A short Reflection on the most important European Art Movements

Every era in human history has created its own vivid culture, each with its own special characteristics.

About 500 years ago in Art History the Renaissance was born, moulded by the values and ideals of Antiquity. It idealised beauty, perfected proportions (Golden Section) and perfected the dimensional (perspective) and pictorial depiction (theory of composition).

Into modern times, the ideals of the Antiquity and Renaissance have fundamentally influenced culture, art, science and technology. They fashioned the artist into the homo universalis. In painting, sculpture and architecture the Renaissance Art was foremost an art of Religion, piety and worship. Compared to this, Baroque Art represented secularity, life and liveliness embedded in cascades of light. In contrast Classicism was again restrained, austere, calculated, with clear line structures and unpretentious. Romanticism revealed new ideas (Pantheism) where nature (Naturalism) became the focal point of Artistic Creation. It opened new ways for new methods of expression in landscape painting. Impressionism concerned itself mainly with the play of light in nature and developed its own colour palette and painting technique. Expressionism made the human and the fundamentals of life the psychological centre by portraying the characteristics of the essential in a powerful, unusual, subjective colour range and style of painting. Since the birth of expressionism the Art platform has changed its styles in rapid cycles.

Today nearly anything that pleases is possible. The limits of artistic expression have been forced wide open and expanded in every respect. The impression is created that all the old values and ideals are being frantically rejected and, as if in a state of euphoria, everything that is supposedly new, sensational and commercial is allowed. Many styles of Art compete with one another. A homogeneous version does not exist anymore, instead there are trends and tendencies in Art, which rapidly supersede each other.

Some examples: Fauvism, Futurism, Nabism, Cubism, Dadaism, Surrealism, Realism, Abstract Art, Op-Art, Pop-Art, Installations, Performance, etc. and those many contemporary trends not mentioned.
Perhaps in the future Modern Art, Post-modern Art, Life-Style, Eclecticism or other Art Historical terms of the 20th Century will stick in one's mind. In any case they reflect time trends of a fast moving cultural landscape.
Whilst the Art of the 15th and 19th Century was predominantly an Art of values, ideals and light, the Art of the 20th Century was predominantly an Art of darkness, dissolution, decline, new-beginnings, innovations and also reorientation. (But to where?) The 20th Century represents itself as a pluralistic Art evolution where nearly everything is possible.

Where will our Art journey lead us in the future?
What is the current and future meaning for society and for the individual?
What it has achieved in the past should be comprehensible. What it is currently achieving, besides being commercial, entertaining, innovative, and possibly educational, is not yet clearly identifiable. Which values and ideals has Art actually still got to offer us today? Not irrelevant questions for those who still believe in values, ideals and the deeper aspects of Art.
Today we live in an Art era, which is looking for equals in history. It is more and more a product of and determined by technology and economics. Of course there are also hidden Art trends which go their own way and are scarcely seen at the larger pseudo art fairs. But in the end what is pseudo art? In the great history book, which arts will actually survive in the future?
The complete History of Art of the 20th Century will be valid when an objective view is taken and only the following generations can do this.