Timeline
a brief timeline of western arts and ideas
Below is a timeline that includes some key events in pertinent to the history of the Western arts and ideas. This timeline is not anywhere close to complete, but attempts to provide a listing of significant events and movements that are referenced in arts and humanities history. This timeline provides a bit of grounding to references you may run across in arts and humanities courses.
Ancient Israel
- C. 17th C BCE Abraham, Isaac & Jacob
- C. 13th C BCE Moses leads Israel from Egypt
- C. 13th -12th C Israelites settle Land of Israel
- C. 1020 Saul, David, Solomon
- 960 First Temple built in Jerusalem
- 930 The Kingdom divided into Judah & Israel
- 770-720 Israel crushed by the Assyrians
- 586 Israel conquered by the Babylonians & the Temple destroyed
- 538-515 Many Jews return from Babylon & The Temple rebuilt
Ancient Greece
- 5th C & 4th C - Classical period
- 427-347 Plato
- 384-322 Aristotle
- Hellenistic Period: 323-146 BCE (Alexander the Great and expansion of empire)
- 63 BCE Jerusalem conquered by Rome
Ancient Rome
- Roman Greece: 146 BCE - 5th C (fall of Western Roman empire) and 15th C (fall of Byzantium or Eastern Roman Empire)
- 37 BCE - 4 CE Herod rules the Land of Israel (Roman province of Judea)
- 20-23 Ministry of Jesus of Nazareth
- 70 Roman destruction of Jerusalem and the Second Temple
- 313 Edict of Milan (Christianity legalized)
- 392 Christianity official religion of Roman Empire
- 395 Administrative split in church of east (Constantinople) and west (Rome)
- 354-430 Augustine
- 360 Hagia Sofia dedicated in Constantinople
- 5th century: fall of Roman Empire
- 529 closure of academy, first monastery opened by Benedict
Middle ages (500-1400)
- 540-604 Pope Gregory the Great
- 622 Birth of Islam
- 726-787, 814-842 Iconoclastic periods
- 768-814 Charlemagne
- 8th Century: standardization of liturgy and chant
- 1095-1299 Crusades
- 1054 Great schism of Eastern and Western churches
- 1098-1179 Hildegard of Bingen
Renaissance (1400-1600)
- 1450 Gutenberg’s printing press
- 1453 Turks take over Constantinople, change name to Istanbul
- 1450-1521 Josquin de Prez
- 1495 da Vinci’s ‘Last Supper’
- 1504 Michelangelo’s ‘David’
- 1517 Luther and the Protestant Reformation begins
- 1545 Catholic Counter-reformation begins
- 1526-1594 Palestrina
- 1590s Shakespeare
Baroque (1600-1750)
- Music: common practice era (1600-1910)
- 1607 Monteverdi’s l’Orfeo (Opera)
- 1569-1609 Caravaggio
- 1541-1614 El Greco
- 1577-1640 Rubens
- 1606-1669 Rembrandt
- 1641 Descartes Meditations on First Philosophy
- 1669-85 Versailles expansion (France)
- Late 1600s rise of ballet (France)
- 1675-1710 Christopher Wren’s St. Paul’s in London
- 1727 Bach (1685-1750) St. Matthew Passion
- 1725 Vivaldi’s ‘Four Seasons’
- 1742 Handel’s ‘Messiah’
Enlightenment (Classical in music / Neo-Classical in visual art)
- Links to many full Enlightenment texts
- 1717 Watteau (rococo)
- 1721 Montesquieu’s Persian Letters
- 1733-4 Hogarth’s ‘the rake’s progress’
- 1748 Excavation of Pompeii
- 1751 Voltaire’s (1694-1778) Encyclopedie
- 1750-1830 Music’s classical period
- 1720-1820 ‘Georgian’ style architecture
- 1796 Haydn’s (1732-1809)Emperor string quartet op76 no3
- 1765-88 American Revolution
- 1769 Watt’s steam engine
- 1785 Kant (1724-1804) The Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals
- 1789 Start of the French Revolution
- 1789 David (1780-1820)
- 1791 Mozart’ Magic Flute (1756-91) Requiem
- 1808/1824Beethoven (1770-1827) Symphony 5 Symphony 9
Romanticism
- 1797 Goya (1746-1828) The sleep of reason produces monsters
- 1775-1851 Turner
- Schopenhauer (1788-1860) the Christian system
- 1800-1850 Romantic visual art
- 1815-1910 Music’s romantic era
- 1818 Caspar David Friedrich Wanderer above the Sea of Fog
- 1830 Delacroix Liberty leading the people
- Hegel some texts
- 1830 Chopin’s revolutionary etude
- 1840-1870 Realism in visual art
- 1865 Wagner’s (1813-83) Tristan and Isolde
- 1848 Marx (1818-83) Communist Manifesto
- 1886: Nietzsche’s Beyond Good and Evil
- 1880: Dostoevsky’s The Grand Inquisitor
- 1870-90s Impressionism
The 20th Century (Modernism / Postmodernism)
- 1896 Alfred Jarry (1873-1907) ‘Ubu Roi’
- 1905 Richard Strauss ‘Salome’
- 1913 Stravinsky’s ‘Rite of Spring’
- 1914-1918 WWI
- 1910s onward: blues
- 1920s Tin Pan Alley
- Expressionism
- 1915 ‘Birth of a nation’ (first full length film)
- Dada
- Surrealism
- Cubism (Picasso)
- 1927 ‘The jazz singer’ (first sound film)
- 1934 American school of ballet (modern dance)
- 1937 Arnold Schoenberg’s Fourth string quartet (12 tone music)
- 1939-1945 WWII
- Abstract expressionism
- 1950s Rock n roll
- 1960s John Cage
- 1960s Pop art
- 1960s-70s concept albums, soul, funk, hip-hop