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Baroque:
Popular
in the Catholic European countries in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries,
baroque was a highly decorative style of painting.
Cubism:
The
word gives it away. It was a geometrical style of drawing invented by Georges
Braque and a favorite of Pablo Picasso. The emphasis here was to present the
mind’s perception of an object rather than a presentation of the actual
appearance.
Expression
is
again a twentieth century style, where the artist expressed his emotional theme
through distorted shapes and violent colors.
Fauvism:
Fauvism
too was all about distorted shapes and violent colors, with a total disregard
for perspective. Artists who belonged to this school of painting, spearheaded
by French painter Henri Matisse, were referred to as Les Fauves, which meant “wild beasts”.
Gothic:
This
was a style where the figures were shown clad in flowing drapery. A Christian
art form, it was popular between the twelfth and the sixteenth centuries.
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Impressionism
and Post Impressionism:
Impression
was a style used largely by the French painters Claude Monet, Camille
Pissaro, Renoir and Edgar Degas. Here the focus was on the effects of
light and pure color. Post Impressionism was a turn of the century
style, where an attempt was made at showing the spiritual significance
of objects. Paul Cezanne was one of the main exponents of this style.
Pop
Art
is
a more recent style that emerged in the nineteen fifties and sixties, where
comic strips, advertisements and pictures of films stars were enormously
enlarged and garishly painted.
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An example of the
Impressionist
style of
painting |
Pre-Raphaelite:
Mid-nineteenth
century artists such as Rosetti, before the Italian painter Raphael, employed
this style of painting. It was a highly symbolic style.
Realism:
These
works carried a social or political message and they showed scenes as they
really were.
Renaissance:
The
renaissance style was modeled on the likes of Greek and Roman works. It was
popular in Europe in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.
Rococo: Light
colors, scroll work and irregular curves were the hallmark of this florid
eighteenth century style.
Romanticism:
Romanticism
was a style that predominantly used mythological themes and was mostly
sentimental. It was popular in France, especially in the 1930s.
Surrealism:
This
was an interesting style that used dream-like effects to explore the
subconscious mind. It was a favorite of Salvador Dali and Rene Magritte. Indian
artist F N Souza is also a well-known modern surrealist.
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