Timeline of Art History

An Art Period is a phase in the development of the work of an artist, groups of artists or art movement.

The history of art is immense and the earliest cave paintings pre-date writing by almost 27,000 years!

Ancient Classical art

Minoan art

Ancient Greek art

Roman art

Ancient Egyptian colors

Percy Bysshe Shelley | Ozymandias, 1818

"Ozymandias" is a famous sonnet written in 1818 by British Romantic poet Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822)🎨, in which he reflects on hubris and the implacable passage of time and on the decline of leaders and their empires.

The poem is widely believed to have been inspired by a broken statue of Ramses II that is now, like many priceless Egyptian artifacts, in the possession of the British Museum.

Ancient Egypt

The culture and monuments of ancient Egypt🎨 have left a lasting legacy on the world. The cult of the goddess Isis, for example, became popular in the Roman Empire, as obelisks and other relics were transported back to Rome.

The Romans also imported building materials from Egypt to erect Egyptian-style structures. Early historians such as Herodotus, Strabo, and Diodorus Siculus studied and wrote about the land, which Romans came to view as a place of mystery.

Thutmose | The Sculptor of the bust of Nefertiti

The King's Favourite and Master of Works, the Sculptor Thutmose - (also spelled Djhutmose and Thutmosis), flourished 1350 BC, is thought to have been the official court sculptor of the Egyptian Pharaoh Akhenaten in the latter part of his reign.

German archaeological expedition digging in Akhenaten's deserted city of Akhetaten, at Amarna, found a ruined house and studio complex (labeled P47.1-3) in early December 1912; the building was identified as that of Thutmose based on an ivory horse blinker found in a rubbish pit in the courtyard inscribed with his name and job title.

Ancient Egypt / La Civiltà Egizia

Ancient Egypt was a civilization of ancient Northeastern Africa, concentrated along the lower reaches of the Nile River in what is now the modern country of Egypt. It is one of six civilizations to arise independently.

Egyptian civilization followed prehistoric Egypt and coalesced around 3150 BC (according to conventional Egyptian chronology) with the political unification of Upper and Lower Egypt under the first pharaoh Narmer (commonly referred to as Menes).

Mahmoud Said | Pioneer of modern Arab art

Mahmoud Said Bey / محمود سعيد‎ (April 8, 1897 - April 8, 1964) was an Alexandrian judge and modern painter. Mahmoud Said was born in Alexandria, Egypt; his father, Muhammad Said Pasha, was of Turkish origin and was the former Prime Minister of Egypt.

Queen Farida of Egypt was his niece and she described him as "a quiet, gentle, oppressively timid man".

After receiving his high school diploma, he went on to law school, receiving his degree in 1919.

Between 1919-1921 he traveled through Europe, ultimately studying at the Académie Julian.

He returned to Egypt and worked at the Mixed Courts of Egypt until his father's death in the 1950s.

Hatshepsut | The first woman Pharoah / La prima donna Faraone

Hatshepsut (Hat-shep-soot) (1507–1458 BCE), the first important female ruler known to history, lived a thousand years after the pyramids were built and seventeen centuries after the Egyptians had begun writing their language in hieroglyphs.

She ruled Egypt for two decades (ca. 1473-1458 B.C.) during Egypt's Dynasty 18. Although less familiar to modern audiences than her much later successor, the notorious Cleopatra (51–30 B.C.), Hatshepsut's achievements were far more significant.

Ruling first as regent for, then as co-ruler with, her nephew Thutmose III (who ruled for another thirty-three years after her death), Hatshepsut enjoyed a relatively peaceful reign, at the beginning of the New Kingdom.

Nefertiti, la Dea dell'Egitto

Il pezzo più pregiato della collezione di reperti archeologici egizi è senza dubbio il busto della regina Nefertiti.
C'è chi afferma che valga da solo un viaggio a Berlino.

Nefertiti, che per gli egiziani "la bella che è arrivata", identifica la regina egiziana (XIV secolo a.C.), sposa di Amenophis IV (Akhenaton, 1364-1347 a.C.).
Non si limitò ad interpretare il ruolo di grande sposa reale, poiché il faraone l’aveva coinvolta nella gestione del potere, e la sua influenza sulla guida politica del regno fu notevolissima.
Per questo motivo ella appare rappresentata con la corona doppia, simbolo del potere faraonico.