During the Stone Age, artists painted on the walls of their caves driven by thoughts of magic and hunting. At first, they painted with dirt and animal fat. Later, the paints were derived from natural earth pigments like ochre and zinc oxides. The paintings at Altamira Caves, in Spain (14.000-9.500 b.C.), boast of as many as three colors in the body of a single animal.

In Ancient Egypt (3200-300 b.c.), artists with a strong belief in the afterlife created paintings to decorate tombs. The Egyptian style was characterized by the 'frontalism'. The heads were always drawn in profile, while the bodies were seen from the front. Although the faces were to the side, the eyes were drawn in full. The legs were turned to the same side as the head, with one foot placed in front of the other. Ancient Egyptians made no difference in between painting and writing, for them both were the same thing.

After having created simplified figures, the Greeks (800-150 B.C) later achieved portraying perfectly proportioned young men and women.

The Romans (509 B.C.-337 A.D.) conquered Greece and appreciate its art, borrowing the Greeks artistic concepts. Large scale works were common, such as mosaics and fresco paintings.

Romanesque art, which was primarily of and for the Christian church, flourished in Europe during the period between the 10th and the 12th century. It received its name because it adopted Roman techniques and motifs. In painting, Romanesque art showed some Byzantine influence. It was the first style to become dominant throughout all of Europe.

Byzantine art was centered around the Orthodox church, especially in the painting of icons and the decoration of churches with frescoes and mosaics. Though the Byzantine style basically ended with the fall of Constantinople to the Turks in 1453, its influence continued in Russia and elsewhere where the Orthodox church held influence.

The Gothic style first began with the architecture of the 12th century, the time of the building of the magnificent Gothic cathedrals. In painting, the change to the new style became visible around a century later. In contrast to the Romanesque and Byzantine styles, the most noticeable feature of the Gothic art is its increased naturalism. By the end of the 14th century, the fusion of Italian and Northern European art led to the development of International Gothic. The works of Pietro Cavallini and Gentile da Fabriano are good examples.

The term Renaissance describes the rebirth of cultural consciousness and learning that began in Italy and spread throughout Western Europe during the 15th and 16th centuries. This period found its inspiration in the civilizations of ancient Greece and Rome. As the Greeks and Romans, the Renaissance emphasized on human beings, their environment, science and philosophy. The works of Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci are the best examples.

Baroque was the style of European art from the late 16th to early 18th century. It was characterized by extensive ornamentation, curvy figures and bold portraits. Dramatic, emotional works of art were produced during this period. The works of Rubens and José de Ribera are good examples.

The term Rococo refers to a relaxed, playful art style found in Europe, particularly France, during the 18th century. It was a style of high fashion and was characterized by delicate movements, pale colors, and subjects illustrating the various forms of love and romance. The works of François Boucher, Tiepolo and Jean-Antoine Watteau are good examples.

Neo-Classicism was an early French nineteenth century art style and artistic movement that originated as a reaction to the excesses of Baroque and Rococo. It sought to revive the ideals of ancient Greek and Roman Art. Neoclassic artists used classical forms to express their ideas about courage, sacrifice, and patriotism. Though sometimes the terms 'Classicism' and 'Neoclassicism' are used interchangeably, in the context of the tradition Classicism refers either to the art produced in antiquity or to later art inspired by antiquity, and Neoclassicism refers only to the art produced later but inspired by antiquity. The work of Jacques-Louis David is a good example.

Romanticism was an art movement and style that flourished from the late 18th to the mid-19th century. It emphasized the emotions, which were painted in a dramatic manner. Romanticism emphasized the individual, the subjective, the irrational, the imaginative, the spontaneous, the emotional, the visionary, and the transcendental, and can be seen as a rejection of the precepts of order, calm, harmony, balance, idealization, and rationality that typified Classicism in general and late 18th-century, Neoclassicism in particular. It was a reaction against 18th-century rationalism and physical materialism in general. The works of Delacroix and Turner are good examples.

Realism as painting style refers to the mid-nineteenth century movement in which artists painted familiar scenes and events as they actually looked. Nature and life is for the first time depicted in an honest and unsentimental way. The works of Gustave Courbet and Léon Bonnat are good examples.

In 1848, a group of young English painters got together and formed the society called 'The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood'. They took their subject matters from medieval tales, Biblical stories, classical mythology, and nature itself. Dante Gabriel Rossetti led the group that included Sir John Everett Millais. Though they were not members of the brotherhood, Edward Burne-Jones, Frederic Lord Leighton, Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema, and John William Waterhouse followed this style.

The Impressionist style attempted to capture fleeting impressions, particularly the changing light on a surface at different times of day. It started in France around 1870, and was characterized by the use of unmixed primary colors and small strokes. The principal Impressionist painters were Claude Monet, Pierre Auguste Renoir, Camille Pissarro, Alfred Sisley, Berthe Morisot, Armand Guillaumin, and Frédéric Bazille. Edgar Degas, Édouard Manet and Paul Cézanne also painted in an Impressionist style for a time.

Neo-Impressionism was a painting movement that developed in the 1880s out of Impressionism. It was characterized by the use of pointillism, which is the juxtaposition of touches or dots of pure color. The French painter George Seurat is regarded as the leader of this movement.

Post-Impressionism immediately followed Impressionism and Neo-Impressionism. It rejected the emphasis the Impressionists put on the depiction of fleeting effects of light, and was characterized by a free and expressive use of color and form. The work of Vincent van Gogh is a good example.

Already on the early 20th century, and art movement interested in the depiction of emotions and the types of responses those same emotions evoked started in Germany. The Expressionists aimed to portray their emotions through the use of vivid colors and strong, distorted lines, and they were fascinated with primitive art. The work of Edvard Munch is a good example.

At the same time, a group of artists characterized by their use of simplified forms and bright colors were known as the Fauvist. The term "fauves", which means 'wild beasts' in French, was given to them because it was felt that they used intense colors in an uncontrolled and 'violent' way. The leader of the group was Henri Matisse.

Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque came together to create Cubism, the school of art most prominent between 1907 and 1914. They abandoned single-point perspective and instead subjects were presented from various perspectives, or viewpoints, simultaneously. This broke the 'rules' of art that had been followed since the Renaissance. In Cubism, the subject was broken up, analyzed, and reassembled in an abstract form.

A French word meaning hobbyhorse is the nonsensical name given to a nonsensical movement called Dada, founded in Zurich in 1916. It was a protest movement by a group of European artists against World War I, bourgeois society, and the conservativism of traditional thought. Its followers used absurdities to create artworks and performances which defied intellectual analysis. They also included "found" objects in sculptures and installations. Everyday objects like urinals, were signed and called art. The works of Marcel Duchamp and Jean Arp are a good example of this style.

Influenced by the theories of psychoanalysis originated by Sigmund Freud, Surrealism started in the 1920s. It focused on the subconscious, the fantastic, the interpretation of dreams, and the juxtaposition of unlikely elements. Key exponents were Salvador Dalí and Rene Magritte.

Art Deco, from 'Decorative Arts' in French, is the dominant art movement of the 1920-1930 period, especially in Paris. It was a classical, symmetrical and rectilinear style, influenced by Cubism and Futurism. The work of Tamara de Lempicka is a good example.

Abstract Expressionism began in the late 1940s and became a dominant trend in Western painting during the 1950s. It applied the principles of Expressionism to abstract art. Drip paintings and canvases covered with only one color are a common sight. The work of Jackson Pollock is a good example.

During the 1960s, Op Art created amazing Optical illusions. At the same time, the imagery, styles, and themes of advertising, mass media, and popular culture appeared in art galleries as Pop Art came into vogue. Key exponents were Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein.

Because of the stylistic similarities, the word "cartoon" refers to both animated cartoons and gag cartoons. However, it is most often used in reference to TV programs and short films for children featuring anthropomorphized animals, superheroes, the adventures of child protagonists and related genres. At the end of the 1980s, the word "cartoon" was shortened, and the word "Toon" came into usage.