Introduction.

Every era has movements, fashions, fads and cultural keypoints that help define that era. People like to pigeon-hole things sometimes - that means tying things into neat little packages, sorting them into groups and applying a label. The truth is, it's not always that simple. There is always someone or something who defies convention, who doesn't fit into any one category. Do you think Leonardo da Vinci, the mind-bogglingly clever scientist, artist, inventor, architect, mathematician and philosopher could ever be so easily categorised?

Well, if we have to try, Leonardo would best be known as a Renaissance Man. Perhaps the Renaissance Man. The European Renaissance was a time when it was cool to be clever - the pursuit of knowledge was of highest importance. Being able to paint, speak a few languages and write a poem or two was considered a pretty fair day's work. Nobody was a better example of the Renaissance ideal than Leonardo da Vinci.

But times change. All the time. People learn things from different eras - we are influenced by certain ideas and dismiss others. Sometimes, after a long period where we come to shun the ideas and fashions of an era, we return to them, reevaluate them and decide, 'Hey, they weren't so bad after all!'. Then of course we ditch them again and do something else. We're a bit strange like that.

Artistic movements are the same. Often we put our stamp on them after the era has come and gone. We give artistic movements throughout history exotic names like 'Romanticism', 'Surrealism' and 'Expressionism' because they help us explain the feel of the works and the motivations of the artists behind them. Some artists may even feature in more than one movement while others don't comfortably sit within any movement.

This study will help you understand some of the major artistic movements and allow you to focus on a movement that you find particularly interesting and hopefully inspiring.

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