Don’t Miss These Hot Technology Revolutions that Shaped Art History

Every day, there seems to be another breakthrough with new capabilities for AI tools. It seems like every new device has AI-integrated features. Businesses, classrooms, and art studios are embracing the trend to generate text, images, audio, and video. Many have questions about how this will affect humans, learning, and art. While the specific tools are new, artists faced similar changes throughout art history. The one constant is that artists are always finding ways to adapt, innovate, and thrive. 

Keep reading to see how artists adapted to new technology throughout art history and how you can incorporate these revolutions in your classroom.

Thousands of years ago, the wheel brought the first technological revolution to Mesopotamia. 

Early humans shaped clay by hand using coils. Then, in ancient Mesopotamia, the potter’s wheel revolutionized ceramic production. Around 3500 BCE, this simple spinning platform changed everything. Potters could now quickly create perfectly round, symmetrical vessels. The wheel wasn’t just about speed. It allowed for new shapes, finer details, and a level of consistency previously impossible. Interestingly, archaeological evidence suggests ancient Mesopotamian people used wheels for pottery about 300 years before they used them for transportation. 

Bring the Revolution to the Art Room:

Get your students to throw on the pottery wheel with success! All you need is one wheel to set up a rotation and expose your students to this hands-on art form. If you don’t have the budget, reach out to other art teachers in your district or nearby and see if you can borrow one. For additional learning with classroom-based tips, watch the Basic Wheel Throwing Pack in PRO Learning.

Printmaking made art accessible through mass production and wider distribution.

Before the printing press, monks created stunning illuminated manuscripts, painstakingly illustrating pages with gold leaf and vibrant colors. Each book was a unique work of art, but only a few people could own them because they were so expensive. As early as the second century CE, Chinese artists were printing with woodblocks. Bi Sheng, a Chinese printmaker, created the earliest known movable type printer around 1040 CE using characters made of baked clay. In the 1440s, Johannes Gutenberg developed the movable type printing press, improving the technology for mass production.

Printing methods, from block printing to lithography, shifted an artist’s audience from an individual patron to a broader market. While some mourned the loss of the personal touch of a scribe, the printing press made knowledge and art history accessible to more people. Like Gutenberg printed the Bible, Ukiyo-e artists focused on subjects that were relevant to the masses. For example, Katsushika Hokusai made his most famous series, 36 Views of Mount Fuji, of the tallest peak in Japan and a sacred Shinto site.

Bring the Revolution to the Art Room:

Check out FLEX Curriculum for great historical resources, including lesson plans tackling everything from illuminated lettering to printmaking. There’s even a student-friendly artist bio of Hokusai that includes key facts about his famous works, history, and career.

The invention of the camera shifted the focus for painting and drawing.

For centuries in art history, Western artists focused on the accurate representation of people, places, objects, and events. They meticulously studied light, shadow, and perspective to tell important stories from history and theology. In the 19th century, photographic technology arrived, instantly capturing lines, shapes, and values with perfect accuracy. When the first photographs appeared, many debated whether it was “true art” or simply a mechanical process. Some artists even worried it would make painting obsolete.

Instead, photography pushed painting in new directions. Impressionists, for example, started to focus less on realistic detail and more on capturing fleeting moments and the effects of light, knowing that photographs could handle the representational work. Artists placed more emphasis on color, making their work more imaginative and expressive to highlight the human touch. Eventually, photography became an art form in its own right with many styles and genres. It offers unique perspectives and documents the world more authentically by capturing raw moments. 

Bring the Revolution to the Art Room:

Using traditional cameras or personal electronic devices, try fun photography exercises to spur creative perspectives in both composition and discussion. For a deeper dive into photography, keep the budget under control with DIY hacks for processes, equipment, and organization. For example, create magical special effects with a simple recycled spray bottle and water!

The Industrial Revolution produced a dialogue among design movements.

The Industrial Revolution, starting in the late 18th century, brought about massive changes in architecture and design. New materials like steel, reinforced concrete, and plate glass allowed architects to construct towering skyscrapers. The Bauhaus and International Style embraced clean lines and geometric shapes and rejected ornamentation. By the mid-20th century, cities around the world were putting up sleek, functional buildings by Mies van der Rohe and others.

Not everyone embraced this cold, industrial aesthetic. Movements like Arts and Crafts and Art Nouveau emerged as a counter-revolution, celebrating handcrafted objects, natural forms, and organic lines. They were a direct response to the machine age, showing how technology can inspire both acceptance and rejection, pushing art in multiple directions at once.

Bring the Revolution to the Art Room:

Do a quick challenge where students explore positive and negative shapes after learning about the artist, Le Corbusier. For older students, get more complex with modular housing designs. Discover how to play with shape with Joe Boatfield and Harris Waltuck in the episode of 5 Minutes of Art History, below.

Artists experimenting with new tools discovered the magic of video and animation.

Early film amazed audiences, but an accidental discovery by Georges Méliès brought it to a whole new level. He was filming a street scene when his camera jammed. When he restarted it, a bus suddenly appeared to transform into a hearse. Méliès realized he could stop and start his camera, changing things in between frames, creating what we now call special effects. Video and animation opened up entirely new worlds for artists to explore, allowing them to tell stories with movement and sound. From hand-drawn cells to computer-generated imagery, artists continuously push the boundaries of what these technologies can do.

Bring the Revolution to the Art Room:

Explore animation with your youngest artists with the Exploring Animation Lesson in FLEX Curriculum. Add in more advanced concepts and techniques with stop motion for middle school students (Stop-Motion Paper Animation Lesson) and high schoolers (A Recipe for Stop Motion Lesson). Make simple videos to tell stories through motion, balancing both hands-on making with digital platforms.

AI is the future of art and art history.

Artificial Intelligence can generate images, compose music, and even write stories. Like photography or the printing press before it, AI is sparking both excitement and anxiety in the art world. While people from all time periods have experienced some amount of innovation and change, the rate of change today leaves many people struggling to keep up. There are valid concerns about how reliance will inhibit skills, yet the potential for accessibility and expression is thrilling! Just like any technological revolution before it, AI’s power lies in the hands of the user. 

Bring the Revolution to the Art Room:

Navigate the new world of artificial intelligence while also considering academic integrity, bias, and privacy. Learn more about AI and how to incorporate it responsibly in your classroom with the graduate course, AI in Art Education. Register to gain practical applications alongside other art teachers like you!

Art is the product of creativity. Education is the process of helping students develop the knowledge, judgment, and reasoning skills to succeed in life. Art teachers have a professional obligation to continue learning and mastering new technologies and media. Stay curious and embrace the challenge! History proves that technology doesn’t replace creativity—it transforms it, offering new tools and new paths to explore. Be a part of the next hot technology revolution and shape the future of art history with the next generation.

How do you think AI tools will impact your practice in the studio and classroom?

What other technological innovations had a lasting impact on art history?

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