31,000 years ago Earliest known paintings
Rhinoceroses, lions and mammoth feature on the walls of the Chauvet cave, in southern France

30,000 years ago Rock paintings in Namibia
Painted and engraved images, on the rock face in a cave near Twyfelfontein in Namibia, date from this period

16,000 years ago The cave of Lascaux is adorned with paintings
The walls of the complex of caves at Lascaux in France are covered, over the years, with a vast number of paintings of animals

15,000 years ago
The walls of Altamira, an extensive cave in Spain, are decorated with paintings and engraved images of horses, deer and above all bison

3100 BC Egyptian murals designed for next world
The Egyptians paint murals on the walls of tombs, designed to help the occupants in the next world

1850 BC Wrestling in Egypt
Wrestlers are painted on the walls of an Egyptian tomb, performing most of the holds and falls still in use today

1600 BC Bull-fighting at Knossos
A bull-fighting fresco in the palace of Knossos is linked with the island's cult of the bull

1550 BC Book of the Dead in Egypt
Egyptian tombs include paintings of a kind to help the occupants in the next world, whether in the Book of the Dead or on the walls

1525 BC Frescoes of Akrotiri
The eruption of a volcano, on the island of Thera, entombs and preserves houses with frescoes in the Minoan city of Akrotiri

550 BC Murals in Etruscan tombs
The murals of Etruscan tombs, such as the Tomb of the Lionesses in Tarquinia, give a lively glimpse of an earlier tradition in Greek art

100 Roman portraits in hot wax
Realistic portraits, done in hot wax and preserved in coffins at Fayyum, vividly depict inhabitants of Roman Egypt

250 Christians paint catacombs
The Christians of Rome use the catacombs as tomb chambers, and decorate the walls with murals on New Testament themes

600 Ajanta's Buddhist murals
The walls of caves at Ajanta are profusely decorated with Buddhist murals

650 Buddhist murals at Dunhuang
At Dunhuang, an oasis on the Silk Road, as many as 500 caves are decorated with Buddhist murals

650 Celts illuminate manuscripts
The Book of Durrow, one of the earliest of the great Celtic manuscripts, is written and illuminated in Ireland

698 Lindisfarne Gospels
The Lindisfarne Gospels are written and illuminated by Celtic monks on the Scottish island of Lindisfarne

1300 Mosaic yields to fresco
Mosaic begins to yield to fresco, as the chief medium for the decoration of Christian churches

1300 Persian miniatures in Tabriz
Tabriz under the Mongol Il-khans is the first centre of Persian miniature painting

1305 Scrovegni employs Giotto
Enrico degli Scrovegni employs Giotto to paint the cycle of frescoes in his chapel in Padua

1308 Siena employs Duccio
The cathedral authorities in Siena commission from Duccio the great altarpiece which becomes known as the Maestà

1397 Richard II commissions a diptych
The English king, Richard II, commissions a diptych (the Wilton Diptych) showing himself being presented to the Virgin and Child

1400 International Gothic
The final style of medieval painting, common to all Europe, is known as International Gothic because of its slender and elegant figures

1412 Very Rich Hours of duke of Berry
The three Limburg brothers illustrate for the duke of Berry the Très Riches Heures, one of the masterpieces of International Gothic

1423 Brancacci employs Masaccio
Masaccio paints some of the frescoes in the chapel of a Florentine silk merchant, Felice Brancacci, in Santa Maria del Carmine

1430 Campin paints the way it is
Robert Campin, also known as the Master of Flémalle, brings to Flemish painting a natural and everyday quality which is entirely new

1432 Ghent altarpiece by van Eyck
A new altarpiece is installed in the cathedral in Ghent, introducing the powerful realism of Jan van Eyck

1434 Arnolfini employs van Eyck
Giovanni Arnolfini, a merchant from Lucca trading in Bruges, commissions from van Eyck a portrait of himself and his wife

1435 Chancellor Rolin painted with Virgin
Chancellor Nicolas Rolin, of Burgundy, commissions an altarpiece from Jan van Eyck

1435 Van der Weyden is painter to city of Brussels
Rogier van der Weyden, the third in the extraordinary trio of Flemish artists of the 1430s, is appointed painter to the city of Brussels

1436 Alberti explains perspective
Perspective fascinates Italian Renaissance painters after the publication of Alberti's treatise on the subject, De Pictura

1443 Fra Angelico in San Marco
The Dominican convent of San Marco, in Florence, is provided with a serenely beautiful series of frescoes by Fra Angelico and his assistants

1450 Piero in San Sepolcro
Piero della Francesca paints masterpieces in his small home town of San Sepolcro

1450 Persian miniatures in Herat
Herat, under Timurid princes, succeeds Tabriz as the main centre of Persian art

1450 Uccello fascinated by perspective
Paolo Uccello is interested in the laws of perspective, in works such as The Battle of San Romano

1452 Fouquet does Book of Hours
Étienne Chevalier commissions from Jean Fouquet a series of illustrations for his Book of Hours

1460 Oil paint moves south
Oil paints, long familiar in the Netherlands, begin to be adopted in Italy in place of tempera

1460 Mantegna's art both classical and modern
Andrea Mantegna combines an interest in classical detail and recently discovered perspective

1465 Antonello da Messina uses oil paint
The Sicilian artist Antonello da Messina adopts the Flemish technique of painting in oils

1468 Bosch works in his home town
Jerome van Aken works almost exclusively in his native s' Hertogenbosch, from which he derives the name Hieronymus Bosch

1470 Botticelli impresses in Florence
Sandro Botticelli is established as one of the leading painters of Florence, working in particular for the Medici

1472 Leonardo joins painters' guild
Leonardo da Vinci joins the painters' guild in Florence, probably after training with Verrocchio

1475 Portinari ships altarpiece home
Tommaso Portinari, the Medici agent in Bruges, commissions an altarpiece from Hugo van der Goes for his family church in Florence

1475 Giovanni Bellini in Venice
Giovanni Bellini becomes the key figure in the development of the Renaissance style in Venice

1480 Birth of Venus and Spring
Botticelli paints the Birth of Venus and Spring for the villa of a Medici cousin of Lorenzo the Magnificent

1489 Leonardo dissects corpses
Leonardo da Vinci begins an unprecedented series of detailed anatomical drawings, based on corpses dissected in Rome

1500 Bihzad and Persian painting
The lively realism of Kamal-ud-din Bihzad lays the basis of both the Persian and the Mughal schools of painting

1503 Bosch paints garden of delights
Hieronymus Bosch paints the most detailed of his exotically surreal canvases, The Garden of Earthly Delights

1505 Mona Lisa smiles back
Leonardo captures the enigmatic smile of Lisa Gherardini, known now as the Mona Lisa

1508 Michelangelo tackles Sistine ceiling
Michelangelo begins work in Rome on the ceiling of the Sistine chapel

1508 Raphael summoned to Rome
Raphael is summoned to Rome by Julius II and is given a major commission for frescoes

1509 Raphael's Stanze in Vatican.
Raphael begins work on the frescoes in the pope's apartment in the Vatican, known as the Stanze ('Rooms')

1510 Giorgione and Titian in Venice
Giorgione and Titian introduce the richness of colour which characterizes the high Renaissance style in Venice

1510 Michelangelo and mannerism
The startling colour contrasts in Michelangelo's Sistine ceiling anticipate one of the main characteristics of Italian mannerism

1510 Giorgione dies
The painter Giorgione dies after a short but extremely influential life in Venice

1517 Leonardo moves to France
Leonardo da Vinci moves to France, on the invitation of Francis I

1520 Holbein sets up in Basel
The German painter Hans Holbein the Younger establishes his own studio in Basel

1520 Development of mannerism
Mannerism develops in Italy in the work of the painters Pontormo and Rosso Fiorentino

1525 Nudes from Cranach's studio
Lucas Cranach's studio in Wittenberg has a profitable line in naked female figures from mythology

1526 Holbein in Chelsea
Hans Holbein the Younger pays his first visit to England, and stays with Thomas More in Chelsea

1533 Titian is court painter
The Holy Roman Emperor, Charles V, makes Titian his court painter (an arrangement continued by Philip II)

1565 Brueghel sets Bible scenes in Netherlands
Pieter Brueghel the Elder depicts biblical events taking place among the peasants of the Netherlands countryside

1577 El Greco moves to Spain
Domenikos Theotokopoulos moves to Spain, where he becomes known as El Greco

1585 White depicts American Indians
The English artist John White paints the everyday life of the Secotan Indians of America

1587 Hilliard works on small scale
Nicholas Hilliard paints the delightful miniature known simply as Young Man among Roses

1604 Carracci ceiling for Farnese palace
Annibale Carracci completes an influential ceiling fresco in the Farnese palace in Rome

1608 Rubens pioneers baroque in Rome
The Flemish painter Peter Paul Rubens completes an altarpiece in Rome which is an early masterpiece of the baroque

1608 Rubens back in Antwerp
Rubens returns from Italy to Antwerp, where he soon establishes Europe's most successful and prolific studio

1615 Peak of Mughal painting
The Mughal school of painting reaches a peak of perfection in the reign of Jahangir

1618 Van Dyck works in Rubens' studio
The 19-year-old Flemish painter Anthony van Dyck is employed by Rubens in Antwerp as his chief assistant

1620 Hals is the man for a group portrait
The Dutch painter Frans Hals displays exceptional brilliance in his group portraits, including several of the civic guards of Haarlem

1622 Van Dyck begins five-year stay in Genoa
The Flemish painter Anthony van Dyck begins a five-year stay, and a successful career as a portrait painter, in Genoa

1623 Velazquez is court painter
Diego Velazquez becomes court painter to the king of Spain - a post which he will hold for the remaining thirty-seven years of his life

1624 Poussin moves to Rome
Nicolas Poussin arrives in Rome, where he develops the tradition of French classicism

1625 Rubens celebrates French queen
Rubens completes a great narrative sequence of twenty-one paintings to celebrate the achievements of Marie de Médicis

1627 Claude follows Poussin to Rome
Claude Lorrain, basing himself like Poussin in Rome, paints classical landscapes suffused in light

1628 Rembrandt's first self-portraits
The Dutch painter Rembrandt van Rijn develops a life-long interest in self-portraiture

1631 Rembrandt moves to Amsterdam
Rembrandt moves from his home town of Leiden to set up a studio in Amsterdam

1632 Van Dyck moves to London
Van Dyck moves to London and becomes portrait painter to the British court and aristocracy

1634 Rembrandt marries Saskia van Uylenburgh
Rembrandt marries Saskia van Uylenburgh, who will feature in many of his paintings

1636 Rubens ceiling in Banqueting House
A painted ceiling by Rubens, celebrating the Stuart dynasty, is installed in the Banqueting House in Whitehall

1640 Gerritt Dou is fine painter
The Dutch artist Gerrit Dou paints with exquisite precision and becomes leader of a group known as the 'fine painters'

1641 Paintings on sale in Dutch markets
The profusion of paintings on sale in Holland astonishes an English visitor, John Evelyn

1645 Cuyp's glowing landscapes
The Dutch artist Aelbert Cuyp paints landscapes that glow with the warmth of gentle sunlight

1653 Vermeer paints quietly in Delft
Jan Vermeer marries and begins a quiet career as a painter and art dealer in his home town of Delft

1655 De Hooch reveals the Dutch interior
The painter Pieter de Hooch is a friendly guide through the welcoming spaces of the seventeenth-century Dutch courtyard and home

1655 Velazquez's Toilet of Venus
Diego Velazquez paints his only surviving female nude, The Toilet of Venus (known as the Rokeby Venus)

1656 Velazquez paints himself in royal role
Velazquez, in Las Meninas, paints himself painting the king and queen of Spain

1720 Canaletto concentrates on canals
Canaletto begins to specialize in views of the Venetian canals, finding his main customers among the British

1721 Watteau paints shop sign
Jean-Antoine Watteau paints the most splendid shop sign in history, for his friend Gersaint

1751 Tiepolo paints bishop's walls
Giovanni Battista Tiepolo begins a series of frescoes to decorate the prince bishop's residence in Würzburg

1751 Chardin specializes in still life
French painter Jean-Baptiste-Siméon Chardin returns to the subject matter that first took his interest, still life

1752 Fragonard wins Prix de Rome
French painter Jean-Honoré Fragonard wins the cherished Prix de Rome at the age of 20

1754 Guardi paints views of Venice
Francesco Guardi, previously a painter of figures, begins to specialize in view of Venice, his native city

1755 Winckelmann goes neoclassical
Johann Joachim Winckelmann publishes a book on Greek painting and sculpture which introduces a new strand of neoclassicism

1757 Wright has Derby studio
English painter Joseph Wright sets up a studio in his home town, Derby

1758 Reynolds fashionable in London
Joshua Reynolds, by now the most fashionable portrait painter in London, copes with as many as 150 sitters in a year

1758 Stubbs moves to London
Liverpool-born artist George Stubbs sets up in London as a painter, above all, of people and horses

1759 Gainsborough moves to Bath
Portrait-painter Thomas Gainsborough moves from Suffolk to set up a studio in fashionable Bath

1760 Zoffany moves to England
German painter Johann Zoffany moves to England to find work as a painter of conversation pieces and portraits

1763 Benjamin West moves to London
American artist Benjamin West settles in London, where he becomes famous for his large-scale history scenes

1764 Catherine founds Hermitage
Catherine the Great founds the Hermitage as a court museum attached to the Winter Palace in St Petersburg

1768 Britain's Royal Academy
The Royal Academy is established in London, with Joshua Reynolds as its first president

1774 Gainsborough moves to London
Thomas Gainsborough moves from Bath to set up a studio in London

1775 Copley settles in London
John Singleton Copley, already established as America's greatest portrait painter, moves to London

1778 Brook Watson and the Shark
In Brook Watson and the Shark John Singleton Copley creates the most intensely dramatic of his modern history paintings

1778 Vigée-Lebrun succeeds as portrait painter
15-year-old Elisabeth-Louise Vigée-Lebrun earns enough from painting portraits to support the rest of her family

1783 David in French academy
Jacques-Louis David, establishing a reputation with his severe classical paintings, is elected to the French academy

1786 Goya employed by Spanish king
Francisco de Goya is appointed painter to the king of Spain, Charles III

1789 David sketches in tennis court
The painter Jacques-Louis David sketches the events in the Versailles tennis court

1789 Goya retained at court
Francisco de Goya is appointed court painter to the new Spanish king, Charles IV

1790 15-year-old Turner in Royal Academy
English painter J.M.W. Turner is only 15 when a painting of his, a watercolour, is first exhibited at the Royal Academy

1792 Raeburn's cleric on skates
Scottish painter Henry Raeburn depicts the Reverend Robert Walker skating on Duddingston Loch

1798 Friedrich settles in Dresden
After four years in Copenhagen, German artist Caspar David Friedrich makes his life-long home in Dresden

1801 David paints heroic exploits of Napoleon
Bonaparte Crossing the Alps (in 1800) is the first of several paintings by Jacques-Louis David celebrating the future emperor

1806 Ingres moves to Rome
French painter Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres moves to Rome and lives there for 18 years

1808 Goya depicts French brutality
An uprising in Madrid, brutally put down by the French, is vividly depicted by the Spanish painter Goya

1808
Baroness Howe demolishes Pope's Villa, earning herself the sobriquet Queen of the Goths, and builds a new house next door. The demolition is recorded by J M W Turner in his painting 'Pope's Villa at Twickenham'.

1815 David moves his studio Brussels
Jacques-Louis David, unmistakably identified as Napoleon's painter, is banished from France after the fall of the emperor and moves to Brussels

1817 British officers find Buddhist caves
British officers, hoping to shoot a tiger, come across the forgotten Buddhist caves of Ajanta

1819 Turner visits Venice
J.M.W. Turner makes the first of several visits to Venice, and discovers a rich seam of inspiration

1820 Géricault moves to Britain
French painter Théodore Géricault begins a two-year visit to Britain

1820 Constable moves to Hampstead
English painter John Constable acquires a house in Hampstead, a region of London that features frequently in his work

1827 Kaaterskill Falls
With Kaaterskill Falls 26-year-old Thomas Cole pioneers a heroic tradition in US landscape painting

1827 Palmer moves to Shoreham
English artist Samuel Palmer moves to Shoreham, in Kent, for the most inspired years of his career

1832 Delacroix vists north Africa
French painter Eugène Delacroix begins a five-month visit to north Africa, with profound effects on his future art

1832 Lear publishes a book of parrots
20-year-old English artist Edward Lear publishes Family of the Psittacidae, a collection of his paintings of parrots

1835 Hudson River School
A school of landscape painting emerges in New York, with emphasis on the scenery of the Hudson River and the Catskill Mountains

1835 Edward Lear begins to travel
English artist Edward Lear begins a series of travels, sketching around the Mediterranean and in the Middle East

1838 Fighting Téméraire
J.M.W. Turner paints an icon of British art, The Fighting Téméraire

1839 Courbet moves to Paris
The French painter Gustave Courbet moves from his native town of Ornans to Paris

1846 Lear's Book of Nonsense
Edward Lear publishes his Book of Nonsense, consisting of limericks illustrated with his own cartoons

1848 Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood
English art students Rossetti, Holman Hunt and Millais form the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood

1849 The Girlhood of Mary Virgin
Dante Gabriel Rossetti depicts his sister Christina in The Girlhood of Mary Virgin

1850 Victoria honours Landseer
Queen Victoria knights her favourite painter of animals, Edwin Landseer

1850 Tenniel draws for Punch
English cartoonist John Tenniel begins a 50-year career drawing for the satirical magazine Punch

1855 Holman Hunt's Scapegoat
Holman Hunt's The Scapegoat combines realism and symbolism in an extreme example of Pre-Raphaelite characteristics

1855 Millais marries Effie Gray
John Everett Millais marries Effie Gray, previously the wife of John Ruskin

1859 Whistler settles in London
US artist James McNeill Whistler settles in London, which he makes his home for the rest of his life

1866 Winslow Homer's Prisoners from the Front
US painter Winslow Homer makes his name with the exhibition of a Civil War subject, Prisoners from the Front

1869 Monet and Renoir paint together
Young French artists Claude Monet and Pierre-Auguste Renoir paint together in the open air at La Grenouillère, developing the Impressionist style

1869 Rousseau is Le Douanier
French part-time painter Henri Rousseau becomes known as Douanier ('customs officer') Rousseau because of his paid employment

1870 Monet in London
French artist Claude Monet, fleeing from the Franco-Prussian War, arrives in London

1871 Whistler's mother in subtle shades
Whistler paints his mother and calls the picture Arrangement in Grey and Black

1871 Whistler's Nocturnes
Whistler begins to paint his Nocturnes, a revolutionary series of night-time images on the river Thames

1873 Degas inspired by ballet dancers
French painter Edgar Degas finds inspiration in the onstage and backstage world of ballet dancers

1874 First Impressionist exhibition
A group of French artists, including Renoir, Monet and Degas, exhibit their work independently in the Paris studio of the photographer Nadar

1874 Impressionism is named
French critic Louis Leroy uses the term 'impressionism' to ridicule Monet's Impression, Sunrise, and unwittingly names a movement

1875 Eakins causes offence with The Gross Clinic
US artist Thomas Eakins' depiction of the gruesome aspect of surgery, in his portrait of Dr Gross, offends many viewers

1879 Cave paintings at Altamira
The young daughter of an amateur archaeologist discovers the first known example of prehistoric art, in a cave at Altamira in Spain

1883 Monet settles at Giverny
French artist Claude Monet moves to Giverny, where he creates and paints a famous lily pond

1885 Sargent moves to England
The American portrait-painter John Singer Sargent makes London his home and begins an immensely successful career

1885 Gauguin paints full-time
Leaving his family in Copenhagen, French artist Paul Gauguin returns to Paris to paint full-time

1885 Seurat develops Pointillism
French painter Georges Seurat develops the dotted style of impressionism that becomes known as Pointillism

1886 Van Gogh in Paris
Dutch painter Vincent Willem van Gogh moves from Antwerp to Paris

1888 Van Gogh invites Gauguin to join him
Vincent van Gogh invites Paul Gauguin to come and paint with him at Arles, in the south of France

1889 Van Gogh in psychiatric hospital
Vincent van Gogh enters a psychiatric asylum in St Rémy as a voluntary patient

1891 Gauguin goes to Tahiti
French artist Paul Gauguin travels to Tahiti and stays in the Pacific islands for most of the rest of his life

1895 Gwen John at the Slade
Gwen John persuades a reluctant father to allow her to follow her younger brother to the Slade School of Art in London

1900 Augustus John sets a trend
The Welsh painter Augustus John becomes Britain's most famous bohemian

1901 Picasso's Blue Period
A change of palette by Pablo Picasso takes him into what becomes known as his Blue Period

1902 Augustus and Dorelia
Augustus John meets his favourite subject Dorothy McNeill, to whom he gives the Gypsy name Dorelia

1905 Luxe, Calme et Volupté
Henri Matisse completes his painting Luxe, Calme et Volupté

1905 Die Brücke
Ernst Ludwig Kirchner and other Dresden students form the Expressionist group Die Brücke

1905 Picasso's Rose Period
Pablo Picasso's palette becomes warmer as Blue evolves into Rose

1905 Matisse paints in Collioure
Henri Matisse, in the south of France, paints The Open Window, Collioure, the first of his many works on this theme

1905 The Fauves exhibit in Paris
Matisse, Derain and others, exhibiting in Paris their shockingly colourful new works, are dubbed fauves ("wild beasts") by a critic

1906 Picasso paints Stein
Pablo Picasso's portrait of Gertrude Stein prefigures cubism in its mask-like treatment of her face

1906 Gauguin retrospective in Paris
A large retrospective exhibition in Paris gives Paul Gauguin a growing posthumous reputation

1907 Les Demoiselles d'Avignon
Pablo Picasso's Les Demoiselles d'Avignon, a violent transition into cubism, is a turning point in western art

1908 Impoverished Hitler paints postcards
Without financial support from his mother, Hitler ekes out a meagre living painting postcards and advertisements

1908 Analytic Cubism
Georges Braque's Houses at L'Estaque introduces analytic Cubism

1908 The word 'cubism' is coined
The French critic Louis Vauxcelles describes Braque's latest landscapes as being composed of cubes, resulting in the term cubism

1910 Post-Impressionist exhibition in London
The critic Roger Fry presents in London's Grafton Galleries an influential exhibition of Post-Impressionist art

1910 Matisse's Danse and Musique
Henri Matisse completes two large paintings, La Danse and La Musique, for the staircase of Sergei Shchukin's house in Moscow

1910 Kandinsky pioneers abstract art
Wassily Kandinsky's paintings entitled Compositions are the first examples of purely abstract art

1910 L.S. Lowry collects rent
The part-time English painter L.S. Lowry begins a lifetime career in a Manchester property company

1911 Camden Town Group
Walter Sickert and other painters, sharing his preference for everyday subjects, adopt the name Camden Town Group

1911 Mona Lisa stolen
Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa is stolen from the Louvre in Paris

1911 Der Blaue Reiter
The painters Wassily Kandinsky, Franz Marc and others form Der Blaue Reiter

1912 Schiele gaoled for pornography
Egon Schiele's highly explicit images of nudes land him briefly in gaol

1912 Nude Descending a Staircase
Marcel Duchamp's Nude Descending a Staircase, No.2 creates a stir

1912 Braque's papier collé
Georges Braque's Fruit-Dish and Glass adds papier collé (a type of collage) to the conventions of cubism

1912 Delaunay develops Orphism
Guillaume Apollinaire coins the term Orphism for Robert Delaunay's distinctive style of abstraction

1912 Balla's Dynamism of a Dog
Giacomo Balla attempts to paint movement in his futurist Dynamism of a Dog on a Leash

1913 Walter Sickert's Ennui
Walter Sickert paints Ennui, depicting a difficult or dreary moment in a marriage

1913 Synthetic cubism
The cubist movement enters its second phase, deriving from the use of collage and known as Synthetic cubism

1913 Mona Lisa recovered
Leonardo's Mona Lisa is recovered two years after its theft when the thief, Vincenzo Perugia, tries to sell it to the Uffizi Gallery in Florence

1914 Wyndham Lewis and Vorticism
Wyndham Lewis and others launch Vorticism with a new magazine, Blast

1914 Tatlin and Constructivism
The Russian painter and sculptor Vladimir Tatlin develops an abstract style to which he gives the name Constructivism

1914 Stanley Spencer brings an artist's eye to army life
Stanley Spencer joins the Royal Army Medical Corps, with whom he finds a wealth of subject matter

1915 Malevich's Black Square
Kasimir Malevich exhibits his painting Black Square in Petrograd, in the final Futurist exhibition

1915 Jack Yeats emerges as leading Irish painter
The Irish painter Jack Yeats develops a romantic Expressionist style, with a new interest in Celtic myth

1916 Monet tackles water-lilies
Claude Monet begins the great cyclorama of water-lilies, Nympheas, that he donates to the French nation

1917 The term Surrealism is coined
The French poet Guillaume Apollinaire is the first to use the term Surrealism

1917 Police close Modigliani exhibition
Amedeo Modigliani's first Paris exhibition is immediately closed by the police because it contains paintings of nudes

1917 De Stijl in Holland
Piet Mondrian and other Dutch artists establish the movement known as De Stijl, together with a magazine of the same name

1918 Malevich's White on White
The Russian artist Kasimir Malevich begins a series of White on White paintings

1919 Kandinsky as abstract expressionist
The phrase Abstract Expressionism is first used, describing the work of Wassily Kandinsky

1919 Sargent's Gassed
John Singer Sargent completes Gassed, a powerful image of one of the particular horrors of the recent war

1920 Group of Seven
Artists dedicated to celebrating the Canadian landscape come together as the Group of Seven

1922 Kandinsky at the Bauhaus
Wassily Kandinsky takes up a teaching post at the Bauhaus in Weimar

1922 Rivera launches Mexican mural tradition
Diego Rivera, returning from his study of Italian frescoes, begins the first of his influential murals depicting Mexican history

1924 Scottish Colourists in Paris
Four Scottish Colourists (Cadell, Fergusson, Hunter, Peploe) exhibit together in Paris

1925 Hopper finds his characteristic style
House by the Railroad, by US painter Edward Hopper, introduces a new style of urban realism

1927 Resurrection in Cookham
Stanley Spencer completes his large visionary canvas The Resurrection: Cookham

1927 Magritte has one-man show
The Belgian surrealist painter René Magritte has his first one-man show, at the Galerie Centaure in Brussels

1927 Spencer starts work at Burghclere
Stanley Spencer begins his murals in the Memorial Chapel for Henry Sandham at Burghclere, in Hampshire

1931 Dali melts watches
In his painting The Persistence of Memory Salvador Dali provides the disturbing image of watches drooping from the edge of flat surfaces

1932 Graham Sutherland takes up his brush
The British artist Graham Sutherland, after an early career as a printmaker, takes up painting relatively late in life

1934 Francis Bacon's first show
British painter Francis Bacon has his first solo show in London

1937 Nazis ridicule avant-garde art
A Nazi exhibition of 'degenerate art' opens in Munich, and visitors are invited to mock the avant-garde works on show

1937 Guernica on show in Paris
Pablo Picasso's massive painting Guernica is exhibited in the Spanish pavilion at the World Fair in Paris

1937 Euston Road School
William Coldstream and Victor Pasmore open a school of art with a distinctive style, known from its location as the Euston Road School

1937 Spencer's Leg of Mutton Nude
Stanley Spencer gives a stark depiction of himself and his wife in The Leg of Mutton Nude

1938 Hepworth and Nicholson marry
Leading British artists Barbara Hepworth and Ben Nicholson marry

1938 Aboriginal artist Albert Namatjira
The Aboriginal artist Albert Namatjira wins success with the first exhibition of his watercolours

1938 Grandma Moses shows her work
American naïve painter Grandma Moses has her first exhibition in a local drug store at the age of 78

1939 Hepworth and Nicholson in St Ives
Barbara Hepworth and Ben Nicholson move their studios to St Ives

1940 Dog in a hole at Lascaux
Schoolboys, out hunting, discover paintings in a cave at Lascaux after their dog falls into a hole

1945 Francis Bacon's Three Studies
English painter Francis Bacon creates a sensation with his Three Studies for Figures at the Base of a Crucifixion

1946 Sadler's Wells Ballet in new home
Sadler's Wells Ballet moves to the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden (and is known from 1956 as the Royal Ballet)

1946 Abstract Expression
A new style of American painting, involving artists such as Arshile Gorky and Jackson Pollock, is given the name Abstract Expressionism

1946 Nolan paints Ned Kelly
Australian painter Sidney Nolan begins a series of paintings on the theme of Ned Kelly

1947 Pollock's drip paintings
US artist Jackson Pollock's drip paintings cause a stir in New York

1951 Dali's Christ of St John of the Cross
In Christ of St John of the Cross Salvador Dali paints an image of the crucified Christ seeming to fly on his cross

1951 Matisse's chapel at Vence
Henri Matisse completes the Chapel of the Rosary at Vence, with every detail designed by himself

1953 De Kooning's Women exhibited
US abstract expressionist Willem de Kooning exhibits his series Women nos I-VI, on which he has been working since 1938

1954 Sutherland's portrait of Churchill
A painting by Graham Sutherland, commissioned for Winston Churchill's 80th birthday, does not meet with the full approval of the sitter or his wife

1957 Love, Marriage and Death of a Half-Caste
Australian artist Arthur Boyd begins his series of paintings about an aboriginal stockman, Love, Marriage and Death of a Half-Caste

1960 Caro paints welded constructions
British artist Anthony Caro begins welding and painting abstract metal sculpture

1960 Riley pioneers op art
British artist Bridget Riley creates patterns that produce unexpected optical effects, in a style that becomes known as op art

1962 Warhol and Campbell's soup
Andy Warhol creates a stir when his paintings of Campbell's soup cans are exhibited at the Ferus Gallery in Los Angeles

1962 Coventry's new cathedral
Coventry's new cathedral is inaugurated, enhanced by a wide range of work by leading British artists

1965 Op art arrives
An exhibition in New York, 'The Responsive Eye', puts op art on the map

1967 A Bigger Splash
A Bigger Splash, by English painter David Hockney, casts a new light on sunlit swimming pools

1969 Ancient paintings found in Namibia
Paintings discovered on stone slabs in a cave in Namibia are dated to about 28,000 years ago

1971 Mr and Mrs Clark and Percy
British artist David Hockney paints a striking triple portrait in Mr and Mrs Clark and Percy

1988 Jean-Michel Basquiat dies
Leading New York Graffiti artist Jean-Michel Basquiat dies of an overdose

1994 Oldest known paintings
Potholers discover the world's oldest known paintings in the Chauvet cave in southern France

1996 Ofili's Holy Virgin
Chris Ofili's painting The Holy Virgin is embellished with elephant dung

2000 Kiefer's Let a Thousand Flowers Bloom
Mao Zedong inspires German artist Anselm Kiefer's Let a Thousand Flowers Bloom

2012 January 13
David Hockney, in a major exhibition of his work at the Royal Academy, includes landscape paintings created on an iPad and displayed as prints

2012  May 22 Munch's The Scream beats auction record for a painting
A pastel version of Edvard Munch's The Scream sells in Sotheby's New York for US $120 million, by far the record for any work of art