Art movements that changed how we see the world

Art. It's everywhere. Lines, shapes, colours. Figures of different lengths and sizes, faces of people, skies painted blue and gold, flowers coloured bright yellow. Rows of houses, birds, walls on the pavements spray-painted with signs. Canvas-lined art galleries displaying the best pieces of our time. Traffic signals, posters, the rainbows that form on glistering wet concrete on a rainy day. It's all art.
Some of us, in the past few centuries, were thoughtful enough to capture the beauty of our world in their work. These were artists, painters and thinkers whose work transformed art as we know it and informed its evolution. Here, The Artment looks at influential art styles and movements across time that have captured our world in frames.

1. Realism
Rewind to France in the 19 th Century: Too many artists were painting scenes from the Bible and Christian mythology as a way to praise God. It was time for something new. As the French Revolution died down, artists drew inspiration from social issues and contemporary life. Painters began to find creative inspiration in the humdrum of the daily social life that surrounded them.
They painted funerals, marriages, oceans, trees and the trials and tribulations of ordinary human life. This style of accurately depicting life in painting eventually became a movement and came to be known as realism. The Artment brings realism to art décor in your home with this soothing Himalayan Wall Hanging.
Fun Fact: Famous French painter Gustave Courbet was sick and tired of being asked to paint romantic imagery from the Bible. In his 1850 painting titled A Burial at Ornans, he painted a Christian funeral and claimed that he was burying old traditions and conventions through his depiction.

2. Impressionism
Sticking with one way of doing things is bound to wear one down someday. Feeling
creatively restricted in the realistic style of art, painters like Claude Monet, Alfred Sisley and Pierre-Auguste Renoir wished to paint their vision of the world instead of depicting it just as it is. Thus formed another movement. Impressionist paintings used vibrant colours, visible brushstrokes and were often a little quirky to represent the painter’s interpretation or “impression” of his or her subject. The Artments Salvador Plate Collection is a nod to this era.
Fun Fact: In the initial years of the movement, Impressionism had a bad name in the market. Calling a work of art ‘impressionist’ was an insult!

3. Art Nouveau
New century, new art movement! The Art Nouveau style marked the beginning of the 20th century. Asymmetry began to dominate the canvas and curvy buildings with blunted, rounded edges began adorning the American sky. This was also the time during which factory machines whirred in every corner and mass-produced items stormed the market. The Art Nouveau style countered the ugliness of machines and factories imposed by the industrial revolution and took to recreating natural shapes and colours found in our environment – flowers, leaves and trees.
Inspired by influential art pieces from this movement, The Artment has statement crockery in the Art Nouveau style.
Fun Fact: The Art Nouveau movement was not only restricted to painting and architecture but spread across graphic design, poster art, home furnishings, jewelry design and more.

Picture Credits: theworldartnouveau (from Instagram)

4. Art Deco
The Art Nouveau movement receded to leave behind a younger, more colourful version of itself. Art Deco began beautifying mass-produced objects churned out by the factory system like clocks, cars and buildings. During the industrial revolution, factories and buildings were constructed in a haphazard rush. Art Deco artists began giving them aesthetic appeal. In the 1920s, when the Art Deco movement flourished, bold geometrical shapes and sharp symmetry made a fashionable comeback, to become symbols of understated luxury and technological advancement in countries torn from the world wars. Check out The Artment’s Art Deco-inspired Hinged Flower Vases!
Fun Fact: The Leonardo DiCaprio film The Great Gatsby is a window into the world of Art Deco since it mirrors life and art in New York from the 1920s.

 Picture Credits : artdecomumbai (from Instagram)

5. Pop Art
Perhaps the most familiar style of art to the modern eye is Pop Art. Pop Artists like the famous Andy Warhol didn’t care about artistic conventions. They were out to create something bold and new. We all know the famous, colourful portrait of American actress Marilyn Monroe – her blonde hair is coloured a yellowish green, her lips are a dark brown shielded in red and her skin is a deep pink. This is a prime example of what Pop art sought to do - redefine commercial motifs like cans of soup, soda bottles and faces of popular celebrities. Inspired by Pop Art, The
Artment created the Maverick Hanging Lamp to enliven living spaces.
Fun Fact: Pop Art challenged artistic traditions by including imagery from comic books and brand packaging in its definition of “art”, thus classifying them as influential art pieces in themselves. Remember the painting of “boom” and “whoosh” sounds in comic books? It’s all Pop Art!