Below I have listed several of the major art movements; they are in alphabetical order for your ease of searching and researching for your oil painting selection.
I have highlighted all of the major artists to enable you to select quickly the correct art movement and the associated artists. Once you have completed your research please look on the homepage of www.rubycavalierfinearts.com where you will see a list of artists and their paintings. It’s as simple as that – just click through until you find the oil painting you are looking for, email us, and we will supply you with a quote. But please remember these are reproduction oil painting commissions, not giclees.  After all, we all know you get what you pay for!

Please don’t forget if you cannot find the image to email me the title of the oil painting and I will go through our archive to find it for you.

Academic Art

Academic Art is the painting and sculpture produced under the influence of the Academies in Europe and especially France, where many artists received their formal training.
 The term "Academic Art" is associated particularly with the French Academy and its influence on the Paris Salons in the 19th century.  Though Academic art can be meant to extend to all art influenced by the European Academies, it's often meant to refer to artists influenced by the standards of the French Académie des Beaux-arts.

Art Deco is an elegant style of decorative art, design, and architecture which began as a Modernist reaction against the Art Nouveau style. It is characterized by the use of angular, symmetrical geometric forms. One of the classic Art Deco themes is that of 1930s-era skyscrapers such as New York's Chrysler Building and Empire State Building. The Art Deco look is related to the Precisionist art movement, which developed during this same period of time.
Well-known artists within the Art Deco movement included Tamara de Lempicka, fashion illustrator Erte, glass artist Rene Lalique and graphic designer Adolphe Mouron (known professionally Cassandre).

Art Nouveau is an elegant decorative art style characterized by intricate patterns of curving lines, often referred to as “whiplash”. Art Nouveau was somewhat rooted in the British Arts and Crafts Movement of William Morris.  It became popular across Europe and in the United States.
Leading practitioners included Alphonse Mucha, Aubrey Beardsley, Gustav Klimt and the American glassmaker Louis Comfort Tiffany.
Art Nouveau remained popular until circa 1915; however it was ultimately replaced by the Art Deco style.

The Arts and Crafts Movement was a celebration of individual design and craftsmanship, developing as a reaction against the industrial revolution in Britain. William Morris, who spearheaded the movement, is particularly remembered as a book designer. He also produced stained glass, textiles and wallpaper, in addition to being a painter and writer.
The movement was closely related to the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, whose members included Edward Burne-Jones and Dante Gabriel Rossetti, among others, many of whom produced designs for Morris' company.

The Barbizon School was a group of landscape artists working in the area of the French town of Barbizon, south of Paris. They rejected the Academic tradition, abandoning theory in an attempt to achieve a more accurate representation of life in the countryside.  The artists were part of the French Realist movement.
Theodore Rousseau (not to be confused with naive artist Henri Rousseau) is the best-known member of the group.  Other prominent members included Constant Troyon and Charles-Francois Daubigny.
Realist painters Jean-Francois Millet, and Camille Corot, are also sometimes loosely associated with this school.
The Barbizon School artists are often considered to have sown the seeds of Modernism with their individualism, and were the forerunners of the Impressionists who took a similar philosophical approach to their art.

Baroque Art developed in Europe circa 1600, as a reaction against the intricate and formulaic Mannerism that dominated the Late Renaissance. Baroque art is less complex, more realistic and more emotionally affecting than Mannerist art.
This movement was encouraged by the Catholic Church, the most important patron of the arts at that time, being seen as a return to tradition and spirituality.
One of the great periods of art history, Baroque Art was developed by Caravaggio, Gianlorenzo Bernini, and Annibale Carracci, amongst others. This was also the age of Rubens, Rembrandt, Vermeer and Velázquez.
In the 18th century, Baroque Art was replaced by the more elaborate Rococo art style.

The Bauhaus School
Germany, 1919-1933

The Bauhaus School is a school of design founded in Weimar, Germany in 1919 by Walter Gropius. Its signature modernist style, integrating Expressionist art with the fields of architecture and design, was enormously influential throughout the world.
The school was later led by the architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe. Its faculty included such artists as Lyonel Feininger, Paul Klee, Wassily Kandinsky, Oskar Schlemmer , Laszlo Moholy-Nagy, Johannes Itten, Josef Albers and Anni Albers.
Other artists associated with the Bauhaus include Gunta Stolzl, Lux Feininger, Wilhelm Wagenfeld and George Grosz.
The school was closed by the Nazis in 1933, and many of the artists emigrated to the United States in the years leading up to World War II, in search of intellectual freedom.

 
Victorian Classicism
Britain, Mid to Late 19th Century

Victorian Classicism was a British form of historical painting inspired by the art and architecture of Classical Greece and Rome.
In the 19th century, an increasing number of Western Europeans made the "Grand Tour" to the Mediterranean region.  There was a great popular interest in the area's lost civilizations and exotic cultures, and this interest fuelled the rise of Classicism in Britain, and Orientalism, which was mostly centred in continental Europe.
The Classicists were closely associated with the Pre-Raphaelites, many artists being influenced by both styles to some degree. Both movements were highly romantic and were inspired by similar historical and mythological themes -- the key distinction being that the Classicists epitomized the rigid Academic standards of painting, while the Pre-Raphaelites were initially formed as a rebellion against those same standards.
Sir Frederick Leighton, and Lawrence Alma-Tadema were the leading Classicists, and in their lifetimes and were considered by many to be the finest painters of their generation.

Cubism
Europe, 1908-1920

Cubism was developed between 1908 and 1912 as a collaboration between Georges Braque and Pablo Picasso.  Their main influences are said to have been Tribal Art (although Braque later disputed this) and the work of Paul Cezanne. The movement itself was not long-lived or widespread, but it began an immense creative explosion which resonated through all of 20th century art.
The key concept underlying Cubism is that the essence of an object can only be captured by showing it from multiple points of view simultaneously.
Cubism had run its course by the end of World War I, but among the movements directly influenced by it were Orphism, Precisionism, Futurism, Purism, Constructivism, and to some degree, Expressionism.

Expressionism is a style in which the intention is not to reproduce a subject accurately, but instead to portray it in such a way as to express the inner state of the artist. The movement is especially associated with Germany, and was influenced by such emotionally-charged styles as Symbolism, Fauvism, and Cubism.
There are several different and somewhat overlapping groups of Expressionist artists, including Der Blaue Reiter ("The Blue Rider"), Die Brücke ("The Bridge"), Die Neue Sachlichkeit ("The New Objectivity") and the Bauhaus School.
Leading Expressionists included Wassily Kandinsky, Franz Marc, George Grosz and Amadeo Modigliani.
In the mid-20th century, Abstract Expressionism (in which there is no subject at all, but instead pure abstract form) developed into an extremely influential style in the United States.

Fauvism grew out of Pointillism and Post-Impressionism, but is characterized by a more primitive and less naturalistic form of expression. Paul Gauguin's style and his use of colour were especially strong influences.
The artists most closely associated with Fauvism are Albert Marquet, Andre Derain, Maurice de Vlaminck and Henri Matisse.
Fauvism was a short-lived movement, but was a substantial influence on some of the Expressionists.

Impressionism is a light, spontaneous manner of painting which began in France as a reaction against the restrictions and conventions of the dominant Academic art. Its naturalistic and down-to-earth treatment of its subject matter, most commonly landscapes, has its roots in the French Realism of Camille Corot and others.
The movement's name was derived from Monet's early work, 'Impression: Sunrise', which was singled out for criticism by Louis Leroy upon its exhibition.
The hallmark of the style is the attempt to capture the subjective impression of light in a scene.
The core of the earliest Impressionist group was made up of Claude Monet, Alfred Sisley and Pierre-Auguste Renoir. Others associated with this period were Camille Pissarro, Frederic Bazille, Edgar Degas, Gustave Caillebotte, Edouard Manet, and the American Mary Cassatt.
The Impressionist style was probably the single most successful and identifiable "movement" ever, and is still widely practiced today. But as an intellectual school it faded towards the end of the 19th century, branching out into a variety of successive movements which are generally grouped under the term Post-Impressionism.

Mannerism
Europe, Mid to Late 16th Century

Mannerism, the artistic style which gained popularity in the period following the High Renaissance, takes as its ideals the work of Raphael and Michelangelo Buonarroti. It is considered to be a period of technical accomplishment but also of formulaic, theatrical and overly stylized work.
Mannerist Art is characterized by a complex composition, with muscular and elongated figures in complex poses. Discussing Michelangelo in his journal, Eugène Delacroix gives as good a description as any of the limitations of Mannerism: "All that he has painted is muscles and poses, in which even science, contrary to general opinion, is by no means the dominant factor... He did not know a single one of the feelings of man, not one of his passions. When he was making an arm or a leg, it seems as if he were thinking only of that arm or leg and was not giving the slightest consideration to the way it relates with the action of the figure to which it belongs, much less to the action of the picture as a whole... Therein lies his great merit; he brings a sense of the grand and the terrible into even an isolated limb."
Prominent Members
In addition to Michelangelo, leading Mannerist artists included Rosso Fiorentino, Pontormo, and Parmigianino.
By the late 16th century, there were several anti-Mannerist attempts to reinvigorate art with greater naturalism and emotionalism. These developed into the Baroque style, which dominated the 17th century.

Neoclassical Art is a severe and unemotional form of art harkening back to the grandeur of ancient Greece and Rome.  Its rigidity was a reaction to the over bred Rococo style and the emotional charged Baroque style. The rise of Neoclassical Art was part of a general revival of interest in classical thought, which was of some importance in the American and French revolutions.
Important Neoclassicists include the architects Robert Smirke and Robert Adam, the sculptors Antonio Canova, Jean-Antoine Houdon and Bertel Thorvaldsen, and painters J.A.D. Ingres, Jacques-Louis David and Anton Raphael Mengs.
Around 1800, Romanticism emerged as a reaction against Neoclassicism. It did not really replace the Neoclassical style so much as act as a counterbalancing influence, and many artists were influenced by both styles to a certain degree.
Neoclassical Art was also a primary influence on 19th-century Academic Art.

Pointillism is a form of painting in which tiny dots of primary-colours are used to generate secondary colours. It is an offshoot of Impressionism and is usually categorized as a form of Post-Impressionism.  It is very similar to Divisionism, except that where Divisionism is concerned with colour theory, Pointillism is more focused on the specific style of brushwork used to apply the paint.
The term "Pointillism" was first used with respect to the work of Georges Seurat, and he is the artist most closely associated with the movement.  The relatively few artists who worked in this style also included Paul Signac and Henri-Edmond Cross.
Pointillism is considered to have been an influence on Fauvism

Post-Impressionism is an umbrella term that encompasses a variety of artists who were influenced by Impressionism but took their art in other directions.
There is no single well-defined style of Post-Impressionism, but in general it is less idyllic and more emotionally charged than Impressionist work.
The classic Post-Impressionists are Paul Gauguin, Paul Cezanne, Vincent van Gogh, Henri Rousseau and Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec. The Pointillists and Les Nabis are also generally included among the Post-Impressionists.

The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood was created in 1848 by seven artists: Dante Gabriel Rossetti, William Michael Rossetti, James Collinson, John Everett Millais, Frederic George Stephens, Thomas Woolner and William Holman Hunt.
Their goal was to develop a naturalistic style of art, throwing away the rules and conventions that were drilled into students' heads at the Academies.  Raphael was the artist they considered to have achieved the highest degree of perfection, so much so that students were encouraged to draw from his examples rather than from nature itself; thus they became the "Pre-Raphaelites".
The group popularized a theatrically romantic style, marked by great beauty, an intricate realism, and a fondness for Arthurian and Greek legend.
The movement itself did not last past the 1850s, but the style remained popular for decades, influencing the Arts and Crafts Movement, the Symbolist painters, and even the Classicists.

Realism is an approach to art in which subjects are depicted in as straightforward a manner as possible, without idealizing them and without following rules of formal artistic theory.
The earliest Realist work began to appear in the 18th century, in a reaction to the excesses of Romanticism and Neoclassicism. This is evident in John Singleton Copley's paintings, and some of the works of Goya.  However the great Realist era was the middle of the 19th century, as artists became disillusioned with the artifice of the Salons and the influence of the Academies.
Realism came closest to being an organized movement in France, inspiring artists such as Camille Corot, Jean-Francois Millet and the Barbizon School of landscape painters.
Besides Copley, American Realists included the painters Thomas Eakins, and Henry Ossawa Tanner, both of whom studied in France.
French Realism was a guiding influence on the philosophy of the Impressionists. The Ashcan School artists, the American Scene painters, and, much later, on the Contemporary Realists are all following the American Realist tradition.

Rococo Art
Europe, 1715 to 1774

Rococo Art succeeded Baroque Art in Europe.  It was most popular in France, and is generally associated with the reign of King Louis XV (1715-1774). It is a light, elaborate and decorative style of art.
Quintessentially Rococo artists include Jean-Honore Fragonard, François Boucher, Jean-Antoine Watteau and Giovanni Battista Tiepolo.
Rococo was eventually replaced by Neoclassicism, which was the signature visual style of Napoleon in France and of the American Revolution.

Romanticism
Late 18th Century to Mid 19th Century

Romanticism might best be described as anticlassicism. A reaction against Neoclassicism, it is a deeply-felt style which is individualistic, exotic, beautiful and emotionally wrought.
Although Romanticism and Neoclassicism were philosophically opposed, they were the dominant European styles for generations, and many artists were affected to a degree by both.  Artists might work in both styles at different times or even combine elements, creating an intellectually Romantic work using a Neoclassical visual style, for example.
Great artists closely associated with Romanticism include Caspar David Friedrich, John Constable, J.M.W. Turner and William Blake.
In the North America, the leading Romantic movement was the Hudson River School of dramatic landscape painting.
Obvious successors of Romanticism include the Pre-Raphaelite movement and the Symbolist painters. However, Impressionism, and through it almost all of 20th century art, is also firmly rooted in the individualism of the Romantic tradition

Surrealism
Europe, 1924 to 1950s

Surrealism is a style in which fantastical visual imagery from the subconscious mind is used with no intention of making the work logically comprehensible. Founded by Andre Breton in 1924, it was a primarily European movement that attracted many members of the chaotic Dada movement.  It was similar in some elements to the mystical 19th-century Symbolist movement, but was deeply influenced by the psychoanalytic work of Freud and Jung.
The Surrealist circle was made up of many of the great artists of the 20th century, including Max Ernst, Giorgio de Chirico, Jean Arp, Man Ray, Joan Miro, and Rene Magritte. Salvador Dali, probably the single best-known Surrealist artist, broke with the group due to his right-wing politics (during this period leftism was the fashion among Surrealists, and in fact in almost all intellectual circles).
The Magic Realists were American artists somewhat influenced by the Surrealists.

Symbolism
Late 19th Century

Symbolism is a 19th-century movement in which art became infused with exaggerated sensitivity and a spooky mysticism. It was a continuation of the Romantic tradition, which included such artists as John Henry Fuseli and Caspar David Friedrich.
Anticipating Freud and Jung, the Symbolists mined mythology and dream imagery for a visual language of the soul.  More a philosophical approach than an actual style of art, they influenced their contemporaries in the Art Nouveau movement and Les Nabis.
The leading Symbolists included Gustave Moreau, Puvis de Chavannes, and Odilon Redon.
The movement was also a major influence on some of the Expressionists, especially on the work of Franz von Stuck and Edvard Munch.

Tonalism is a style of painting in which landscapes are depicted in soft light and shadows, often as if through a coloured or misty veil. Imported to the United States by American painters inspired by Barbizon School landscapes, it was a forerunner to the many schools and colonies of American Impressionism which arose in the first part of the 20th century.
The most influential practitioners of the style were George Inness, whose roots were in landscape painting, and James McNeill Whistler, whose approach was primarily aesthetic, aiming for elegance and harmony in the colours of a painting.
Tonalism's soft-edged realism also had an influence on the photography of the early 20th century - specifically on Alfred Stieglitz and his circle.