DATES

DATES IN ART HISTORY

​When we start out at the very beginning, prehistory, it is unwritten. There was no record-keeping and no way to keeping track of time yet, time still exists. When you attach a year to an event or try to timestamp an era, we will use BCE or CE. BCE means "Before Common Era" and CE means "Common Era." You may also know these terms, respectively, the same as BC and AD. BC refers to "Before Christ" and AD refers to "Anno Domini", which means "the year of our Lord." These are Christian terms and because we are looking at the world's history not the history of Christians, it is more inclusive and correct to use the terms BCE and CE. When you're writing dates, it is imperative that you write BCE if you're referring to anything before the year 1. It is not necessary to write CE, except when you mean to be perfectly clear. This will happen often at the turn such as during the Ancient Roman era. Another example, if you mean to write 1333BCE during the Egyptian Amarna period and you leave off BCE, you're writing 1333, which is during the Renaissance. BIG difference. 

The second most confusing part of dates is the centuries. For example, the year 734 is in the 8th century, the year 2021 is in the 21st century. This is because the year 1-100 is our first set of one hundred years, therefore it is the 1st century. The years 101-200 are in the 2nd century, and so on. There is no year zero. So, you can see that the years before year 1 are before the common era and as we move closer to the present day, it is more towards the common era.

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​BEFORE COMMON ERA

25,000 Paleolithic

​5000    Neolithic

3000    Sumeria

2500    Old Kingdom Egypt

              Cycladic

1900     Babylon

1500     New Kingdom Egypt

              Minoan

1333      Armana Period Egypt

1250     Mycenean

900      Geometric Greek

700      Orientalizing Greek

550      Archaic

             Etruscan

539      Persia

480      Severe Greek

450      Classical Greek

350      Late Classical Greek

250      Hellenistic Greek

             Roman Republic

COMMON ERA

​250      Roman Imperial

250      Roman Late Empire

350      Early Christian

550      Byzantine

622       Beginning of Islam

600      Merovingian

800      Carolingian

1000    Ottonian

1100     Romanesque

1140      Early Gothic

1200     High Gothic

1250     Late Gothic

1300     Giotto/ Early Ren.

1450     15th c. Italian Ren.

1450     15th c. N. Euro. Ren.

1515      High Renaissance

1530     Mannerism

1550     16th c. N. Euro. Ren.

1650     Counter Ref. Baroque

             N. Bourgeois Baroque

             N. Aristocratic Baroque

1730     Rococo

1750     18th c. styles

1800    Neoclassical

1830    Romanticism

1837     Photography

1850    Realism

1874     Impressionism

1886    Post-Impressionism

1890s  Symbolism

1900   Art Nouveau

1905    Fauvism

1910     Cubism

1914      Futurism/German Exp.

1916      Dada

1925     Harlem Renaissance

1930    Constructivism/      

​             Suprematism

1930     Surrealism/ Bauhaus

1930     DeStijl

1930     Mexican Muralists

1950     Abstract Expressionism

1960     Pop Art, Happenings

1970     Earth Art

1980     Post Modernism- present