photography & other things: PAINTING2PHOTOGRAPHY Assignment : Task 1 & 6 & 10 : Art History Timeline

The first surviving mention of the camera obscura was by Mo-Ti (470BC-390BC) - a Chinese philosopher. This idea was then developed on by Greek philosopher Artistole, who said he studied the cresent shape of the sun projected through a sieve, or holes in a leaf. This was the basic understanding of a pinhole camera.

Stone Age 30,000 BC-2500 BC :

Stone age art was predominantly cave paintings. To create these, the stone age people would make concoctions of crushed berries, blood, crushed up rocks, flower pigments, and leaves. They would mix them together to form a paste, which could then be applied to the walls of caves either using their fingers or tusks of animals. Charcoal was also used to create drawings. One of the things that was most popular to draw were wild animals such as bison, deer and horses. They also liked to create abstract patterns and tracings of their own hands.

Mesopotamian 3500 BC - 539 BC:

Mesopotamian art largely consists of sculptures created to glorify powerful dynasties. The taller the sculpture, the more importance the person it was created to look like was. They showed that the particular person may have more power than other sculptures created to look like people who are less important - these would be smaller. Mesopotamia is a Greek word meaning "between the rivers" and always refers to the region between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, which is today known as Iraq, Turkey and Syria.

Egyptian 3100BC- 30BC :

Egyptian art consists of mainly painting, sculpture and architecture. A lot of the art created during this period was to represent symbolism, life after death and Pharaohs. The colours which were often used were natural earthy colours with hints of bright colours in them such as bright blue and bright red.

Greek and Hellenistic 850BC - 31BC:

Greek and Hellenistic art is primarily based on sculpture. Artists and sculptors during this era would often study the human body in it's naked form and how cloth drapes off the body. They wanted to achieve a sculpture/art piece that could be studied and admired from lots of different angles.

Roman 500BC- AD476 :

Roman artists took a lot of their inspiration from Greek art and sometimes copied it. However, this movement was more advanced in the areas of mosaic. Their paintings often consisted of lots of romantic colours such as reds, pinks and oranges.

Middle Ages 500-1400 :

Early and High Renaissance 1400-1550 :

Mannerism 1527-1580:

Baroque 1600-1750 :

In the 17th Century the Camera Obscura was being frequently used by artists to aid their work and was now made portable by Sedan Chairs.

This meant that artists could transport the Camera Obscura to nearly anywhere they wanted, and go to sitters homes, and landscapes to create their work using it.

First Photosensitive Compound 1727:

Professor J. Schulze mixed chalk, nitric acid and silver in a flask, not intending to create a light sensitive substance, but noticing that the side of the flask exposed to sunlight was turning a darker colour than the side not exposed.

Neoclassical 1750-1850 :

Romanticism 1780-1850 :

Sun Pictures 1800:

This photograph was taken by British pottery maker Thomas Wedgwood. It was created by placing a leaf on leather treated with silver nitrate and exposing it to the sun.

Nicephore Niepce 1826:

In 1826 Niepce created the first permanent image of rooftops in France. It was taken on an 8 hour exposure and exposed onto a pewter plate coated in bitumen of Judea. The bitumen hardened when exposed to sunlight, and the unexposed parts of the image remained water soluble and could be washed away.

Henry Fox Talbot 1834:

In 1834 Talbot created the first ever negative to positive process using paper soaked in silver chloride and set with salt solution. He created positive images by contact printing onto another sheet of paper - this is where we get the term contact sheet from.

Louis Daguerre 1837:

In 1837 Louis Daguerre created images on silver plated copper coated with silver iodide and developed with warmed mercury. He called this the Daguerrotype process and the French government awarded him a state pension in exchange for publication of his methods and the rights for other French citizens to use his process.

In 1838 Daguerre created (using his process) the first ever photograph containing people.

This image was taken in Paris at the "Boulevard Du Temple". The street was very busy with things passing by but because of the 10 minute exposure they were not captured within the image. The only thing that was captured were two people - one shining the other one's shoes. This is the first ever known photograph containing people, who were only captured in it because they did not move for 10 minutes while the image was taking.

Fox Talbot 1841:

In 1841 Fox Talbot patents his process The Calotype Process. This meant that he would be the only one named to have invented the process.

1854:

In 1854 Adolphe Disderi develops carte-de-viste photography in Paris, leading to worldwide boom in portrait studios for the next decade. This enabled photographers to get more clients coming into their studios and paying for their portrait done. They no longer had to cart all their equipment around and it could all stay in the same place.

Realism 1848-1900:

The style of realist paintings is that they are in the 3rd person perspective which is objective reality. Realism started in France in the 1850s after the 1848 revolution. Realism revolted against the exaggerated emotionalism of romantic movement. Realists wanted to show truth and reality rather than fantasied pictures of perfection.

Impressionism 1865-1885:

Impressionism started with a small group of Paris based artists who set up their own independent exhibitions which was rare during that time. This got people interested in their work and therefore their work was seen more worldwide. Impressionism art mainly consists of oil paintings with lots of small, thin brush strokes. The mark making makes images quite abstract. The images often represent the changing of light over a period of time e.g. sun setting. The small brush strokes also create movement within the imagery.

Post Impressionsim 1885-1910: