Mrs. Fieldhouse
DATES IN ART HISTORY
How long has our calendar been around?
We are writing this on 12/26/12 or Wednesday, December 26, 2012. Traditionally understood as two-thousand and twelve years (give or take a few) after Jesus Christ is believed to have been born. But if Jesus used a calendar, it would not have been the one we use.
Our calendar is called the Gregorian calendar and was instituted by Pope Gregory XIII in 1582. There are many other calendars. Quite a few societies have used calendars linked to the years their kings ruled. And there are numerous calendars, beyond the Gregorian calendar, that are still in use today. For example, 2012 equates to 1434/35 in the Islamic calendar and 5772-73 in the Jewish calendar (both are lunar, based on the cycles of the moon).
B.C. or B.C.E.?
Many people use the abbreviations B.C. and A.D. with a year (for example, A.D. 2012). B.C. refers to "Before Christ," and the initials, A.D., stand for Anno Domini, which is Latin for "In the year of our Lord." This system was devised by a monk in the year 525.
A more recent system uses B.C.E. which stands for "Before the Common Era" and C.E. for "Common Era." This newer system is now widely used as a way of expressing the same periods as B.C. and A.D., but without the Christian reference. According to these systems, we count time backwards Before the Common Era (B.C.E.) and forwards in the Common Era (C.E.).
Circa?
Often dates will be preceded with a "c." or a "ca." These are abbreviations of the Latin word "circa" which means around, or approximately. We use this before a date to indicate that we do not know exactly when something happened, so c. 400 B.C.E. means approximately 400 years Before the Common Era.
Why 2012 is in the 21st Century
We live in the 21st Century, that is, the 2000s. Similarly when we say "20th Century," we are referring to the 1900s. All this because, according to the calendar we use, the 1st Century included the years 1-100 (there was no year zero), and the 2nd Century, the years 101-200. Similarly, when we say 2nd Century B.C.E. we are referring to the years 200-101 B.C.E.
Within our calendar, we also have a tendency to find portentous meaning in the millennial years, that is, in the years 1000 and more recently, 2000.
CRITICAL DATES
This list of dates is a very general assigned year that is meant to help students place major time periods on a timeline. They have been determined by major events during that time and/or are near the start or during the high point of that era. For example, the Carolingian critical date is 800 because Charlemagne, King of the Franks, was crowned in that year.
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 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
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