History of painting

History of painting
Lubang Jeriji Saléh cave, in Kalimantan, Indonesia, contains one of the oldest known figurative paintings, a 40,000-year-old depiction of a bull.

The history of painting reaches back in time to artifacts and artwork created by pre-historic artists, and spans all cultures. It represents a continuous, though periodically disrupted, tradition from Antiquity. Across cultures, continents, and millennia, the history of painting consists of an ongoing river of creativity that continues into the 21st century.[1] Until the early 20th century it relied primarily on representational, religious and classical motifs, after which time more purely abstract and conceptual approaches gained favor.

Developments in Eastern painting historically parallel those in Western painting, in general, a few centuries earlier.[2] African art, Jewish art, Islamic art, Indonesian art, Indian art,[3] Chinese art, and Japanese art[4] each had significant influence on Western art, and vice versa.[5]

Initially serving utilitarian purpose, followed by imperial, private, civic, and religious patronage, Eastern and Western painting later found audiences in the aristocracy and the middle class. From the Modern era, the Middle Ages through the Renaissance painters worked for the church and a wealthy aristocracy.[6] Beginning with the Baroque era artists received private commissions from a more educated and prosperous middle class.[7] Finally in the West the idea of "art for art's sake"[8] began to find expression in the work of the Romantic painters like Francisco de Goya, John Constable, and J. M. W. Turner.[9] The 19th century saw the rise of the commercial art gallery, which provided patronage in the 20th century.[10]

  1. ^ Bruce Cole; Adelheid M. Gealt (15 December 1991). Art of the Western World: From Ancient Greece to Post Modernism. Simon and Schuster. ISBN 978-0-671-74728-2. Retrieved 8 September 2011.
  2. ^ The Meeting of Eastern and Western Art, Revised and Expanded edition (Hardcover) by Michael Sullivan.
  3. ^ "Art View; Eastern Art Through Western Eyes". The New York Times. 10 July 1994. Retrieved 30 November 2010.
  4. ^ Wichmann, Siegfried (1999). Japonisme: The Japanese Influence on Western Art Since 1858. Thames & Hudson. ISBN 978-0-500-28163-5.
  5. ^ Sullivan, Michael (1989). The Meeting of Eastern and Western Art. University of California Press. ISBN 978-0-520-05902-3.
  6. ^ Discussion of the role of patrons in the Renaissance. Retrieved 11 November 2008.
  7. ^ History 1450–1789: Artistic Patronage. Retrieved 11 November 2008.
  8. ^ Britannica.com. Retrieved 11 November 2008.
  9. ^ Victorianweb.org, Aesthetes, Decadents, and the Idea of Art for Art's Sake George P. Landow, Professor of English and the History of Art, Brown University. Retrieved 11 November 2008.
  10. ^ Cézanne to Picasso: Ambroise Vollard, Patron of the Avant-Garde, Chicago Art Institute. Retrieved 11 November 2008 Archived 12 October 2008 at the Wayback Machine.