Back to School — Art History Basics that are often mixed up
What is a style, a genre, or an art school
Indeed, even the specialised art resources often operate those key art history terms the wrong way. Genres are taken for styles, the same goes for numerous movements and trends, while art schools would be mixed up the artist’s nationality.
Without further ado, let us look at the basic terminology used in the history of art [painting in particular] and the ideas behind them.
- In the next blog, we’ll look into the artists’ timeline and define who is considered to be an old master and who isn’t, so make sure you are subscribed to my email alerts not to miss it coming.
With this theoretical base, you will feel more confident appreciating art in the flesh in the museums or online with the Smart Art — Art History Escape app — you are always welcome to download it for free on your iPhone or iPad and discover its collection of 1000 original short stories, curious art history quizzes, and over 80,000 artworks carefully categorised by the principles you’ll learn today.
Styles in Art
How and when a painting was created?
Artwork style is what we see while simply looking at the canvas surface.
Paint application and brush strokes, colours and light, image sharpness and shape contour — all that add to the perception of a painting as a part of a certain art style.
Most of the styles and art movements are typical to a particular place and period in history. Frescos from Classical Antiquity, Ancient Egypt and its murals and Fayum portraits, European Renaissance, Baroque and Rococo paintings were popular at certain epochs, had their proper canons, and never came back into fashion ever since.
Though artists of later centuries were sometimes copying or imitating those styles for various reasons.
Impressionism, Realism, or a whole set of Modern art styles were born in the late 19th century and have been widely popular ever since. Various attempts of rethinking and remixing them are now only limited by contemporary artists’ imagination.
You may also hear about art movements. This concept is used when we talk about some particular group of artists and artworks inside a certain art style and period in time.
A more scholarly approach would say, though, that while a certain style penetrates all art domains at the same epoch [like, say, Romanticism in painting, sculpture, literature, and music], a movement would be related to one [Pre-Raphaelites or Nazarene painters within Romanticism] or two [Biedermeier in German Romantic painting and interior design] dimensions only.
Genres in Art
What this painting is all about? What story does the picture tell?
Once you define the genre you are pretty close to knowing it all.
You don’t need to be an art expert to distinguish a portrait from a landscape. However, when it comes to the history genre with its allegories, bible subjects and myths it is sometimes way more challenging to read the symbols and messages encrypted in oeuvres by masters of the past.
Genre is one of the major drivers of the art market value of a painting. Traditionally historic paintings and portraits were playing in another league compared to genre scenes and landscapes. This hierarchy is more or less valid until today, however quality, innovation and individuality are yet crucial in artwork evaluation.
Schools in Art
Where and when was the artwork born? Which artistic environment shaped the painter’s practice?
These are the questions that we may clarify knowing the art school the painting belongs to.
From the beginning of time until the 19th century, people were way less well-travelled than we are today. Artists were growing professionally studying the paintings of their predecessors that were only available in the location they lived. That’s why painters working in one region had lots in common.
Later centuries witnessed easier and faster spreading of ideas across the globe. Artists from different countries visited Italy and explored its heritage, went to study the latest trends in Paris, London, Vienna or Munich to then bring back best practices to their home grounds. All of this led to the degradation of an art school significance in accurate attribution of paintings in the 20th century.
There might be a certain confusion when the artist of some particular origins went to study and live abroad and this way, became an adept of a totally different school of art. Take the French Nicholas Poussin and Claude Lorrain [Gellée], whose art was totally in line with the Italian school of art. Or even the Dutch Vincent Van Gogh, who was a clear representative of the French school of Post-Impressionism. The art school concept ignores nationality in favour of artistic influence.
Some art schools are broadly named by the country where this or that tradition persisted [think of French, Russian, Spanish, and so on].
Sometimes, it is appropriate to even generalise further and specify a certain region [like Nordic school, for example].
And often there were cities, towns, and even particular geographical points of attraction, that united artists who followed their principles [School of Naples, Bologna, Barbizon, or, say, Hudson River].
When a scholar, dealer, collector, or simply an art lover looks at an unknown painting, the amount of available connoisseurship knowledge helps them to attribute the picture in question to this or that regional, national, or local art school, and sometimes even dig down to the artist him/herself.
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