Ancient art began when ancient civilizations developed a form of written
language. The great traditions in art have a foundation in the art of one of the
six great ancient civilizations: Ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia, Greece, Rome,
India, or China. Each of these centers of early civilization developed a unique
and characteristic style in their art. Because of their size and duration these
civilizations and their art works have survived and transmitted to other
cultures and later times. They have also provided us with the first records of
how artists worked. Ancient Roman art depicted gods as idealized humans,
shown with characteristic distinguishing features.
In Byzantine and Gothic art of the Middle Ages, the dominance of the
church insisted on the expression of biblical truths. There was no need to
depict the reality of the material world, in which man was born in a “state of
sin”, especially through the extensive use of gold in paintings, which also
presented figures in idealised, patterned (i. e. “flat”) forms.
The Renaissance is the return to valuation of the material world, and this
paradigm shift is reflected in art forms, which show the corporeality of the
human body, and the three dimensional reality of landscape.
Modern art is a term that refers to artistic works produced during the
period extending roughly from the 1860s to the 1970s, and denotes the style
and philosophy of the art produced during that era.
The term is usually
associated with art in which the traditions of the past have been thrown aside
in a spirit of experimentation.
Modern artists experimented with new ways of
seeing, and with fresh ideas about the nature of materials and functions of art.
A tendency toward abstraction is characteristic of much modern art. More
recent artistic production is often called Contemporary art or Postmodern art.