The Most Famous Art Movements and Styles

Throughout history, artists have produced art in a variety of media and styles
following different philosophies and ideals. Although labelling may often result
in being reductive, different artistic tendencies or styles can be grouped in
collective titles known as art movements.
If speaking art seems like a discipline in itself to you, here we provide you with
the top terms of art movements and styles, from Classicism to Futurism, from
Baroque to Avant-garde.

Abstract Expressionism
The Abstract Expressionism
encompasses a wide variety of
American 20th century art
movements, and is usually
characterized by large abstract
painted canvases.
Also known as The New York
School, this movement in abstract
art includes sculpture and other
media as well. The term ‘action
painting’ is associated with Abstract
Expressionism, describing a direct
and highly dynamic kind of art that
involves the spontaneous
application of vigorous, sweeping
brushstrokes and the effects of
dripping and spilling paint onto the
canvas.

Art Nouveau
A decorative style that flourished between
1890 and 1910 throughout Europe and
the U.S. Art Nouveau, also called
Jugendstil (Germany) and Sezessionstil
(Austria), is characterized by sinuous,
asymmetrical lines based on organic
forms. Although it influenced painting and
sculpture, its chief manifestations were in
architecture and the decorative and graphic arts, aiming to create a new style,
free of the imitative historicism that dominated much of 19th-century art
movements and design.

Avant-garde
In French, avant-garde means
“advanced guard” and refers to
innovative or experimental concepts,
works or the group or people producing
them, particularly in the realms of
culture, politics, and the arts.
Baroque
The term Baroque, derived from the
Portuguese ‘barocco’ meaning ‘irregular
pearl or stone’, is a movement in art and
architecture developed in Europe from
the early seventeenth to mid-eighteenth
century. Baroque emphasizes dramatic,
exaggerated motion and clear, easily
interpreted, detail, which is a far cry from
Surrealism, to produce drama, tension,
exuberance, and grandeur.
Bauhaus
The school of art and design founded in
Germany by Walter Gropius in 1919, and
shut down by the Nazis in 1933. The faculty
brought together artists, architects, and
designers, and developed an experimental
pedagogy that focused on materials and
functions rather than traditional art school
methodologies. In its successive incarnations
in Weimar, Dessau, and Berlin, it became
the site of influential conversations about
the role of modern art and design in society.
Classicism
The principles embodied in the styles,
theories, or philosophies of the different
types of art from ancient Greece and
Rome, concentrating on traditional forms
with a focus on elegance and symmetry.
Conceptual art
Conceptual art, sometimes simply called
conceptualism, was one of several 20th
century art movements that arose during
1960s, emphasizing ideas and theoretical
practices rather than the creation of
visual forms. The term was coined in
1967 by the artist Sol LeWitt, who gave
the new genre its name in his essay
“Paragraphs on Conceptual Art,” in which
he wrote, “The idea itself, even if not
made visual, is as much a work of art as
any finished product.”
Constructivism
Developed by the Russian avant-garde
around 1915, constructivism is a branch of
abstract art, rejecting the idea of “art for
art’s sake” in favour of art as a practice
directed towards social purposes. The
movement’s work was mostly geometric and
accurately composed, sometimes through
mathematics and measuring tools.

Cubism
An artistic movement began in 1907 by
artists Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque
who developed a visual language whose
geometric planes challenged the
conventions of representation in different
types of art, by reinventing traditional
subjects such as nudes, landscapes, and
still life as increasingly fragmented
compositions.
 Dada / Dadaism
An artistic and literary movement in art
formed during the First World War as a
negative response to the traditional social
values and conventional artistic practices
of the different types of art at the time.
Dada artists represented a protest
movement with an anti-establishment
manifesto, sought to expose accepted and
often repressive conventions of order and
logic by shocking people into self-
awareness.

Expressionism
Expressionism is an international artistic
movement in art, architecture, literature, and
performance that flourished between 1905 and
1920, especially in Germany and Austria, that
sought to express the meaning of emotional
experience rather than physical reality.
Conventions of expressionist style include
distortion, exaggeration, fantasy, and vivid, jarring,
violent, or dynamic application of color in order to
express the artist’s inner feelings or ideas.

Fauvism
Coined by the critic Louis Vauxcelles, Fauvism
(French for “wild beasts”) is on of the early
20th century art movements. Fauvism is
associated especially with Henri Matisse and
André Derain, whose works are characterized
by strong, vibrant colour and bold
brushstrokes over realistic or representational
qualities.
Futurism
Fairly unique among different types of art
movements, it is an Italian development in
abstract art and literature, founded in 1909
by Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, aiming to
capture the dynamism, speed and energy of
the modern mechanical world.

Impressionism
Impressionism is a 19th-century art
movement, associated especially with French
artists such as Claude Monet, Pierre Auguste
Renoir, Camille Pissarro and Alfred Sisley,
who attempted to accurately and objectively
record visual ‘impressions’ by using small,
thin, visible brushstrokes that coalesce to
form a single scene and emphasize
movement and the changing qualities of
light. Being anti-academic in its formal
aspects, the impressionists responded to
traditions that had recently excluded them from the government-sponsored
annual exhibitions called Salons by creating independent exhibitions outside of
the established venues of the day.