Impressionism1867 - 1910

It was the beginning of twentieth century’s exploration of the expressive properties of colour, light, line and form, a particularly strong theme in modern art.

Romanticism1800 - 1880

It originated in the second half of the 18th century in Western Europe, and gained strength during the Industrial Revolution. It was partly a revolt against aristocratic social and political norms of the Age of Enlightenment and a reaction against the scientific rationalization of nature, and was embodied most strongly in the visual arts, music, and literature.

JMW Turner Claude Monet

Symbolism1885 - 1950

The styles of these painters varied considerably, but they shared many of the same themes particularly a fascination with the mystical and the visionary., along with the erotic, the perverse, death and debauchery. The leading figures of the movement included the two French men, Odilon Redon and Paul Gauguin, but it was not limited to France with other practitioners including the Norwegian Edvard Munch, the Austrian Gustav Klimt and the British Aubrey Beardsley.

Post-Impressionism1880 - 1920

The term was coined by the English art critic Roger Fry for the work of such late 19th-century painters as Paul Cézanne, Georges Seurat, Paul Gauguin, Vincent van Gogh, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, and others. The movement led away from the naturalistic approach of Impressionism, which they considered tied to traditional subject matter. Its technique was defined by short brushstrokes of broken colour.

Georges-Pierre SeuratGustav Klimt

Fauvism1905 - 1908

It was the first of the major avant-garde movements in European 20th century art, and characterised by paintings that used intensely vivid, non-naturalistic and exuberant colours.

The style was essentially expressionist, and generally featured landscapes in which forms were distorted. Literally translated it means “Wild Beasts”.

Expressionism1905 - 1925

It was an artistic style in which the artist attempts to depict not objective reality but rather the subjective emotions and responses that objects and events arouse one. This is accomplished through distortion, exaggeration, primitivism, and fantasy and through the vivid, jarring, violent, or dynamic application of formal elements. Unlike Impressionism, its goals were not to reproduce the impression suggested by the surrounding world, but to strongly impose the artist's own sensibility to the world's representation.

Egon SchieleAndre Derain

Cubism1908 - 1914

This art movement began in Paris around 1907. Led by Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque, the artists broke from centuries of tradition in their painting by rejecting the single viewpoint. Instead they used an analytical system in which three-dimensional subjects were fragmented and redefined from several different points of view simultaneously.

Futurism1909 - 1944

An Italian avant-garde art movement that took speed, technology and modernity as its inspiration; It portrayed the dynamic character of 20th century life, glorified war and the machine age, and favoured the growth of Fascism. The movement was adopted by artists such as Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, Giacomo Balla and Umberto Boccioni.

Umberto BoccioniPablo Picasso

Surrealism1920 - 1930

Founded in Paris in 1924 by André Breton with his Manifesto, the movement's principal aim was 'to resolve the previously contradictory conditions of dream and reality into an absolute reality, a super-reality'. The major artists of the movement were Salvador Dali, Max Ernst, René Magritte and Joan Miró. Its impact on popular culture can still be felt today, most visibly in advertising.

Constructivism1915 - 1940

This movement was marked by a commitment to total abstraction and a wholehearted acceptance of modernity. Often very geometric, it is usually experimental, rarely emotional. Objective forms which were thought to have universal meaning were preferred over the subjective or the individual.

Kasimir MalevichRene Magritte