic poses that show expression and interaction ("Renaissance Art, 2020).

High Renaissance: Idea of beauty in relation to Greco-Roman culture, development of techniques of painting, renaissance master.

Early Renaissance: transition from the medieval period to the Renaissance; techniques and subjects matter.

An Italian artist or polymath from the high Renaissance during the 15th century. He was so important that people referred to him as 'il Magnifico,' the Magnificent. Lorenzo de'Medici (1449–1492) lived during the Italian Renaissance.

The technique sfumato appeared in Renaissance, it was the technique of allowing tones and colors to shade gradually into one another, producing softened outlines or hazy forms. found in the artwork, Mona Lisa. In addition, the technique chiaroscuro, is the technique to give the artwork value by showing light to dark.

Source:

Renaissance Art. (2020, March 5). Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/art/Renaissance-art

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Renaissance art, painting, sculpture, architecture, music, and literature produced during the 14th, 15th, and 16th centuries in Europe under the combined influences of an increased awareness of nature, a revival of classical learning, and a more individualistic view of man. Scholars no longer believe that the Renaissance marked an abrupt break with medieval values, as is suggested by the French word renaissance, literally "rebirth." Rather, historical sources suggest that interest in nature, humanistic learning, and individualism were already present in the late medieval period and became dominant in 15th- and 16th-century Italy concurrently with social and economic changes such as the secularization of daily life, the rise of a rational money-credit economy, and greatly increased social mobility.

In Italy the Renaissance proper was preceded by an important "proto-renaissance" in the late 13th and early 14th centuries, which drew inspiration from Franciscan radicalism. St. Francis had rejected the formal Scholasticism of the prevailing Christian theology and gone out among the poor praising the beauties and spiritual value of nature. His example inspired Italian artists and poets to take pleasure in the world around them. The most famous artist of the proto-renaissance period, Giotto di Bondone (1266/67 or 1276-1337), reveals a new pictorial style that depends on clear, simple structure and great psychological penetration rather than on the flat, linear decorativeness and hierarchical compositions of his predecessors and contemporaries, such as the Florentine painter Cimabue and the Siennese painters Duccio and Simone Martini. The great poet Dante lived at about the same time as Giotto, and his poetry shows a similar concern with inward experience and the subtle shades and variations of human nature. Although his Divine Comedy belongs to the Middle Ages in its plan and ideas, its subjective spirit and power of expression look forward to the Renaissance. Petrarch and Giovanni Boccaccio also belong to this proto-renaissance period, both through their extensive studies of Latin literature and through their writings in the vernacular. Unfortunately, the terrible plague of 1348 and subsequent civil wars submerged both the revival of humanistic studies and the growing interest in individualism and naturalism revealed in the works of Giotto and Dante. The spirit of the Renaissance did not surface again until the beginning of the 15th century.

In 1401 a competition was held at Florence to award the commission for bronze doors to be placed on the Baptistery of San Giovanni. Defeated by the goldsmith and painter Lorenzo Ghiberti, Filippo Brunelleschi and Donatello left for Rome, where they immersed themselves in the study of ancient architecture and sculpture. When they returned to Florence and began to put their knowledge into practice, the rationalized art of the ancient world was reborn. The founder of Renaissance painting was Masaccio (1404-28). The intellectuality of his conceptions, the monumentality of his compositions, and the high degree of naturalism in his works mark Masaccio as a pivotal figure in Renaissance painting. The succeeding generation of artists- Piero della Francesca, Pollaiuolo, and Andrea del Verrocchio-pressed forward with researches into linear and aerial perspective and anatomy, developing a style of scientific naturalism.

The situation in Florence was uniquely favourable to the arts. The civic pride of Florentines found expression in statues of the patron saints commissioned from Ghiberti and Donatello for niches in the grain-market guildhall known as Or San Michele, and in the largest dome built since antiquity, placed by Brunelleschi on the Florence cathedral. The cost of construction and decoration of palaces, churches, and monasteries was underwritten by wealthy merchant families.

Principal among these were the Medici, who dominated Florence from 1434, when the first pro-Medici government was elected, until 1492, when Lorenzo de Medici died. During their ascendancy the Medici subsidized virtually the entire range of humanistic and artistic activities associated with the Renaissance. Cosimo (1389-1464), made wealthy by his trading profits as the papal banker, was a scholar who founded the Neoplatonic academy and collected an extensive library. He gathered around him the foremost writers and classical scholars of his day, among them Marsilio Ficino, the Neoplatonist who served as the tutor of Lorenzo de Medici, Cosimo's grandson. Lorenzo (1449-92) became the centre of a group of artists, poets, scholars, and musicians who believed in the Neoplatonic ideal of a mystical union with God through the contemplation of beauty. Less naturalistic and more courtly than the prevailing spirit of the first half of the Quattrocento, this aesthetic philosophy was elucidated by Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, incarnated in painting by Sandro Botticelli, and expressed in poetry by Lorenzo himself. Lorenzo also collaborated with the organist and choirmaster of the Florence cathedral, Heinrich Isaac, in the composition of lively secular choral music which anticipated the madrigal, a characteristic form of the High Renaissance.

The Medici traded in all of the major cities in Europe, and one of the most famous masterpieces of Northern Renaissance art, the Portinari Altarpiece, by Hugo van der Goes ( c. 1476; Uffizi, Florence), was commissioned by their agent, Tommaso Portinari. Instead of being painted with the customary tempera of the period, the work is painted with translucent oil glazes that produce brilliant jewel-like colour and a glossy surface. Early Northern Renaissance painters were more concerned with the detailed reproduction of objects and their symbolic meaning than with the study of scientific perspective and anatomy even after these achievements became widely known. On the other hand, central Italian painters began to adopt the oil painting medium soon after the Portinari Altarpiece was brought to Florence in 1476.

High Renaissance art, which flourished for about 35 years, from the early 1490s to 1527, when Rome was sacked by imperial troops, revolves around three towering figures: Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519), Michelangelo (1475-1564), and Raphael (1483-1520). Each of the three embodies an important aspect of the period: Leonardo was the ultimate Renaissance man, a solitary genius to whom no branch of study was foreign; Michelangelo emanated creative power, conceiving vast projects that drew for inspiration on the human body as the ultimate vehicle for emotional expression; Raphael created works that perfectly expressed the classical spirit-harmonious, beautiful, and serene.

Although Leonardo was recognized in his own time as a great artist, his restless researches into anatomy, the nature of flight, and the structure of plant and animal life left him little time to paint. His fame rests mainly on a few completed paintings; among them are the Mona Lisa (1503-05, Louvre), The Virgin of the Rocks (1483-86, Louvre), and the sadly deteriorated fresco The Last Supper (1495-98; restored 1978-99; Santa Maria delle Grazie, Milan).

Michelangelo's early sculpture, such as the Pietà (1499; St. Peter's, Rome) and the David (1501-04; Accademia, Florence), reveals a breathtaking technical ability in concert with a disposition to bend rules of anatomy and proportion in the service of greater expressive power. Although Michelangelo thought of himself first as a sculptor, his best known work is the giant ceiling fresco of the Sistine Chapel in the Vatican, Rome. It was completed in four years, from 1508 to 1512, and presents an incredibly complex but philosophically unified composition that fuses traditional Christian theology with Neoplatonic thought.

Raphael's greatest work, School of Athens (1508-11), was painted in the Vatican at the same time that Michelangelo was working on the Sistine Chapel. In this large fresco Raphael brings together representatives of the Aristotelian and Platonic schools of thought. Instead of the densely packed, turbulent surface of Michelangelo's masterpiece, Raphael places his groups of calmly conversing philosophers and artists in a vast court with vaults receding into the distance. Raphael was initially influenced by Leonardo, and he incorporated the pyramidal composition and beautifully modelled faces of The Virgin of the Rocks into many of his own paintings of the Madonna. He differed from Leonardo, however, in his prodigious output, his even temperament, and his preference for classical harmony and clarity.

The creator of High Renaissance architecture was Donato Bramante (1444-1514), who came to Rome in 1499 when he was 55. His first Roman masterpiece, the Tempietto (1502) at S. Pietro in Montorio, is a centralized dome structure that recalls classical temple architecture. Pope Julius II (reigned 1503-13) chose Bramante to be papal architect, and together they devised a plan to replace the 4th-century Old St. Peter's with a new church of gigantic dimensions. The project was not completed, however, until long after Bramante's death.

Humanistic studies continued under the powerful popes of the High Renaissance, Julius II and Leo X, as did the development of polyphonic music. The Sistine Choir, which performed at services when the pope officiated, drew musicians and singers from all of Italy and northern Europe. Among the most famous composers who became members were Josquin des Prez ( c. 1450-1521) and Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina ( c. 1525-94).

The Renaissance as a unified historical period ended with the fall of Rome in 1527. The strains between Christian faith and classical humanism led to Mannerism in the latter part of the 16th century. Great works of art animated by the Renaissance spirit, however, continued to be made in northern Italy and in northern Europe.

Seemingly unaffected by the Mannerist crisis, northern Italian painters such as Correggio (1494-1534) and Titian (1488/90-1576) continued to celebrate both Venus and the Virgin Mary without apparent conflict. The oil medium, introduced to northern Italy by Antonello da Messina and quickly adopted by Venetian painters who could not use fresco because of the damp climate, seemed particularly adapted to the sanguine, pleasure-loving culture of Venice. A succession of brilliant painters- Giovanni Bellini, Giorgione, Titian, Tintoretto, and Paolo Veronese-developed the lyrical Venetian painting style that combined pagan subject matter, sensuous handling of colour and paint surface, and a love of extravagant settings. Closer in spirit to the more intellectual Florentines of the Quattrocento was the German painter Albrecht Dürer (1471-1528), who experimented with optics, studied nature assiduously, and disseminated his powerful synthesis of Renaissance and Northern Gothic styles through the Western world by means of his engravings and woodcuts.

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Renaissance art | Definition, Characteristics, Style, Examples, & Facts

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Renaissance art, painting, sculpture, architecture, music, and literature produced during the 14th, 15th, and 16th centuries in Europe under the combined influences of an increased awareness of nature, a revival of classical learning, and a more individualistic view of man.

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Baroque means irregular or extravagant.

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Neoclassicism is a revival of the classical past. It developed in Europe in the 18thcentury when artists began to imitate Greek and Roman antiquity and painters of the Renaissance as a reaction to the excessive style of Baroque and Rococo. As an opposing movement to the Baroque and Rococo, Neoclassicism reverted to Classical virtues of symmetry, proportion, clean lines, and subdued colors. The subject matter was of mythological and historical scenes with the ideals of heroism and patriotism.

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Romanticism was a movement in the arts and literature that originated in the late 18th century characterized by its emphasis on emotion and individualism, clandestine literature, idealization of nature, suspicion of science and industrialization, and glorification of the past with a strong preference for the medieval rather than the classical.

Romantic art focused on emotions, feelings, and moods of all kinds including spirituality, imagination, mystery, and fervor.

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Expressionism is the artistic style in which the artist seeks to depict not objective reality but rather the subjective emotions and responses that objects and events arouse within a person.

Expressionism, is an artistic style in which the artist seeks to depict not objective reality but rather the subjective emotions and responses that objects and events arouse within a person.

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Fauvism is the style of les Fauves (French for "the wild beasts"), a group of early 20th-century modern artists whose works emphasized painterly qualities and strong color over the representational or realistic values retained by Impressionism. The movement was known for having bold, vibrant, almost acidic colours used in unusual juxtaposition & had highly gestural application of paint. The artists of Fauvism were experimenting with the ways in which color could be liberated from subject matter.