Art History · 2 min read

Art Styles Explained: A Visual Guide to 12 Styles for Your Walls

October 2026

Listen to this story3 min

Oil painting, watercolor, Impressionism, Art Deco, Pop art, Minimalism… Casopra organizes its canvases into twelve styles. Here they are in one place, in the order history invented them, with a date to remember, one sentence on each, and the full story behind it.

Six centuries in one list

The timeline

1430s: Oil painting. Jan van Eyck did not invent oil paint, but he perfected it to mirror light and texture.¹ Read the story
1502: Watercolor. Albrecht Dürer paints his Young Hare, and a sketching medium becomes art.² Read the story
1863: Modern art. The Salon of the Refused shows the paintings the official jury turned down.³ Read the story
1874: Impressionism. The first Impressionist exhibition opens in Paris, outside the official Salon.⁴ Read the story
1906: Abstract. Hilma af Klint paints abstract canvases years before Kandinsky.⁵ Read the story
1924: Surrealism. André Breton publishes the Manifesto of Surrealism.⁶ Read the story
1925: Art Deco. A Paris fair of decorative arts gives the style its future name.⁷ Read the story
1952: Pop art. The Independent Group starts meeting in London.⁸ Read the story
1960s: Minimalist. In the United States, artists strip art down to simple geometric shapes.⁹ Read the story
Today: Contemporary. The art of the present and the recent past.¹⁰ Read the story

The two timeless styles

Black & White belongs to no single period. Strip away color and a picture becomes pure light and shadow, the drama painters explored with chiaroscuro. See the Black & White collection.

Monochrome Accent keeps a black-and-white image and lets a single touch of color glow. It is the most modern of our styles, and the easiest to live with. See the Monochrome Accent collection.