Naming and categorizing art movements can be helpful when talking about art, if everyone knows what they mean and if everyone agrees that they mean the same thing. This is, as you know, almost never. The problem is, there's a lot of overlapping, and naming has been taken to ridiculous extremes.

A few general categories are: prehistoric, impressionism, realism, romanticism, expressionism, surrealism, cubism, futurism, symbolism, and abstraction. All mean what the root word implies with a suffix or prefix added. Then there is Fauve, (which means `wild beasts' and is one of the shortest periods) and avant garde which for me mostly means 'be on guard'. Pop and Op are a couple of modern categories, abbreviations, the first as in culture, and the second as in optical.

Then there is art grouped by schools; the Ash Can School, The Emma Lake School, or by numbers; the Group of Seven, or the Group of Ten. Oh, you don't know The Group of Ten? Well I know a group called `The Group', probably because its numbers fluctuate.

You can put the name of a country in front of almost all of the `isms', such as German expressionism, or French impressionism. You can put `neo' in front of most, or `post',

`super', `early', or even `flamboyant', as in Gothic. `Postpainterly abstraction' is a particularly meaningless term, or does it mean abstracts that are not `paintered'? `Mondrianish nightmare' (Arnheim's word) could adequately describe much of the `hard - edge' movement.

Some art is categorized according to periods, such as Egyptian - Old or New Kingdom, or as in Chinese art, into dynasties.

Then there are the ones according to religions; Christian, Buddhist, Islamic, `action painting', or those without religion, such as Barbarian.