History of painting

The history of painting goes back thousands of years, showing how people expressed themselves through art. One of the oldest known paintings is found in Lubang Jeriji Saléh cave, in Kalimantan, Indonesia. It is a picture of a bull, created about 40,000 years ago. This shows that even very early humans wanted to create images.

Painting has been a part of almost every culture around the world. It includes many different styles and subjects, from stories about gods and important events to beautiful scenes from nature. For a long time, most paintings were made for religious reasons or to show the power of kings and rich people.

Over time, painting changed a lot. In places like China and Japan, artists developed their own special ways of painting, which later influenced artists in Western painting. In Europe, artists during the Middle Ages and the Renaissance mostly worked for churches and wealthy families. Later, as more people became interested in art, artists began to create paintings just for the joy of painting, not just to please others.

Today, painting continues to be an important way for people to share ideas and see the world differently. From old cave drawings to beautiful pictures by artists like Johannes Vermeer, painting remains a lasting part of human history.

Pre-history

Main articles: Prehistoric art, Art of the Upper Paleolithic, Art of the Middle Paleolithic, and List of Stone Age art

In 2021, researchers discovered ancient cave art in Leang Tedongnge, Sulawesi, Indonesia, estimated to be at least 45,500 years old. Depicting a warty pig, this artwork is recognized as the world's oldest known example of figurative or representational art.

People have been painting for a very long time, even before we had writing! Some of the oldest paintings are found in caves and are thousands of years old. For example, paintings of animals in caves on the island of Sulawesi are thought to be at least 43,900 years old. These paintings show animals like pigs and wild boars. They tell us that early humans had rich imaginations and liked to share stories through art.

These ancient paintings were made using natural things from the earth. They often show animals that were important to the people who made them. Some paintings might have been used in special ceremonies or to show respect for nature. Others might have just been a way for people to express themselves and remember things. No matter the reason, these cave paintings give us a fascinating look into the lives of our ancestors.

Rock Shelters of Bhimbetka, rock painting, Stone Age, India

[Lascaux](/wiki/Lascaux), _Horse_

_[Eland](/wiki/Common_Eland)_, rock painting, [Drakensberg](/wiki/Drakensberg), South Africa

[Lascaux](/wiki/Lascaux), _Bulls and Horses_

Spanish cave painting of _[Bulls](/wiki/Cattle)_

[Petroglyphs](/wiki/Petroglyphs), from Sweden, [Nordic Bronze Age](/wiki/Nordic_Bronze_Age) (painted)

[Lascaux](/wiki/Lascaux), [Aurochs](/wiki/Aurochs) (_Bos primigenius primigenius_)

[Pictographs](/wiki/Pictograph) from the Great Gallery, Canyonlands National Park, [Horseshoe Canyon](/wiki/Horseshoe_Canyon_\(Utah\)), [Utah](/wiki/Utah), c. 1500 BCE

[Cueva de las Manos](/wiki/Cueva_de_las_Manos) (Spanish for Cave of the Hands) in the Santa Cruz province in Argentina, c. 7300 BC

[Gwion Gwion rock paintings](/wiki/Gwion_Gwion_rock_paintings) found in the north-west [Kimberley region of Western Australia](/wiki/Kimberley_region_of_Western_Australia) c. 15,000 BC

Eastern

East Asian

China, Japan, and Korea all have strong traditions of painting, closely connected to calligraphy and printmaking. Traditional painting in East Asia often uses water-based techniques, focuses on landscapes rather than people, and includes a lot of empty space. Gold paint on lacquer was also commonly used.

The ideas of Confucianism, Daoism, and Buddhism greatly influenced East Asian art. Painters from certain Chinese dynasties, like Lin Tinggui, often included Buddhist ideas in their work. In Japan, many artists in the late 1800s were inspired by Japanese woodblock prints.

Panorama of Along the River During Qing Ming Festival, an 18th-century copy of a 12th-century Chinese painting by Zhang Zeduan. The original is considered one of the greatest masterpieces of Chinese art.

Chinese

Main article: Chinese painting

Further information: History of Chinese art, Tang dynasty art, and Ming dynasty painting

The earliest surviving Chinese paintings date back to a time when people painted on silk or stone walls in tombs. These early works often showed mythological creatures, daily life, or scenes from palaces. During a certain dynasty, painting became a popular activity for government officials and noble people.

One famous early Chinese artist, Gu Kaizhi, is credited with starting the classical style of Chinese landscape painting. Later, during the Tang dynasty, artists like Wu Daozi created detailed paintings on long scrolls. Landscape art became even more realistic during the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period.

During the Song dynasty, landscape painting improved, and portrait painting became more advanced. The Ming dynasty saw the peak of classical Chinese painting. Later, during the Qing dynasty, Chinese portraits became very realistic, and European painting styles began to influence Chinese art.

Chinese oil paintings

Western oil painting techniques began to appear in China in the 1800s. By the early 1900s, many Chinese artists studied in Europe and Japan, bringing back new styles like Impressionism and Cubism. These new styles continued until changes in China led to a focus on realism. Today, oil painting remains important in Chinese art, along with traditional ink painting.

_Portrait of Madame Liu_, (1942) [Li Tiefu](/wiki/Li_Tiefu) oil on canvas

_Portrait of Kang Youwei_ (1904) [Li Tiefu](/wiki/Li_Tiefu) oil on canvas

_Portrait of Madam Cheng_ (1941) Oil on board [Xu Beihong](/wiki/Xu_Beihong)

Japanese

Main articles: Japanese painting and Japonism

Japanese painting is one of the oldest and most developed forms of Japanese art, with many different styles and subjects. A well-known style called Ukiyo-e includes woodblock prints and paintings with scenes of nature, theater, and city life. In the 1800s, Japanese artists began using Western painting methods, creating a style called yōga.

Korean

Main article: Korean painting

Korean painting began around the time a certain kingdom ended, making it one of the oldest traditions. Early Korean art included paintings and drawings in tombs. Later, Korean painting often showed landscapes, detailed faces, Buddhist themes, and the stars. During a later dynasty, paintings also began to include ideas from Confucianism.

The history of Korean painting includes black brushwork on paper or silk. This style can be seen in folk art, tomb paintings, and ritual arts.

South Asian

_Floating Figures Dancing_, a mural of c. 850.

Mughal, [Akbar](/wiki/Akbar) Being Received by [Khan Kilan](/wiki/Khan_Kilan?action=edit&redlink=1), the Governor of [Nagaur](/wiki/Nagaur), in 1570, [Akbarnama](/wiki/Akbarnama)

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Deccan painting; the young Ibrahim Adil Shah II hawking, c. 1590

Mughal, [Yudishthira](/wiki/Yudishthira?action=edit&redlink=1) wrestling with Karna, 1598

Mughal [nilgai](/wiki/Nilgai), 1625–1650

Emperor [Shah Jahan](/wiki/Shah_Jahan) and sons, c. 1628 or later. Mughal portraits normally use profile views.

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A Lady Listening to Music, c. 1750.

Bahsoli painting of Radha and Krishna in Discussion, c. 1730.

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Deccan painting, Sultan Ibrahim Adil Shah II of Bijapur, c. 1590. A three-quarter view which gives a powerful and lively impression of the sitter, despite lacking both Mughal precision, and very coherent modelling of the surfaces.
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Mughal portrait of Raja Jagat Singh of Nurpur (reigned 1618–1646), probably 1619

[Pahari painting](/wiki/Pahari_painting), [Chamba](/wiki/Chamba_State), c. 1665, a warrior mounts his horse

Portrait of the Govardhân Chand, [Pahari painting](/wiki/Pahari_painting) style, c. 1750.

[Kangra painting](/wiki/Kangra_painting), c. 1775, [Krishna](/wiki/Krishna) plays his flute to the [gopis](/wiki/Gopi)

Ravana kills Jathayu; the captive Sita despairs, by [Raja Ravi Varma](/wiki/Raja_Ravi_Varma)

_Akbar and Tansen Visit Haridas in Vrindavan_, [Rajasthan](/wiki/Rajasthan) style, c. 1750.

Krishna Summoning the Cows, [Pahari painting](/wiki/Pahari_painting), [Bilaspur](/wiki/Kahlur), 18th century

A man with children, [Pahari painting](/wiki/Pahari_painting) style, 1760.

_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg)

Company style, 1770s, Crimson Horned Pheasant (Satyr Tragapan)

_Râdhâ arrests Krishna_, [Pahari painting](/wiki/Pahari_painting) style, 1770.

_Rama and Sita in the Forest_, [Pahari painting](/wiki/Pahari_painting) style, 1780.

Late [Kangra painting](/wiki/Kangra_painting), 1815/1825, [Rama](/wiki/Rama), [Lakshmana](/wiki/Lakshmana), and [Sita](/wiki/Sita)

Late [Rajput painting](/wiki/Rajput_painting), [Kota](/wiki/Kota,_Rajasthan), c. 1830s, Ram Singh II Tiger Hunting

Indian

Main articles: Indian painting and Mughal painting

Indian paintings have traditionally focused on religious leaders and kings. Indian art includes many different styles, from large cave paintings to detailed small paintings, and works decorated with precious metals. The paintings from certain areas were influenced by art from Persia. Eastern Indian painting developed around a certain school of art, mostly showing stories from Indian myths.

History

The earliest Indian paintings are rock paintings from very old times, found in places like the Rock Shelters of Bhimbetka, some older than 5500 BC. These continued for thousands of years, and by the 7th century, pillars at Ajanta in Maharashtra state showed fine examples of Indian painting, using minerals for colors like red and orange.

Ajanta Caves in Maharashtra, India are cave monuments from the 2nd century BCE, containing paintings and sculptures that are considered masterpieces of Buddhist religious art and universal pictorial art.

Madhubani painting

Madhubani painting is a style of Indian painting practiced in the Mithila region of Bihar state, India. The origins of Madhubani painting go far back in time.

Mughal

Mughal painting is a special style of Indian painting that developed during the time of the Mughal Empire from the 16th to the 19th centuries.

Rajput

Rajput painting developed and flourished during the 18th century in the royal courts of Rajputana, India. Each Rajput kingdom had its own style, but they all shared some common features. Rajput paintings show themes from epics like the Ramayana and the Mahabharata, stories from Krishna's life, beautiful landscapes, and people. They often used small details and were made on paper or in books, but also on walls of palaces and homes.

Tanjore

Tanjore painting is an important form of classical South Indian painting from the town of Tanjore in Tamil Nadu. This art form goes back to the early 9th century, when rulers encouraged art and writing. These paintings are known for their beauty, rich colors, and attention to detail. They usually show Hindu gods and goddesses or scenes from Hindu stories. In modern times, these paintings are popular gifts for festivals in South India.

Making a Tanjore painting takes many steps. First, an artist draws a sketch on a cloth stuck to wood. Then, a mix of chalk powder or zinc oxide and a sticky liquid is put on the surface. The artist adds decorations like jewels and threads, then sticks on thin sheets of gold. Finally, dyes are used to color the figures.

Madras School

During British rule in India, the crown noticed that Madras had many talented artists. The British set up an institute in Georgetown to serve the royal family in London. This became known as the Madras School of Art. At first, traditional artists made beautiful furniture, metal work, and other items for the royal palaces.

Unlike the Bengal School, where copying was the main way of teaching, the Madras School focused on creating new styles, ideas, and trends.

Bengal School

Main article: Bengal school of art

The Bengal school of art was an important style of art that grew in India during the British Raj in the early 20th century. It was linked to Indian nationalism but also supported by many British art leaders.

The Bengal School began as a new and national movement against the academic art styles taught in India, both by Indian artists like Raja Ravi Varma and in British art schools. Because of the influence of Indian spiritual ideas in the West, a British art teacher named Ernest Binfield Havel tried to change the teaching methods at the Calcutta School of Art by encouraging students to copy Mughal miniatures. This caused a lot of disagreement, leading to protests by students and complaints in the local press, including from nationalists who thought it was a backward step. Havel was supported by the artist Abanindranath Tagore, a nephew of the poet Rabindranath Tagore. Tagore painted works inspired by Mughal art, a style he and Havel believed showed India's unique spiritual qualities, unlike the "materialism" of the West. Tagore's most famous painting, Bharat Mata (Mother India), showed a young woman with four arms like Hindu gods, holding objects that symbolized India's national hopes.

The Bengal School's influence in India decreased with the rise of modern ideas in the 1920s. After India gained independence, Indian artists became more flexible, mixing European styles with Indian themes to create new kinds of art. While some artists like Francis Newton Souza and Tyeb Mehta were more Western in their style, others like Ganesh Pyne and Maqbool Fida Husain developed their own unique styles. Today, after India's market opened up, artists are getting more attention internationally, creating new kinds of art not seen before in India. Jitish Kallat became famous in the late 1990s with paintings that were modern and hard to describe. While artists in India today are trying new styles, themes, and ideas, it wouldn't have been possible without support from businesses now involved in the art world.

Modern Indian

Main article: Modern Indian painting

Amrita Sher-Gil was an Indian painter, sometimes called India's Frida Kahlo, and today is considered an important female painter of 20th-century India, whose work is equal to that of the Masters of Bengal Renaissance; she is also the 'most expensive' female painter of India.

Today, she is one of Nine Masters, whose work was declared art treasures by The Archaeological Survey of India, in 1976 and 1979, and over 100 of her paintings are now displayed at National Gallery of Modern Art, New Delhi.

During the time when Britain ruled India, Western influences began to affect Indian art. Some artists used Western ideas of how to arrange scenes and show depth to paint Indian subjects. Others, like Jamini Roy, looked to folk art for inspiration.

By the time India became independent in 1947, many art schools provided training in modern methods and ideas. Galleries were set up to show these artists. Modern Indian art often mixes Western styles with Indian themes and images. Artists are starting to gain recognition around the world, first among Indian communities abroad, and then among people from other countries too.

The Progressive Artists' Group, started shortly after India became independent in 1947, aimed to create new ways to express India in the time after colonial rule. The founders were six well-known artists – K. H. Ara, S. K. Bakre, H. A. Gade, M.F. Husain, S.H. Raza and F. N. Souza, though the group ended in 1956, it greatly changed the way Indian art was made. Almost all of India's major artists in the 1950s were part of the group. Well-known artists today include Bal Chabda, Manishi Dey, Mukul Dey, V. S. Gaitonde, Ram Kumar, Tyeb Mehta, and Akbar Padamsee. Other famous painters like Jahar Dasgupta, Prokash Karmakar, John Wilkins, Narayanan Ramachandran, and Bijon Choudhuri also enriched India's art culture. Art historians like Prof. Rai Anand Krishna have talked about modern artworks that show Indian values. Geeta Vadhera is known for painting complex Indian spiritual ideas like Sufi thought, the Upanishads and the Bhagwad Geeta.

Indian art grew with the country's economic changes since the early 1990s. Artists from many areas began creating different kinds of work. In modern India, many artists have become well-known internationally, like abstract painter Natvar Bhavsar, figurative artist Devajyoti Ray and sculptor Anish Kapoor whose very large postminimalist artworks have gotten attention for their size. Many art galleries and houses have opened in the USA and Europe to show Indian artworks.

South-East Asia

Indonesian

Main articles: Indonesian painting and List of Indonesian painters

See also: Balinese art and Indonesian culture

The oldest known cave paintings are more than 44,000–50,000 years old, found in the caves in the district of Maros (Sulawesi, Indonesia). The oldest type of cave paintings are hand stencils and simple shapes; the oldest clear examples of figurative cave paintings are a bit younger, close to 35,000 years old.

The discovery of the oldest known figurative art painting, over 40,000 (perhaps as old as 52,000) years old, of an unknown animal, in the cave of Lubang Jeriji Saléh on the Indonesian island of Borneo.

Other examples of Indonesian paintings include Kenyah decorative art, based on natural designs like ferns and hornbills, found on the walls of Kenyah longhouses. Another notable traditional art is the geometric Toraja wood carvings. Balinese paintings began as images telling stories of Balinese legends and religious texts. Classical Balinese paintings often decorated lontar manuscripts and temple pavilions. Well-known modern Indonesian painters in the European style include Raden Saleh, Jan Toorop, Basuki Abdullah and Abdullah Suriosubroto, whose works often show landscapes and portraits.

Traditional Balinese painting depicting [cockfighting](/wiki/Cockfighting).

_Capture of [Prince Diponegoro](/wiki/Diponegoro)_, 1857.

_Javanese Landscape, with Tigers Listening to the Sound of a Travelling Group_, 1849.

_The Wheel of Life_, I Ketut Murtika (b. 1952), Gouache on canvas

Pre-1920 [Kamasan](/wiki/Kamasan) Palindon Painting detail, an example of Kamasan-style classical painting.

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Mask Dancer (by A.A. Gde Anom Sukawati) in Puri Lukisan Museum.

[Legong](/wiki/Legong) dancer.

Indonesian [Temple](/wiki/Candi_of_Indonesia) painting.

Filipino

Main article: Arts of the Philippines

Western

See also: Western painting and Ancient art

Egypt, Greece and Rome

Further information: Roman Wall Painting (200 BC-79 AD), Pompeian Styles, and Ancient Rome Painting

Ancient Egypt had many wall paintings in temples and buildings, and painted illustrations on papyrus manuscripts. Egyptian painting often showed figures in bold lines and flat colors. Egyptian painting is closely linked to its writing system, called Egyptian hieroglyphs. The Egyptians also painted on linen, and some of these paintings still exist today. Ancient Egyptian paintings survived because of the very dry climate. The Egyptians made paintings to help make the afterlife of the person who died a happy place. The paintings often showed gods and goddesses like Ra, Horus, Anubis, Nut, Osiris and Isis. Some tomb paintings showed things the person liked to do when they were alive. In the New Kingdom and later, the Book of the Dead was placed with the person in the tomb. It was thought to be important for the journey to the afterlife.

To the north of Egypt was the Minoan civilization on the island of Crete. The wall paintings found in the palace of Knossos are similar to Egyptian paintings but more free in style. Mycenaean Greece, beginning around 1600 BC, made art similar to that of Minoan Crete. Ancient Greek art during the Greek Dark Age became less complex, but the renewal of Greek civilization during Archaic Greece brought about new forms of Greek art with the Orientalizing style.

Ancient Greece had skilled painters, sculptors and architects. The Parthenon is an example of their architecture that still exists today. Greek marble sculpture is often described as the highest form of Classical art. Painting on pottery of Ancient Greece and ceramics gives us a good look into how society in Ancient Greece worked. Black-figure vase painting and Red-figure vase painting are examples of what Greek painting was like. Some famous Greek painters on wooden panels who are mentioned in texts are Apelles, Zeuxis, and Parrhasius, however few examples of Ancient Greek panel painting survive.

Roman art was influenced by Greece and has some unique characteristics. Surviving Roman paintings include wall paintings and frescoes, many from villas in Campania, in Southern Italy at sites such as Pompeii and Herculaneum. Such painting can be grouped into four main "styles" or periods and may contain the first examples of trompe-l'œil. Almost the only painted portraits surviving from the Ancient world are a large number of coffin-portraits of bust form found in the Late Antique cemetery of Al-Fayum. A very small number of miniatures from Late Antique illustrated books also survive.

Middle Ages

Main articles: Medieval art, Byzantine art, Illuminated manuscript, Middle Ages, Dark Ages (historiography), Insular art, Carolingian art, Anglo-Saxon art, Romanesque art, and Gothic art

The rise of Christianity changed the spirit and aim of painting styles. Byzantine art, once its style was established by the 6th century, placed great emphasis on retaining traditional iconography and style. Byzantine painting has a formal feeling and icons were seen as a representation of divine revelation. There were many frescos, but fewer of these have survived than mosaics. Byzantine art has been compared to contemporary abstraction, in its flatness and highly stylised depictions of figures and landscape.

In post-Antique Catholic Europe the first distinctive artistic style to emerge that included painting was the Insular art of the British Isles. Carolingian and Ottonian art also survives mostly in manuscripts. The art of this period combines Insular and "barbarian" influences with a strong Byzantine influence.

Walls of Romanesque and Gothic churches were decorated with frescoes as well as sculpture. Panel painting becomes more common during the Romanesque period, under the heavy influence of Byzantine icons. Towards the middle of the 13th century, Medieval art and Gothic painting became more realistic.

Churches were built with more and more windows and the use of colorful stained glass become common. By the 14th century Western societies were richer and more cultured and painters found new patrons in the nobility and even the bourgeoisie. Illuminated manuscripts took on a new character.

Renaissance and Mannerism

Main articles: Renaissance painting, Early Netherlandish painting, Italian Renaissance painting, Mannerism, and High Renaissance

The Renaissance, a cultural movement roughly spanning the 14th through the mid-17th century, brought advances in science which influenced European intellectual and artistic life. In the Low Countries, especially in modern day Flanders, a new way of painting was established in the beginning of the 15th century. Artists became fascinated by the tangible in the visible world and began representing objects in a very naturalistic way. The adoption of oil painting made possible richer colors. The most important artist of this time was Jan van Eyck, whose work ranks among the finest made by artists who are now known as Early Netherlandish painters or Flemish Primitives. The first painter of this period was the Master of Flémalle, nowadays identified as Robert Campin. Another important painter of this period was Rogier van der Weyden, whose compositions stressed human emotion and drama.

In Italy, the art of Classical antiquity inspired a style of painting that emphasized the ideal. Artists such as Paolo Uccello, Masaccio, Fra Angelico, Piero della Francesca, Andrea Mantegna, Filippo Lippi, Sandro Botticelli, Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo Buonarroti, and Raphael took painting to a higher level through the use of perspective, the study of human anatomy and proportion.

Renaissance painting reflects the revolution of ideas and science that occurred in this period, the Reformation, and the invention of the printing press. With the development of easel painting in the Renaissance, painting gained independence from architecture. Easel paintings—movable pictures which could be hung easily on walls—became a popular alternative to paintings fixed to furniture, walls or other structures. Following centuries dominated by religious imagery, secular subject matter slowly returned to Western painting. Artists included visions of the world around them, or the products of their own imaginations in their paintings. Those who could afford the expense could become patrons and commission portraits of themselves or their family.

The High Renaissance gave rise to a stylized art known as Mannerism.

Baroque and Rococo

Main articles: Baroque, Baroque painting, Rococo, Quadratura, Dutch Golden Age painting, and Flemish Baroque painting

Baroque painting is associated with the Baroque cultural movement, a movement often identified with Absolutism and the Counter Reformation or Catholic Revival. Baroque painting is characterized by great drama, rich, deep color, and intense light and dark shadows. Baroque art was meant to evoke emotion and passion. During the period beginning around 1600 and continuing throughout the 17th century, painting is characterized as Baroque. Among the greatest painters of the Baroque are Caravaggio, Rembrandt, Frans Hals, Rubens, Velázquez, Poussin, and Johannes Vermeer.

During the 18th century, Rococo followed as a lighter extension of Baroque, often frivolous and elegant. Rococo developed first in the decorative arts and interior design in France. The 1730s represented the height of Rococo development in France exemplified by the works of Antoine Watteau and François Boucher.

The French masters Watteau, Boucher and Fragonard represent the style, as do Giovanni Battista Tiepolo and Jean-Baptiste-Siméon Chardin. Portraiture was an important component of painting in all countries, but especially in England.

19th century: Neo-classicism, History painting, Romanticism, Impressionism, Post-Impressionism, Symbolism

Main articles: Neoclassicism, History painting, Romanticism, Impressionism, Post-Impressionism, and [Symbolism (arts)](/wiki/Symbolism_(arts)

After Rococo there arose in the late 18th century, in architecture, and then in painting severe neo-classicism, best represented by such artists as David and his heir Ingres. This movement turned its attention toward landscape and nature as well as the human figure. There is opposition to Enlightenment ideals. By the mid-19th-century painters became liberated from the demands of their patronage to only depict scenes from religion, mythology, portraiture or history. The idea "art for art's sake" began to find expression in the work of painters like Francisco de Goya, John Constable, and J.M.W. Turner. Romantic painters saw landscape painting as an important genre. Some of the major painters of this period are Eugène Delacroix, Théodore Géricault, J. M. W. Turner, Caspar David Friedrich and John Constable.

The leading Barbizon School painter Camille Corot painted in both a romantic and a realistic vein; his work prefigures Impressionism, as does the paintings of Eugène Boudin. A major force in the turn towards Realism at mid-century was Gustave Courbet. In the latter third of the century Impressionists like Édouard Manet, Claude Monet, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Camille Pissarro, Alfred Sisley, Berthe Morisot, Mary Cassatt, and Edgar Degas worked in a more direct approach than had previously been exhibited publicly.

20th-century modern and contemporary

Main articles: Modern art, Modernism, and Contemporary art

The heritage of painters like Van Gogh, Cézanne, Gauguin, and Seurat was essential for the development of modern art. At the beginning of the 20th century Henri Matisse and several other young artists revolutionized the Paris art world with "wild", multi-colored, expressive, landscapes and figure paintings that the critics called Fauvism. Pablo Picasso made his first cubist paintings based on Cézanne's idea that all depiction of nature can be reduced to three solids: cube, sphere and cone.

Pioneers of the 20th century

The heritage of painters like Van Gogh, Cézanne, Gauguin, and Seurat was essential for the development of modern art. At the beginning of the 20th century Henri Matisse and several other young artists including the pre-cubist Georges Braque, André Derain, Raoul Dufy and Maurice de Vlaminck revolutionized the Paris art world with "wild", multi-colored, expressive, landscapes and figure paintings that the critics called Fauvism. Pablo Picasso made his first cubist paintings.

Les Fauves (French for The Wild Beasts) were early-20th-century painters, experimenting with freedom of expression through color. The name was given, humorously and not as a compliment, to the group by art critic Louis Vauxcelles. Fauvist painters included Henri Matisse and André Derain.

By 1907 Fauvism no longer was a shocking new movement, soon it was replaced by Cubism on the critics' radar screen as the latest new development in Contemporary Art of the time. Analytic cubism was jointly developed by Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque from about 1908 through 1912. Analytic cubism, the first clear manifestation of cubism, was followed by Synthetic cubism, practised by Braque, Picasso, Fernand Léger, Juan Gris, Albert Gleizes, Marcel Duchamp and countless other artists into the 1920s.

During the years between 1910 and the end of World War I and after the heyday of cubism, several movements emerged in Paris. Giorgio de Chirico moved to Paris in July 1911, where he joined his brother Andrea (the poet and painter known as Alberto Savinio). During 1913 he exhibited his work at the Salon des Indépendants and Salon d'Automne, his work was noticed by Pablo Picasso and Guillaume Apollinaire and several others.

Pioneers of Modern art

In the first two decades of the 20th century and after Cubism, several other important movements emerged; futurism (Balla), abstract art (Kandinsky), Der Blaue Reiter), Bauhaus, (Kandinsky) and (Klee), Orphism, (Robert Delaunay and František Kupka), Synchromism (Morgan Russell), De Stijl (Mondrian), Suprematism (Malevich), Constructivism (Tatlin), Dadaism (Duchamp, Picabia, Arp) and Surrealism (De Chirico, André Breton, Miró, Magritte, Dalí, Ernst).

Wassily Kandinsky a Russian painter, printmaker and art theorist, one of the most famous 20th-century artists is generally considered the first important painter of modern abstract art.

Other major pioneers of early abstraction include Russian painter Kasimir Malevich, who after the Russian Revolution in 1917, and after pressure from the Stalinist regime in 1924 returned to painting imagery, and Swiss painter Paul Klee whose masterful color experiments made him an important pioneer of abstract painting at the Bauhaus.

Expressionism and Symbolism are broad rubrics that involve several important and related movements in 20th-century painting that dominated much of the avant-garde art being made in Western, Eastern and Northern Europe. Expressionist works were painted largely between World War I and World War II, mostly in France, Germany, Norway, Russia, Belgium, and Austria.

Pioneers of abstraction

Piet Mondrian's art was also related to his spiritual and philosophical studies. In 1908 he became interested in the theosophical movement launched by Helena Petrovna Blavatsky in the late 19th century.

De Stijl also known as neoplasticism, was a Dutch artistic movement founded in 1917. The term De Stijl is used to refer to a body of work from 1917 to 1931 founded in the Netherlands.

De Stijl is also the name of a journal that was published by the Dutch painter, designer, writer, and critic Theo van Doesburg propagating the group's theories. Next to van Doesburg, the group's principal members were the painters Piet Mondrian, Vilmos Huszár, and Bart van der Leck, and the architects Gerrit Rietveld, Robert van 't Hoff, and J. J. P. Oud.

Dada and Surrealism

Main articles: Dada and Surrealism

Marcel Duchamp, came to international prominence in the wake of his notorious success at the New York City Armory Show in 1913, (soon after he denounced artmaking for chess). After Duchamp's Nude Descending a Staircase became the international cause celebre at the 1913 Armory show in New York he created The Bride Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors, Even, Large Glass. The Large Glass pushed the art of painting to radical new limits being part painting, part collage, part construction. Duchamp became closely associated with the Dada movement that began in neutral Zürich, Switzerland, during World War I and peaked from 1916 to 1920. The movement primarily involved visual arts, literature (poetry, art manifestoes, art theory), theatre, and graphic design, and concentrated its anti war politic through a rejection of the prevailing standards in art through anti-art cultural works. Francis Picabia, Man Ray, Kurt Schwitters, Tristan Tzara, Hans Richter, Jean Arp, Sophie Taeuber-Arp, along with Duchamp and many others are associated with the Dadaist movement. Duchamp and several Dadaists are also associated with Surrealism, the movement that dominated European painting in the 1920s and 1930s.

In 1924 André Breton published the Surrealist Manifesto. The Surrealist movement in painting became synonymous with the avant-garde and which featured artists whose works varied from the abstract to the super-realist. With works on paper like Machine Turn Quickly, (above) Francis Picabia continued his involvement in the Dada movement through 1919 in Zürich and Paris, before breaking away from it after developing an interest in Surrealist art. Yves Tanguy, René Magritte and Salvador Dalí are particularly known for their realistic depictions of dream imagery and fantastic manifestations of the imagination. Joan Miró's The Tilled Field of 1923–1924 verges on abstraction, this early painting of a complex of objects and figures, and arrangements of sexually active characters; was Miró's first Surrealist masterpiece.

Before and after the war

Der Blaue Reiter was a German movement lasting from 1911 to 1914, fundamental to Expressionism, along with Die Brücke which was founded the previous decade in 1905 and was a group of German expressionist artists formed in Dresden in 1905.

Wassily Kandinsky, Franz Marc, August Macke, Alexej von Jawlensky, whose psychically expressive painting of the Russian dancer Portrait of Alexander Sakharoff, 1909 is in the gallery above, Marianne von Werefkin, Lyonel Feininger and others founded the Der Blaue Reiter group in response to the rejection of Kandinsky's painting Last Judgement from an exhibition.

Social consciousness

During the 1920s and the 1930s and the Great Depression, Surrealism, late Cubism, the Bauhaus, De Stijl, Dada, German Expressionism, Expressionism, and modernist and masterful color painters like Henri Matisse and Pierre Bonnard characterized the European art scene. In Germany Max Beckmann, Otto Dix, George Grosz and others politicized their paintings, foreshadowing the coming of World War II. While in America American Scene painting and the social realism and regionalism movements that contained both political and social commentary dominated the art world. Artists like Ben Shahn, Thomas Hart Benton, Grant Wood, George Tooker, John Steuart Curry, Reginald Marsh, and others became prominent. In Latin America besides the Uruguayan painter Joaquín Torres García and Rufino Tamayo from Mexico, the muralist movement with Diego Rivera, David Siqueiros, José Orozco, Pedro Nel Gómez and Santiago Martinez Delgado and the Symbolist paintings by Frida Kahlo began a renaissance of the arts for the region, with a use of color and historic, and political messages.

American Gothic is a painting by Grant Wood from 1930. Portraying a pitchfork-holding farmer and a younger woman in front of a house of Carpenter Gothic style, it is one of the most familiar images in 20th-century American art.

Diego Rivera is perhaps best known by the public world for his 1933 mural, Man at the Crossroads, in the lobby of the RCA Building at Rockefeller Center. When his patron Nelson Rockefeller discovered that the mural included a portrait of Vladimir Lenin and other communist imagery, he fired Rivera, and the unfinished work was eventually destroyed by Rockefeller's staff. The film Cradle Will Rock includes a dramatization of the controversy. Frida Kahlo (Rivera's wife's) works are often characterized by their stark portrayals of pain. Of her 143 paintings 55 are self-portraits, which frequently incorporate symbolic portrayals of her physical and psychological wounds. Kahlo was deeply influenced by indigenous Mexican culture, which is apparent in her paintings' bright colors and dramatic symbolism. Christian and Jewish themes are often depicted in her work as well; she combined elements of the classic religious Mexican tradition—which were often bloody and violent—with surrealist renderings.

Political activism was an important piece of David Siqueiros' life, and frequently inspired him to set aside his artistic career. His art was deeply rooted in the Mexican Revolution, a violent and chaotic period in Mexican history in which various social and political factions fought for recognition and power. The period from the 1920s to the 1950s is known as the Mexican Renaissance, and Siqueiros was active in the attempt to create an art that was at once Mexican and universal.

World conflict

During the 1930s radical leftist politics characterized many of the artists connected to Surrealism, including Pablo Picasso. On 26 April 1937, during the Spanish Civil War, the Basque town of Gernika was the scene of the Bombing of Gernika by the Condor Legion of Nazi Germany's Luftwaffe. The Germans were attacking to support the efforts of Francisco Franco to overthrow the Basque Government and the Spanish Republican government. The town was devastated, though the Biscayan assembly and the Oak of Gernika survived. Pablo Picasso painted his mural sized Guernica to commemorate the horrors of the bombing.

During the Great Depression of the 1930s, through the years of World War II American art was characterized by Social Realism and American Scene Painting in the work of Grant Wood, Edward Hopper, Ben Shahn, Thomas Hart Benton, and several others. Nighthawks (1942) is a painting by Edward Hopper that portrays people sitting in a downtown diner late at night. It is not only Hopper's most famous painting, but one of the most recognizable in American art. The scene was inspired by a diner (since demolished) in Greenwich Village, Hopper's home neighborhood in Manhattan. Hopper began painting it immediately after the attack on Pearl Harbor. After this event there was a large feeling of gloominess over the country, a feeling that is portrayed in the painting. The urban street is empty outside the diner, and inside none of the three patrons is apparently looking or talking to the others but instead is lost in their own thoughts. This portrayal of modern urban life as empty or lonely is a common theme throughout Hopper's work.

The Dynamic for artists in Europe during the 1930s deteriorated rapidly as the Nazi's power in Germany and across Eastern Europe increased. The climate became so hostile for artists and art associated with Modernism and abstraction that many left for the Americas. Degenerate art was a term adopted by the Nazi regime in Germany for virtually all modern art. Such art was banned on the grounds that it was un-German or Jewish Bolshevist in nature, and those identified as degenerate artists were subjected to sanctions. These included being dismissed from teaching positions, being forbidden to exhibit or to sell their art, and in some cases being forbidden to produce art entirely.

Degenerate Art was also the title of an exhibition, mounted by the Nazis in Munich in 1937, consisting of modernist artworks chaotically hung and accompanied by text labels deriding the art. Designed to inflame public opinion against modernism, the exhibition subsequently traveled to several other cities in Germany and Austria. German artist Max Beckmann and scores of others fled Europe for New York. In New York City a new generation of young and exciting Modernist painters led by Arshile Gorky, Willem de Kooning, and others were just beginning to come of age.

Arshile Gorky's portrait of someone who might be Willem de Kooning (above) is an example of the evolution of abstract expressionism from the context of figure painting, cubism and surrealism. Along with his friends de Kooning and John D. Graham Gorky created bio-morphically shaped and abstracted figurative compositions that by the 1940s evolved into totally abstract paintings. Gorky's work seems to be a careful analysis of memory, emotion and shape, using line and color to express feeling and nature.

Towards mid-century

The 1940s in New York City heralded the triumph of American abstract expressionism, a modernist movement that combined lessons learned from Henri Matisse, Pablo Picasso, Surrealism, Joan Miró, Cubism, Fauvism, and early Modernism via great teachers in America like Hans Hofmann and John D. Graham. American artists benefited from the presence of Piet Mondrian, Fernand Léger, Max Ernst and the André Breton group, Pierre Matisse's gallery, and Peggy Guggenheim's gallery The Art of This Century, as well as other factors. The figurative work of Francis Bacon, Frida Kahlo, Edward Hopper, Lucian Freud, Andrew Wyeth and others served as a kind of alternative to abstract expressionism.

Post-Second World War American painting called Abstract expressionism included artists like Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning, Arshile Gorky, Mark Rothko, Hans Hofmann, Clyfford Still, Franz Kline, Adolph Gottlieb, Mark Tobey, Barnett Newman, James Brooks, Philip Guston, Robert Motherwell, Conrad Marca-Relli, Jack Tworkov, William Baziotes, Richard Pousette-Dart, Ad Reinhardt, Hedda Sterne, Jimmy Ernst, Esteban Vicente, Bradley Walker Tomlin, and Theodoros Stamos, among others. American Abstract expressionism got its name in 1946 from the art critic Robert Coates. It is seen as combining the emotional intensity and self-denial of the German Expressionists with the anti-figurative aesthetic of the European abstract schools such as futurism, the Bauhaus and synthetic cubism. Abstract expressionism, action painting, and Color Field painting are synonymous with the New York School.

Technically Surrealism was an important predecessor for abstract expressionism with its emphasis on spontaneous, automatic or subconscious creation. Jackson Pollock's dripping paint onto a canvas laid on the floor is a technique that has its roots in the work of André Masson. Another important earanifestation of what came to be abstract expressionism is the work of American Northwest artist Mark Tobey, especially his "white writing" canvases, which, though generally not large in scale, anticipate the "all over" look of Pollock's drip paintings.

Abstract expressionism

Main articles: Abstract expressionism, Action painting, Color Field painting, and Lyrical abstraction

Additionally, Abstract expressionism has an image of being rebellious, anarchic, highly idiosyncratic and, some feel, rather nihilistic. In practice, the term is applied to any number of artists working (mostly) in New York who had quite different styles, and even applied to work which is not especially abstract nor expressionist. Pollock's energetic "action paintings", with their "busy" feel, are different both technically and aesthetically, to the violent and grotesque Women series of Willem de Kooning. As seen above in the gallery Woman V is one of a series of six paintings made by de Kooning between 1950 and 1953 that depict a three-quarter-length female figure. He began the first of these paintings, Woman I collection: The Museum of Modern Art, New York City, in June 1950, repeatedly changing and painting out the image until January or February 1952, when the painting was abandoned unfinished. The art historian Meyer Schapiro saw the painting in de Kooning's studio soon afterwards and encouraged the artist to persist. De Kooning's response was to begin three other paintings on the same theme; Woman II collection: The Museum of Modern Art, New York City, Woman III, Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art, Woman IV, Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Missouri. During the summer of 1952, spent at East Hampton, de Kooning further explored the theme through drawings and pastels. He may have finished work on Woman I by the end of June, or possibly as late as November 1952, and probably the other three women pictures were concluded at much the same time. The Woman series are decidedly figurative paintings. Another important artist is Franz Kline, as demonstrated by his painting High Street, 1950 as with Jackson Pollock and other Abstract Expressionists, was labelled an "action painter" because of his seemingly spontaneous and intense style, focusing less, or not at all, on figures or imagery, but on the actual brush strokes and use of canvas.

Clyfford Still, Barnett Newman, Adolph Gottlieb, and the serenely shimmering blocks of color in Mark Rothko's work (which is not what would usually be called expressionist and which Rothko denied was abstract), are classified as abstract expressionists, albeit from what Clement Greenberg termed the Color Field direction of abstract expressionism. Both Hans Hofmann and Robert Motherwell (gallery) can be comfortably described as practitioners of action painting and Color Field painting.

Abstract expressionism has many stylistic similarities to the Russian artists of the early 20th century such as Wassily Kandinsky. Although it is true that spontaneity or of the impression of spontaneity characterized many of the abstract expressionists works, most of these paintings involved careful planning, especially since their large size demanded it. An exception might be the drip paintings of Pollock.

Why this style gained mainstream acceptance in the 1950s is a matter of debate. American Social realism had been the mainstream in the 1930s. It had been influenced not only by the Great Depression but also by the Social Realists of Mexico such as David Alfaro Siqueiros and Diego Rivera. The political climate after World War II did not long tolerate the social protests of those painters. Abstract expressionism arose during World War II and began to be showcased during the early 1940s at galleries in New York like The Art of This Century Gallery. The late 1940s through the mid-1950s ushered in the McCarthy era. It was after World War II and a time of political conservatism and extreme artistic censorship in the United States. Some people have conjectured that since the subject matter was often totally abstract, Abstract expressionism became a safe strategy for artists to pursue this style. Abstract art could be seen as apolitical. Or if the art was political, the message was largely for the insiders. However, those theorists are in the minority. As the first truly original school of painting in America, Abstract expressionism demonstrated the vitality and creativity of the country in the post-war years, as well as its ability (or need) to develop an aesthetic sense that was not constrained by the European standards of beauty.

Although Abstract expressionism spread quickly throughout the United States, the major centers of this style were New York City and California, especially in the New York School, and the San Francisco Bay area. Abstract expressionist paintings share certain characteristics, including the use of large canvases, an "all-over" approach, in which the whole canvas is treated with equal importance (as opposed to the center being of more interest than the edges). The canvas as the arena became a credo of action painting, while the integrity of the picture plane became a credo of the Color Field painters. Many other artists began exhibiting their abstract expressionist related paintings during the 1950s including Alfred Leslie, Sam Francis, Joan Mitchell, Helen Frankenthaler, Cy Twombly, Milton Resnick, Michael Goldberg, Norman Bluhm, Ray Parker, Nicolas Carone, Grace Hartigan, Friedel Dzubas, and Robert Goodnough among others.

During the 1950s Color Field painting initially referred to a particular type of abstract expressionism, especially the work of Mark Rothko, Clyfford Still, Barnett Newman, Robert Motherwell and Adolph Gottlieb. It essentially involved abstract paintings with large, flat expanses of color that expressed the sensual, and visual feelings and properties of large areas of nuanced surface. Art critic Clement Greenberg perceived Color Field painting as related to but different from Action painting. The overall expanse and gestalt of the work of the early color field painters speaks of an almost religious experience, awestruck in the face of an expanding universe of sensuality, color and surface. During the early-to-mid-1960s, Color Field painting came to refer to the styles of artists like Jules Olitski, Kenneth Noland, and Helen Frankenthaler, whose works were related to second-generation abstract expressionism, and to younger artists like Larry Zox, and Frank Stella, – all moving in a new direction. Artists like Clyfford Still, Mark Rothko, Hans Hofmann, Morris Louis, Jules Olitski, Kenneth Noland, Helen Frankenthaler, Larry Zox, and others often used greatly reduced references to nature, and they painted with a highly articulated and psychological use of color. In general these artists eliminated recognizable imagery. In Mountains and Sea, from 1952, a seminal work of Color Field painting by Helen Frankenthaler the artist used the stain technique for the first time.

In Europe there was the continuation of Surrealism, Cubism, Dada and the works of Matisse. Also in Europe, Tachisme (the European equivalent to Abstract expressionism) took hold of the newest generation. Serge Poliakoff, Nicolas de Staël, Georges Mathieu, Vieira da Silva, Jean Dubuffet, Yves Klein and Pierre Soulages among others are considered important figures in post-war European painting.

Eventually abstract painting in America evolved into movements such as Neo-Dada, Color Field painting, Post painterly abstraction, Op art, hard-edge painting, Minimal art, shaped canvas painting, lyrical abstraction, Neo-expressionism and the continuation of Abstract expressionism. As a response to the tendency toward abstraction imagery emerged through various new movements, notably Pop art.

Pop art

Main article: Pop art

Earlier in England in 1956 the term Pop Art was used by Lawrence Alloway for paintings that celebrated consumerism of the post World War II era. This movement rejected abstract expressionism and its focus on the hermeneutic and psychological interior, in favor of art which depicted, and often celebrated material consumer culture, advertising, and iconography of the mass production age. The early works of David Hockney and the works of Richard Hamilton Peter Blake and Eduardo Paolozzi were considered seminal examples in the movement.

Pop art in America was to a large degree initially inspired by the works of Jasper Johns, Larry Rivers, and Robert Rauschenberg. Although the paintings of Gerald Murphy, Stuart Davis and Charles Demuth during the 1920s and 1930s set the table for pop art in America. In New York City during the mid-1950s Robert Rauschenberg and Jasper Johns created works of art that at first seemed to be continuations of Abstract expressionist painting. Actually their works and the work of Larry Rivers, were radical departures from abstract expressionism especially in the use of banal and literal imagery and the inclusion and the combining of mundane materials into their work. The innovations of Johns' specific use of various images and objects like chairs, numbers, targets, beer cans and the American flag; Rivers paintings of subjects drawn from popular culture such as George Washington crossing the Delaware, and his inclusions of images from advertisements like the camel from Camel cigarettes, and Rauschenberg's surprising constructions using inclusions of objects and pictures taken from popular culture, hardware stores, junkyards, the city streets, and taxidermy gave rise to a radical new movement in American art. Eventually by 1963 the movement came to be known worldwide as pop art.

American pop art is exemplified by artists: Andy Warhol, Claes Oldenburg, Wayne Thiebaud, James Rosenquist, Jim Dine, Tom Wesselmann and Roy Lichtenstein among others. Lichtenstein's most important work is arguably Whaam! (1963, Tate Modern, London), one of the earliest known examples of pop art, adapted a comic-book panel from a 1962 issue of DC Comics' All-American Men of War. The painting depicts a fighter aircraft firing a rocket into an enemy plane, with a red-and-yellow explosion. The cartoon style is heightened by the use of the onomatopoeic lettering "Whaam!" and the boxed caption "I pressed the fire control... and ahead of me rockets blazed through the sky..." Pop art merges popular and mass culture with fine art, while injecting humor, irony, and recognizable imagery and content into the mix. In October 1962 the Sidney Janis Gallery mounted The New Realists the first major pop art group exhibition in an uptown art gallery in New York City. Sidney Janis mounted the exhibition in a 57th Street storefront near his gallery at 15 E. 57th Street. The show sent shockwaves through the New York School and reverberated worldwide. Earlier in the fall of 1962 an historically important and ground-breaking New Painting of Common Objects exhibition of pop art, curated by Walter Hopps at the Pasadena Art Museum sent shock waves across the Western United States.

While in the downtown scene in New York City's East Village 10th Street galleries artists were formulating an American version of Pop Art. Claes Oldenburg had his storefront and made painted objects, and the Green Gallery on 57th Street began to show Tom Wesselmann and James Rosenquist. Later Leo Castelli exhibited other American artists including the bulk of the careers of Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein and his use of Benday dots, a technique used in commercial reproduction. There is a connection between the radical works of Duchamp, and Man Ray, the rebellious Dadaists – with a sense of humor; and pop artists like Alex Katz (who became known for his parodies of portrait photography and suburban life), Claes Oldenburg, Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein and the others.

While throughout the 20th century many painters continued to practice landscape and figurative painting with contemporary subjects and solid technique, like Milton Avery, John D. Graham, Fairfield Porter, Edward Hopper, Balthus, Francis Bacon, Nicolas de Staël, Andrew Wyeth, Lucian Freud, Frank Auerbach, Philip Pearlstein, David Park, Nathan Oliveira, David Hockney, Malcolm Morley, Richard Estes, Ralph Goings, Audrey Flack, Chuck Close, Susan Rothenberg, Eric Fischl, Vija Celmins and Richard Diebenkorn.

Figurative, landscape, still-Life, seascape, and Realism

During the 1930s through the 1960s abstract painting in America and Europe evolved into movements such as abstract expressionism, Color Field painting, Post painterly abstraction, Op art, hard-edge painting, Minimal art, shaped canvas painting, and lyrical abstraction. Other artists reacted as a response to the tendency toward abstraction, allowing figurative imagery to continue through various new contexts like the Bay Area Figurative Movement in the 1950s and new forms of expressionism from the 1940s through the 1960s. In Italy during this time, Giorgio Morandi was the foremost still life painter, exploring a wide variety of approaches to depicting everyday bottles and kitchen implements. Throughout the 20th century many painters practiced Realism and used expressive imagery; practicing landscape and figurative painting with contemporary subjects and solid technique, and unique expressivity like still-life painter Giorgio Morandi, Milton Avery, John D. Graham, Fairfield Porter, Edward Hopper, Andrew Wyeth, Balthus, Francis Bacon, Leon Kossoff, Frank Auerbach, Lucian Freud, Philip Pearlstein, Willem de Kooning, Arshile Gorky, Grace Hartigan, Robert De Niro, Sr., Elaine de Kooning and others. Along with Henri Matisse, Pablo Picasso, Pierre Bonnard, Georges Braque, and other 20th-century masters. In particular Milton Avery through his use of color and his interest in seascape and landscape paintings connected with the Color field aspect of Abstract expressionism as manifested by Adolph Gottlieb and Mark Rothko as well as the lessons American painters took from the work of Henri Matisse.

Head VI, 1949 is a painting by the Irish born artist Francis Bacon and is an example of Post World War II European Expressionism. The work shows a distorted version of the Portrait of Innocent X painted by the Spanish artist Diego Velázquez in 1650. The work is one of a series of variants of the Velázquez painting which Bacon executed throughout the 1950s and early 1960s, over a total of forty-five works. When asked why he was compelled to revisit the subject so often, Bacon replied that he had nothing against the Popes, that he merely "wanted an excuse to use these colours, and you can't give ordinary clothes that purple colour without getting into a sort of false fauve manner." The Pope in this version seethes with anger and aggression, and the dark colors give the image a grotesque and nightmarish appearance. The pleated curtains of the backdrop are rendered transparent, and seem to fall through the Pope's face. Italian painter Giorgio Morandi was an important 20th-century early pioneer of Minimalism. Born in Bologna, Italy, in 1890, throughout his career, Morandi concentrated almost exclusively on still lifes and landscapes, except for a few self-portraits. With great sensitivity to tone, color, and compositional balance, he would depict the same familiar bottles and vases again and again in paintings notable for their simplicity of execution. Morandi executed 133 etchings, a significant body of work in its own right, and his drawings and watercolors often approach abstraction in their economy of means. Through his simple and repetitive motifs and economical use of color, value and surface, Morandi became a prescient and important forerunner of Minimalism. He died in Bologna in 1964.

After World War II the term School of Paris often referred to Tachisme, the European equivalent of American Abstract expressionism and those artists are also related to Cobra. Important proponents being Jean Dubuffet, Pierre Soulages, Nicolas de Staël, Hans Hartung, Serge Poliakoff, and Georges Mathieu, among several others. During the early 1950s Dubuffet (who was always a figurative artist), and de Staël, abandoned abstraction, and returned to imagery via figuration and landscape. De Staël 's work was quickly recognised within the post-war art world, and he became one of the most influential artists of the 1950s. His return to representation (seascapes, footballers, jazz musicians, seagulls) during the early 1950s can be seen as an influential precedent for the American Bay Area Figurative Movement, as many of those abstract painters like Richard Diebenkorn, David Park, Elmer Bischoff, Wayne Thiebaud, Nathan Oliveira, Joan Brown and others made a similar move; returning to imagery during the mid-1950s. Much of de Staël 's late work – in particular his thinned, and diluted oil on canvas abstract landscapes of the mid-1950s predicts Color Field painting and Lyrical Abstraction of the 1960s and 1970s. Nicolas de Staël's bold and intensely vivid color in his last paintings predict the direction of much of contemporary painting that came after him including Pop art of the 1960s.

Art brut, New Realism, Bay Area Figurative Movement, neo-Dada, photorealism

During the 1950s and 1960s as abstract painting in America and Europe evolved into movements such as Color Field painting, post-painterly abstraction, op art, hard-edge painting, minimal art, shaped canvas painting, lyrical abstraction, and the continuation of Abstract expressionism. Other artists reacted as a response to the tendency toward abstraction with art brut, as seen in Court les rues, 1962, by Jean Dubuffet, fluxus, neo-Dada, New Realism, allowing imagery to re-emerge through various new contexts like pop art, the Bay Area Figurative Movement (a prime example is Diebenkorn's Cityscape I, (Landscape No. 1), 1963, Oil on canvas, 60 1/4 x 50 1/2 inches, collection: San Francisco Museum of Modern Art) and later in the 1970s Neo-expressionism. The Bay Area Figurative Movement of whom David Park, Elmer Bischoff, Nathan Oliveira and Richard Diebenkorn whose painting Cityscape 1, 1963 is a typical example were influential members flourished during the 1950s and 1960s in California. Although throughout the 20th century painters continued to practice Realism and use imagery, practicing landscape and figurative painting with contemporary subjects and solid technique, and unique expressivity like Milton Avery, Edward Hopper, Jean Dubuffet, Francis Bacon, Frank Auerbach, Lucian Freud, Philip Pearlstein, and others. Younger painters practiced the use of imagery in new and radical ways. Yves Klein, Martial Raysse, Niki de Saint Phalle, Wolf Vostell, David Hockney, Alex Katz, Malcolm Morley, Ralph Goings, Audrey Flack, Richard Estes, Chuck Close, Susan Rothenberg, Eric Fischl, John Baeder and Vija Celmins were a few who became prominent between the 1960s and the 1980s. Fairfield Porter was largely self-taught, and produced representational work in the midst of the Abstract Expressionist movement. His subjects were primarily landscapes, domestic interiors and portraits of family, friends and fellow artists, many of them affiliated with the New York School of writers, including John Ashbery, Frank O'Hara, and James Schuyler. Many of his paintings were set in or around the family summer house on Great Spruce Head Island, Maine.

Also during the 1960s and 1970s, there was a reaction against painting. Critics like Douglas Crimp viewed the work of artists like Ad Reinhardt, and declared the "death of painting". Artists began to practice new ways of making art. New movements gained prominence some of which are: Fluxus, Happening, Video art, Installation art Mail art, the situationists, Conceptual art, Postminimalism, Earth art, arte povera, performance art and body art among others.

Neo-Dada is also a movement that started in the 1950s and 1960s and was related to Abstract expressionism only with imagery. Featuring the emergence of combined manufactured items, with artist materials, moving away from previous conventions of painting. This trend in art is exemplified by the work of Jasper Johns and Robert Rauschenberg, whose "combines" in the 1950s were forerunners of Pop Art and Installation art, and made use of the assemblage of large physical objects, including stuffed animals, birds and commercial photography. Robert Rauschenberg, Jasper Johns, Larry Rivers, John Chamberlain, Claes Oldenburg, George Segal, Jim Dine, and Edward Kienholz among others were important pioneers of both abstraction and Pop Art; creating new conventions of art-making; they made acceptable in serious contemporary art circles the radical inclusion of unlikely materials as parts of their works of art.

New abstraction from the 1950s through the 1980s

Color Field painting clearly pointed toward a new direction in American painting, away from abstract expressionism. Color Field painting is related to post-painterly abstraction, suprematism, abstract expressionism, hard-edge painting and Lyrical Abstraction. During the 1960s and 1970s abstract painting continued to develop in America through varied styles. Geometric abstraction, Op art, hard-edge painting, Color Field painting and minimal painting, were some interrelated directions for advanced abstract painting as well as some other new movements. Morris Louis was an important pioneer in advanced Color Field painting, his work can serve as a bridge between abstract expressionism, Color Field painting, and minimal art. Two influential teachers Josef Albers and Hans Hofmann introduced a new generation of American artists to their advanced theories of color and space. Josef Albers is best remembered for his work as a Geometric abstractionist painter and theorist. Most famous of all are the hundreds of paintings and prints that make up the series Homage to the Square. In this rigorous series, begun in 1949, Albers explored chromatic interactions with flat colored squares arranged concentrically on the canvas. Albers' theories on art and education were formative for the next generation of artists. His own paintings form the foundation of both hard-edge painting and Op art.

Josef Albers, Hans Hofmann, Ilya Bolotowsky, Burgoyne Diller, Victor Vasarely, Bridget Riley, Richard Anuszkiewicz, Frank Stella, Morris Louis, Kenneth Noland, Ellsworth Kelly, Barnett Newman, Larry Poons, Ronald Davis, Larry Zox, Al Held and some others like Mino Argento, are artists closely associated with Geometric abstraction, Op art, Color Field painting, and in the case of Hofmann and Newman Abstract expressionism as well.

In 1965, an exhibition called The Responsive Eye, curated by William C. Seitz, was held at the Museum of Modern Art, in New York City. The works shown were wide-ranging, encompassing the Minimalism of Frank Stella, the Op art of Larry Poons, the work of Alexander Liberman, alongside the masters of the Op Art movement: Victor Vasarely, Richard Anuszkiewicz, Bridget Riley and others. The exhibition focused on the perceptual aspects of art, which result both from the illusion of movement and the interaction of color relationships. Op art, also known as optical art, is a style present in some paintings and other works of art that use optical illusions. Op art is also closely akin to geometric abstraction and hard-edge painting. Although sometimes the term used for it is perceptual abstraction.

Op art is a method of painting concerning the interaction between illusion and picture plane, between understanding and seeing. Op art works are 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, hidden images, flashing and vibration, patterns, or alternatively, of swelling or warping.

Color Field painting sought to rid art of superfluous rhetoric. Artists like Clyfford Still, Mark Rothko, Hans Hofmann, Morris Louis, Jules Olitski, Kenneth Noland, Helen Frankenthaler, John Hoyland, Larry Zox, and others often used greatly reduced references to nature, and they painted with a highly articulated and psychological use of color. In general these artists eliminated recognizable imagery. In Mountains and Sea, from 1952, a seminal work of Color Field painting by Helen Frankenthaler the artist used the stain technique for the first time.

Washington Color School, Shaped canvas, Abstract illusionism, Lyrical abstraction

Main articles: Washington Color School, Shaped canvas, Abstract illusionism, and Lyrical abstraction

Frank Stella, Kenneth Noland, Ellsworth Kelly, Barnett Newman, Ronald Davis, Neil Williams, Robert Mangold, Charles Hinman, Richard Tuttle, David Novros, and Alvin Loving are examples of artists associated with the use of the shaped canvas during the period beginning in the early 1960s. Many Geometric abstract artists, minimalists, and Hard-edge painters elected to use the edges of the image to define the shape of the painting rather than accepting the rectangular format. In fact, the use of the shaped canvas is primarily associated with paintings of the 1960s and 1970s that are coolly abstract, formalistic, geometrical, objective, rationalistic, clean-lined, brashly sharp-edged, or minimalist in character. The Andre Emmerich Gallery, the Leo Castelli Gallery, the Richard Feigen Gallery, and the Park Place Gallery were important showcases for Color Field painting, shaped canvas painting and Lyrical Abstraction in New York City during the 1960s. There is a connection with post-painterly abstraction, which reacted against abstract expressionisms' mysticism, hyper-subjectivity, and emphasis on making the act of painting itself dramatically visible – as well as the solemn acceptance of the flat rectangle as an almost ritual prerequisite for serious painting. During the 1960s Color Field painting and Minimal art were often closely associated with each other. In actuality by the early 1970s both movements became decidedly diverse.

Another related movement of the late 1960s, Lyrical Abstraction (the term being coined by Larry Aldrich, the founder of the Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, Ridgefield Connecticut), encompassed what Aldrich said he saw in the studios of many artists at that time. It is also the name of an exhibition that originated in the Aldrich Museum and traveled to the Whitney Museum of American Art and other museums throughout the United States between 1969 and 1971.

Lyrical Abstraction in the late 1960s is characterized by the paintings of Dan Christensen, Ronnie Landfield, Peter Young and others, and along with the fluxus movement and postminimalism (a term first coined by Robert Pincus-Witten in the pages of Artforum in 1969) sought to expand the boundaries of abstract painting and minimalism by focusing on process, new materials and new ways of expression. Postminimalism often incorporating industrial materials, raw materials, fabrications, found objects, installation, serial repetition, and often with references to Dada and Surrealism is best exemplified in the sculptures of Eva Hesse. Lyrical Abstraction, conceptual art, postminimalism, Earth art, video, performance art, installation art, along with the continuation of fluxus, abstract expressionism, Color Field painting, hard-edge painting, minimal art, op art, pop art, photorealism and New Realism extended the boundaries of contemporary art in the mid-1960s through the 1970s. Lyrical Abstraction is a type of freewheeling abstract painting that emerged in the mid-1960s when abstract painters returned to various forms of painterly, pictorial, expressionism with a predominate focus on process, gestalt and repetitive compositional strategies in general.

Lyrical Abstraction shares similarities with color field painting and abstract expressionism, Lyrical Abstraction as exemplified by the 1968 Ronnie Landfield painting For William Blake, (above) especially in the freewheeling usage of paint – texture and surface. Direct drawing, calligraphic use of line, the effects of brushed, splattered, stained, squeegeed, poured, and splashed paint superficially resemble the effects seen in abstract expressionism and color field painting. However, the styles are markedly different. Setting it apart from abstract expressionism and action painting of the 1940s and 1950s is the approach to composition and drama. As seen in action painting there is an emphasis on brushstrokes, high compositional drama, dynamic compositional tension. While in Lyrical Abstraction there is a sense of compositional randomness, all over composition, low key and relaxed compositional drama and an emphasis on process, repetition, and an all over sensibility.,

Hard-edge painting, minimalism, postminimalism, monochrome painting

Agnes Martin, Robert Mangold, Brice Marden, Jo Baer, Robert Ryman, Richard Tuttle, Neil Williams, David Novros, Paul Mogenson, Charles Hinman are examples of artists associated with Minimalism and (exceptions of Martin, Baer and Marden) the use of the shaped canvas also during the period beginning in the early 1960s. Many Geometric abstract artists, minimalists, and hard-edge painters elected to use the edges of the image to define the shape of the painting rather than accepting the rectangular format. In fact, the use of the shaped canvas is primarily associated with paintings of the 1960s and 1970s that are coolly abstract, formalistic, geometrical, objective, rationalistic, clean-lined, brashly sharp-edged, or minimalist in character. The Bykert Gallery, and the Park Place Gallery were important showcases for Minimalism and shaped canvas painting in New York City during the 1960s.

During the 1960s and 1970s artists such as Robert Motherwell, Adolph Gottlieb, Phillip Guston, Lee Krasner, Cy Twombly, Robert Rauschenberg, Jasper Johns, Richard Diebenkorn, Josef Albers, Elmer Bischoff, Agnes Martin, Al Held, Sam Francis, Ellsworth Kelly, Morris Louis, Helen Frankenthaler, Gene Davis, Frank Stella, Kenneth Noland, Joan Mitchell, Friedel Dzubas, and younger artists like Brice Marden, Robert Mangold, Sam Gilliam, John Hoyland, Sean Scully, Pat Steir, Elizabeth Murray, Larry Poons, Walter Darby Bannard, Larry Zox, Ronnie Landfield, Ronald Davis, Dan Christensen, Joan Snyder, Ross Bleckner, Archie Rand, Susan Crile and dozens of others produced a wide variety of paintings.

During the 1960s and 1970s, there was a reaction against abstract painting. Some critics viewed the work of artists like Ad Reinhardt, and declared the 'death of painting'. Artists began to practice new ways of making art. New movements gained prominence some of which are: postminimalism, Earth art, video art, installation art, arte povera, performance art, body art, fluxus, happening, mail art, the situationists and conceptual art among others.

However still other important innovations in abstract painting took place during the 1960s and the 1970s characterized by monochrome painting and hard-edge painting inspired by Ad Reinhardt, Barnett Newman, Milton Resnick, and Ellsworth Kelly. Artists as diverse as Agnes Martin, Al Held, Larry Zox, Frank Stella, Larry Poons, Brice Marden and others explored the power of simplification. The convergence of Color Field painting, minimal art, hard-edge painting, Lyrical Abstraction, and postminimalism blurred the distinction between movements that became more apparent in the 1980s and 1990s. The neo-expressionism movement is related to earlier developments in abstract expressionism, neo-Dada, Lyrical Abstraction and postminimal painting.

Neo Expressionism

In the late 1960s an abstract expressionist painter Philip Guston helped to lead a transition from abstract expressionism to Neo-expressionism in painting, abandoning the so-called "pure abstraction" of abstract expressionism in favor of more cartoonish renderings of various personal symbols and objects. These works were inspirational to a new generation of painters interested in a revival of expressive imagery. His painting Painting, Smoking, Eating 1973, seen above in the gallery is an example of Guston's final and conclusive return to representation.

In the late 1970s and early 1980s, there was also a return to painting that occurred almost simultaneously in Italy, Germany, France and Britain. These movements were called Transavantguardia, Neue Wilde, Figuration Libre, Neo-expressionism, the school of London, and in the late 1980s the Stuckists respectively. These paintings were characterized by large formats, free expressive mark making, figuration, myth and imagination. All work in this genre came to be labeled neo-expressionism. Critical reaction was divided. Some critics regarded it as driven by profit motivations by large commercial galleries. This type of art continues in popularity into the 21st century, even after the art crash of the late 1980s. Anselm Kiefer is a leading figure in European Neo-expressionism by the 1980s, Kiefer's themes widened from a focus on Germany's role in civilization to the fate of art and culture in general. His work became more sculptural and involves not only national identity and collective memory, but also occult symbolism, theology and mysticism. The theme of all the work is the trauma experienced by entire societies, and the continual rebirth and renewal in life.

During the late 1970s in the United States painters who began working with invigorated surfaces and who returned to imagery like Susan Rothenberg gained in popularity, especially as seen above in paintings like Horse 2, 1979. During the 1980s American artists like Eric Fischl, David Salle, Jean-Michel Basquiat (who began as a graffiti artist), Julian Schnabel, and Keith Haring, and Italian painters like Mimmo Paladino, Sandro Chia, and Enzo Cucchi, among others defined the idea of Neo-expressionism in America.

Neo-expressionism was a style of modern painting that became popular in the late 1970s and dominated the art market until the mid-1980s. It developed in Europe as a reaction against the conceptual and minimalistic art of the 1960s and 1970s. Neo-expressionists returned to portraying recognizable objects, such as the human body (although sometimes in a virtually abstract manner), in a rough and violently emotional way using vivid colours and banal colour harmonies. The veteran painters Philip Guston, Frank Auerbach, Leon Kossoff, Gerhard Richter, A. R. Penck and Georg Baselitz, along with slightly younger artists like Anselm Kiefer, Eric Fischl, Susan Rothenberg, Francesco Clemente, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Julian Schnabel, Keith Haring, and many others became known for working in this intense expressionist vein of painting.

Painting still holds a respected position in contemporary art. Art is an open field no longer divided by the objective versus non-objective dichotomy. Artists can achieve critical success whether their images are representational or abstract. What has currency is content, exploring the boundaries of the medium, and a refusal to recapitulate the works of the past as an end goal.

Contemporary painting into the 21st century

Main articles: Contemporary art, Postmodern art, and Late modernism

At the beginning of the 21st century Contemporary painting and Contemporary art in general continues in several contiguous modes, characterized by the idea of pluralism. The "crisis" in painting and current art and current art criticism today is brought about by pluralism. There is no consensus, nor need there be, as to a representative style of the age. There is an anything goes attitude that prevails; an "everything going on", and consequently "nothing going on" syndrome; this creates an aesthetic traffic jam with no firm and clear direction and with every lane on the artistic superhighway filled to capacity. Consequently magnificent and important works of art continue to be made albeit in a wide variety of styles and aesthetic temperaments, the marketplace being left to judge merit.

Hard-edge painting, geometric abstraction, appropriation, hyperrealism, photorealism, expressionism, minimalism, Lyrical Abstraction, pop art, op art, abstract expressionism, Color Field painting, monochrome painting, neo-expressionism, collage, intermedia painting, assemblage painting, digital painting, postmodern painting, neo-Dada painting, shaped canvas painting, environmental mural painting, traditional figure painting, landscape painting, portrait painting, are a few continuing and current directions in painting at the beginning of the 21st century.

Americas

Main articles: Native American art, Maya art, Pre-Columbian art, Painting in the Americas before Colonization, Plains hide painting, and Ledger art

Before Europeans came to the Americas, many different cultures made beautiful artworks. These included paintings, murals, pottery, weaving, and more. Each area, from North America to South America to the Caribbean islands, had its own style and traditions. Their art often told stories about their beliefs, daily life, and important events. Over time, these indigenous arts influenced European styles.

Mexico and Central America

Great Goddess of Teotihuacan mural from the site at Tetitla, Mexico
Mural from the Complex of Tepantitla in Teotihuacan, a reproduction in the National Museum of Anthropology in Mexico City
A portion of the mural from the Complex of Tepantitla, representing the Tlalocan one of the levels in the Underworld, Mexico
Mural of the Jaguars compound in Teotihuacan.
Portic A from Cacaxtla, representing the Man-jaguar
Detail from the Red Temple, c. 600–700, Cacaxtla, Mexico
Reconstruction of the Tomb 105 from Monte Alban.
A Mayan mural from Bonampak, Mexico, 580–800 AD.
A Mayan mural from Bonampak, 580–800 AD
A Mayan mural from San Bartolo, Pre-Classical period (1–250 AD)
Painting on the Lord of the jaguar pelt throne vase, a scene of the Maya court, 700–800 AD.
Painting on a Maya vase from the Late Classical Period (600–900)
Painted pottery figurine of a King from the burial site at Jaina Island, Mayan art, 400–800 AD
Painted relief of the Maya site Palenque, featuring the son of K'inich Ahkal Mo' Naab' III (678–730s?, r. 722–729).
Painting from a Dresden Codex.
A Mixtec painting from the Codex Zouche-Nuttall.
An Aztec painting from the Codex Borgia, representing a Mictlantecuhtli and Quetzalcoatl.
An Aztec painting from the Codex Borbonicus, representing a Tlaloc.
A painting from Matrícula de Tributos showing the Ichcahuipilli, Mexico.
A painting from Codex Mendoza showing the Aztec legend of the foundation of Tenochtitlán, c. 1553

South America

Moche murals from the Huaca de la Luna site, Peru, 100–700 AD.
A Moche mural of a decapitator from the Huaca de la Luna site, Peru, 100–700 AD.
Mural in Huaca Cao Viejo, Peru
Painted pottery from the Moche culture of Peru
Killer Whale, painted pottery, Nazca culture, 300 BC–800 AD, Larco Museum. Lima, Peru
Painted pottery from the Huari culture of Peru, 500–1200 AD
Body painting, Indigenous peoples in Brazil, Pataxo tribe.

North America

United States

The Great Gallery, Pictographs, Canyonlands National Park, Horseshoe Canyon, Utah, 15 by 200 feet (4.6 by 61.0 m), c. 1500 BCE
Pictograph, southeastern Utah, c. 1200 BC Pueblo culture
Painted pottery, Anasazi, North America: A canteen (pot) excavated from the ruins in Chaco Canyon, New Mexico, c. 700 AD–1100 AD
Painted ceramic jug showing the underwater panther from the Mississippian culture, found at Rose Mound in Cross County, Arkansas, c. 1400–1600.
A Haida wolf mask, 1880.
A Hopi jar by Nampeyo (c. 1860–1942), made in Arizona, 1880.
A girl from the Zuni tribe of New Mexico with a painted pottery jar, photographed in c. 1903.
Edward S. Curtis, Navajo sandpainting, sepia photogravure c. 1907
Navajo man in ceremonial dress with mask and body paint, c. 1904
Ledger art of Haokah (ca. 1880) by Black Hawk (Lakota).
Kiowa ledger art, possibly of the 1874 Buffalo Wallow battle, Red River War.
Detail of ledger painting on muslin by Silver Horn (1860–1940), ca. 1880, Oklahoma History Center
Work on Paper, by Arapaho painter, Carl Sweezy (1881–1953), 1904
An Uncompaghre Ute, Shaved Beaver Hide Painting. The Northern Ute would trap beavers, shave images into the animals' stretched and cured hides, and use them to decorate their personal and ceremonial dwellings, c. 19th century.
Tlingit totem pole in Ketchikan, Alaska, circa 1901.
The K'alyaan Totem Pole of the Tlingit Kiks.ádi Clan, erected at Sitka National Historical Park to commemorate the lives lost in the 1804 Battle of Sitka.
The Chief Johnson totem pole in Ketchikan, Alaska, in the Tlingit style.
From Saxman Totem Park, Ketchikan, Alaska
From Saxman Totem Park, Ketchikan, Alaska

Canada

A totem pole in Totem Park, Victoria, British Columbia.
From Totem Park, Victoria, British Columbia.

Caribbean

Rock petroglyph overlaid with chalk, Caguana Indigenous Ceremonial Center. Utuado, Puerto Rico.

Islamic

Main articles: Islamic art, Arabic miniature, Persian miniature, and Arabesque

In Islamic culture, showing people or animals in art was not common. People thought it might lead to worshipping images instead of God. Instead, artists made beautiful patterns, shapes, and designs. These designs covered walls, tiles, and books, making them look special and colorful.

Some places, like Iran, made paintings that told stories from books. These paintings did not look exactly real but showed beautiful scenes. Artists in Iran mixed their own styles with ideas from Europe, creating new and exciting art.

Oceania

Main article: Art of Oceania

Painting in Oceania has a rich history, especially in Australia and New Zealand. In Australia, many artists come from Aboriginal traditions. They create beautiful designs that tell stories about their land and culture. These artworks show how important art is for sharing history and ideas across generations. In New Zealand, local artists have developed their own special styles. They add to the world's collection of beautiful paintings.

Africa

Main articles: African art, African tribal masks, and Tingatinga (painting)

African cultures have a rich tradition of art. They often focus more on sculpture and relief than on two-dimensional paintings. But they also use decorative painting in abstract and geometric patterns. Body painting and face painting are important in ceremonies, such as those of the Maasai and Kĩkũyũ. Some villages still have cave paintings used in ceremonies.

The Kingdom of Kush in ancient Sudan created many artworks, including wall paintings. These paintings show scenes like sailing ships and houses. In Ethiopia, Christian painting began in the 4th century AD. Early examples include illuminated manuscripts and church paintings. These artworks show religious scenes and important rulers.

Artists like Pablo Picasso in the early 1900s were inspired by African art. They admired the strong, organized forms and expressive power in African sculptures and masks, which influenced their own styles.