Arts and Music Atlas

Works, Makers, Traditions

Arts and Music Atlas

Disputed Statements

Claims this atlas currently marks as unsettled or as tested and found false. A debated fact is one scholars hold competing positions on; a debunked one has been checked against the record and found not to hold. Both are kept in view rather than quietly smoothed over, with the reasoning that put each one where it stands.

50 statements marked Debated.

International Style, End Year1970

International Style, Movements

Standing

Concerns End Year

Currently States 1970

No sharp close; its dominance is generally described as waning through the 1960s and 1970s as postmodern architecture emerged in reaction to it, and 1970 is used here only as a round marker within that gradual decline.

Source Gardner's Art Through the Ages, Fred S. Kleiner (after Helen Gardner)

Jazz, Start Year1900

Jazz, Movements

Standing

Concerns Start Year

Currently States 1900

Historians place jazz emergence across a range from the 1890s through the 1910s in New Orleans, with no single agreed date. 1900 is used here as a round marker within that range; the first jazz recording, by the Original Dixieland Jazz Band, was not made until 1917.

Source The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, Stanley Sadie, editor (successive editions)

La Classe de Danse, Year Created1873

La Classe de Danse, Works

Standing

Concerns Year Created

Currently States 1873

Museum dating gives a range of circa 1871 to 1874 rather than a single year; 1873 is used here as the midpoint estimate.

Source Musee d'Orsay

Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, MottoGod is in the details

Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Artists

Standing

Concerns Motto

Currently States God is in the details

Attributed to Mies in his New York Times obituary (1969), but no documented instance of him saying or writing it has surfaced. The German form, "Der liebe Gott steckt im Detail," is usually credited to art historian Aby Warburg, from a 1925-26 Hamburg seminar title; a French form is credited to Gustave Flaubert.

Source Wikipedia

Ludwig van Beethoven, Birth Date1770-12-16

Ludwig van Beethoven, Artists

Standing

Concerns Birth Date

Currently States 1770-12-16

Beethoven's exact birth date was never recorded; he was baptised on 17 December 1770, and 16 December is traditionally observed as his birthday.

Source Wikipedia

Minimalism, Start Year1960

Minimalism, Movements

Standing

Concerns Start Year

Currently States 1960

Sources describe an early-1960s emergence in New York without naming a single founding date or event; 1960 is used here as a round approximate marker.

Source TheArtStory

Minimalism, End Year1969

Minimalism, Movements

Standing

Concerns End Year

Currently States 1969

TheArtStory dates Minimalism's active period to the early through late 1960s, noting the style diversified into other disciplines within a few years of its birth rather than ending at one event; 1969 marks the close of that decade.

Source TheArtStory

Modernism, Start Year1880

Modernism, Movements

Standing

Concerns Start Year

Currently States 1880

Modernism's starting point is dated differently by art form and by historian, from Manet's challenges to academic painting in the 1860s to the more commonly cited turn of the century flowering across the arts; 1880 is a conventional midpoint marker, not a fixed origin.

Source Encyclopaedia Britannica, Encyclopaedia Britannica editors

Modernism, End Year1945

Modernism, Movements

Standing

Concerns End Year

Currently States 1945

Some historians place Modernism's close at the end of the Second World War, when Postmodern currents began emerging; others argue Modernist practice continued in some art forms, including architecture and music, well into the later twentieth century, so no single end date is fully agreed.

Source Encyclopaedia Britannica, Encyclopaedia Britannica editors

Mona Lisa, Year Created1503

Mona Lisa, Works

Standing

Concerns Year Created

Currently States 1503

Leonardo is generally agreed to have begun the portrait around 1503, but he continued reworking it over an extended and not precisely documented period, quite possibly continuing until close to his death in 1519, so no single completion year is settled among scholars.

Source Gardner's Art Through the Ages, Fred S. Kleiner (after Helen Gardner)

Mona Lisa, Commissioned ByTraditionally identified as Francesco del Giocondo, a Florentine silk merchant, commissioning a portrait of his wife Lisa Gherardini

Mona Lisa, Works

Standing

Concerns Commissioned By

Currently States Traditionally identified as Francesco del Giocondo, a Florentine silk merchant, commissioning a portrait of his wife Lisa Gherardini

Vasari's account names Francesco del Giocondo as the commissioning patron, but Leonardo never delivered the panel to any patron and kept it until his death, so some scholars question whether the tradition matches the surviving painting precisely.

Source Gardner's Art Through the Ages, Fred S. Kleiner (after Helen Gardner)

Neoclassicism, Start Year1750

Neoclassicism, Movements

Standing

Concerns Start Year

Currently States 1750

Tate dates the movement's theoretical founding to about 1750, tied to Winckelmann's early writings in Rome; Britannica instead dates broad artistic uptake to the 1760s, after Winckelmann's 1764 History of Ancient Art. Both agree on Winckelmann's centrality and differ only on whether to date from theory or from uptake.

Source Tate

Neoclassicism, End Year1850

Neoclassicism, Movements

Standing

Concerns End Year

Currently States 1850

Neoclassicism had no sharp terminus; Britannica places its height in the 1780s and 1790s, lasting in weakened form until the 1840s and 1850s, while academic Neoclassicism persisted longer still.

Source Encyclopaedia Britannica, Encyclopaedia Britannica editors

Northern Renaissance, Start Year1490

Northern Renaissance, Movements

Standing

Concerns Start Year

Currently States 1490

Wikipedia states only that it began in most respects in the last years of the 15th century; not a precise year.

Source Wikipedia

Organic Architecture, Founded In PlaceUnited States; the source names no single founding place for the philosophy itself, only Frank Lloyd Wright's Fallingwater house in rural Pennsylvania as its defining masterpiece.

Organic Architecture, Movements

Standing

Concerns Founded In Place

Currently States United States; the source names no single founding place for the philosophy itself, only Frank Lloyd Wright's Fallingwater house in rural Pennsylvania as its defining masterpiece.

The cited article credits Frank Lloyd Wright with the term and cites Fallingwater, in rural Pennsylvania, as the movement's defining work, but states no single place where the philosophy itself was founded, consistent with the entity's own description of it as a continuing set of principles rather than a period style with a fixed origin.

Source Wikipedia

Photography, Place of OriginFrance, generally credited to Nicephore Niepce and Louis Daguerre, though England's Henry Fox Talbot independently developed a rival photographic process around the same period.

Photography, Art Forms

Standing

Concerns Place of Origin

Currently States France, generally credited to Nicephore Niepce and Louis Daguerre, though England's Henry Fox Talbot independently developed a rival photographic process around the same period.

Traditional attribution centers on the French daguerreotype process, formally unveiled in 1839; the recorded dissent names Talbot's independently developed calotype negative process, demonstrated in London with less publicity than the daguerreotype's formal unveiling.

Source Wikipedia

Pop Art, End Year1975

Pop Art, Movements

Standing

Concerns End Year

Currently States 1975

No single closing event; TheArtStory dates Pop Art's decline to the late 1970s as the art world's attention shifted to installation, performance and other less object-based forms, and 1975 is used here as a round marker within that decade-long decline.

Source TheArtStory

Prairie School, End Year1917

Prairie School, Movements

Standing

Concerns End Year

Currently States 1917

1917, the year of American entry into the First World War, is commonly given as the point the movement effective momentum slowed, but some historians extend its active period into the 1920s through the continuing work of individual Prairie School architects.

Source Gardner's Art Through the Ages, Fred S. Kleiner (after Helen Gardner)

Realism, Start Year1848

Realism, Movements

Standing

Concerns Start Year

Currently States 1848

One position dates the movement to Champfleury's coining of the term and Courbet's earliest 1840s work, tied to the 1848 Revolution; Britannica instead dates the movement's actual emergence to Courbet's pivotal 1850-1851 Salon showing, treating the 1840s as precursor.

Source Tate

Realism, End Year1880

Realism, Movements

Standing

Concerns End Year

Currently States 1880

Realism has no sharp end date; it shaded gradually into Naturalism and Impressionism through the later nineteenth century rather than being displaced at a single point. TheArtStory's own timeline gives Started 1840s and Ended 1880s, and 1880 is used here as that round decade marker.

Source TheArtStory