Throughout time, there are certain artists whose works stands out among their colleagues and predecessors for striking, innovative techniques and styles. These progressive artists developed innovative designs characterized by a unique style that often developed into a school of art. Today, we continue to study and display many of these infamous artists who have created the foundation for what we now call "art." From the Renaissance Pop Art, these artists exemplify our favorite artistic movements. Explore the works by the top artists and more at FulcrumGallery.com.

Characterized by its style and philosophical roots, modern art is considered all artwork created from the 1860s to the 1970s. By experimenting with mediums, style and how an artist interprets his/her subject, modern artists moved away from their traditional realistic predecessors who strove to recreate a subject. Instead, modern artists concentrate on capturing the essence of the subject matter - the feelings, emotions and relationship to the artist. This along with underlying social commentary characterizes what we know today as "modern art."

Rooted in Western traditional art, classical artists strove to create artwork that celebrates the "ideal" by making balanced, symmetrical works. Inspired by Greco-roman artists, classicists recreated the world as realistically as possible, focusing on completeness and exact mesaurements. Characterized by its Greco-Roman antiquity styles, subjects and motifs, Classical art movements often featured romanticized versions of famous mythological figures and figure heads from earlier cultures. Celebrated for their style and skilled use of medium, these top classical artists have works that are often featured in museum across the world.

With roots in Paris during the 1870s and 1880s, Impressionist artists concentrated on best portraying how light interacts with subject matter. Often characterized by its brushstrokes, impressionist paintings use this technique to portray how an everyday objects or subject matter can drastically change when viewed in different light. Concentrating on how the artist experiences a subject instead of how the subject actually "is," impressionist artists create emotional artwork that moved away from the strict art academia used in previous periods. While many of these artists, such as Van Gogh and Monet, are now infamous, they were criticized during their lifetime.

Photography grants artists the ability to capture a subjects exactly as it exists at an exact moment. How a photographer chooses to capture that moment is what makes photography unique as a fine-art medium. In order to properly express emotion, an artist uses perspective to create a relationship between a viewer and the subject matter. While anyone can take a photograph, top photographs and photographers are celebrated for their ability to manipulate both his/her subject and the audience with only the click of a button.

Often famous advertisements, vintage art characterizes the period of time between the 1900s to the 1940s. The word vintage refers to the time in which something began to be manufactured or produced. Thus, vintage artists exemplify the new products, ideas and culture that emerged during the early 1900s. Including everything from fashionable pin up girls to Coca Cola ads, vintage artists concentrate on the beginning of the industrial, main stream media that we know today by concentrating on a fun, old-time style of advertising.