14TH TO LATE
16TH CENTURY
THE RENAISSANCE
Early Renaissance in Italy
The Dark Ages came to an end and there was a rebirth or
Renaissance of the ideas of Antiquity, i.e. of ancient Greece and Rome that
took hold of Italian artists such as Giotto and Duccio.
Religious stories were being told in tempera on gold ground
panels. The general population could not read.
Artists broke from the flat Byzantine Icons of Christ and
the Virgin to scenes that incorporated perspective.
Northern Renaissance
Look for fine detail and pure color. Faces express intense
human emotions.
Early Netherlandish artists such as Jan van Eyck developed
independently from the Italian Renaissance movement. Medieval manuscript illuminations and tempera
painting influenced them. Oil painting
was invented in Flanders at that time. The artists painted highly detailed
religious scenes and small portraits.
These faces are often set against detailed landscapes or towns in the
background. People look real and express
serious human emotions. Symbolism was
important to artists such as Fouquet. Jan
van Eyck’s Saint Barbara appears huge to emphasize her saintly existence.
Altdorfer produced the first landscape paintings.
With the Reformation that Martin Luther started in 1517, Protestant
movements broke from the Catholic Church. Holbein’s portraits capture the
essence of the Renaissance princes and their station in life.
In Brueghel’s post-Reformation paintings religious elements moved
to the background. He used humor to show
the human condition of peasants and regular folk.
High Renaissance
Look for classical beauty, proportion and harmony in the
Italian High Renaissance of mid 15th to mid 16th century Italy. Compositions tend to be balanced and
centralized.
Leonardo was a Renaissance superstar. The Vatican frescos by Raphael and
Michelangelo are powerful re-interpretations of the Antique. Titian painted all sorts of subjects focusing
on color and vivid brushwork.
16th century Mannerism
These artists moved away from classical aesthetics. In their work you need to decipher strange compositions. Exaggerated forms, long necks and limbs can
be seen in the works by Pontormo and Parmigianino. Arcimboldo’s work (p.) is about an idea and
has nothing and everything to do with reality.
THE 17TH
CENTURY
BAROQUE
Find high drama, emotion and action! These pictures are about the triumph of good
over evil. Chiaroscuco looks as though a strong flashlight highlights part of
the painting.
The Counter-Reformation was the Catholic Church’s answer to
the Protestant Reformation. The Catholic Church and its wealthy princes employed
the great artists of the day such as Rubens and Velazquez to convey powerful
visual messages.
DUTCH PAINTING
You will see regular people, landscapes, still lifes, domestic
scenes of everyday life and Rembrandt’s extraordinary power of psychology
bathed in theatrical light. It was a
prosperous period and many people in the Netherlands could read.
The Dutch style differs from Flemish, Italian and Spanish
art of the 17th century.
Religious themes take a back seat.
Protestant churches were not decorated like Catholic ones. It is known
as the Golden Age of Dutch painting and produced giants like Rembrandt, Frans Hals
and Vermeer.
THE 18th
CENTURY
ROCOCO
Elegant ladies and gentlemen enjoy frivolous activities like
garden parties, reading poetry, playing music or going shopping (see Watteau p…). It was also the Age of Enlightenment and new
ideas changed the ways people thought. Chardin
composed sensitive still lifes and quiet domestic scenes of the every day life
of regular people in the vein of the Dutch 17th century artists. The
century ended with the start of the French Revolution of 1789, which changed
the power structure of Europe.
British and American art
In Britain Sir Joshua Reynolds founded the Royal Academy of
Arts and a school of painters evolved that portrayed the rich British
aristocracy and the intellectuals of the Enlightenment in “The Grand Style”. It
actually was a good thing if someone had imperfect features or was near sighted. In the American Colonies a group of artists
such as Copley were in close contact with those British artists.
Late 18th and early 19th century
NEOCLASSICISM
Frill and powdered wigs are out the window.
Look for simpler dress, plain hairdos and heroic battles in
the Greek and Roman style.
The French Revolution and later Napoleon influenced the
artists as much as the political landscape. Artists’ schools called Academies,
towered over by Jacques- Louis David, taught their pupils with a strict set of
aesthetic rules inspired by the Antique.
Here we witness the rise of the common man and the bourgeoisie. Ingres painted the French and English elite.
THE 19TH
CENTURY
ROMANTICISM
In France Delacroix and Géricault created their own individual
styles and painted some shocking news of the day. They did not stick to the strict academic
rules. Caspar David Friedrich’s melancholy views of nature and man lead the
movement in Germany. Britain’s Turner was in awe of nature’s overwhelming powers
and Constable held a gentler view of the English countryside. In Spain Goya’s Romanticism shows us the
human drama of revolution, the terrors of war and religious persecution.
REALISM
The quintessential Realist artist Courbet painted the world
the way it was. Women look real and are
not idealized beauties, animals devour other animals and the aesthetics of the
Antique are no longer relevant.
The independent Manet, who admired Velaszquez, was the link
between Realism and Impressionism.
IMPRESSIONISM
It started in the late 19th century in France where
a group of artists wanted to capture a moment or an impression. They loved painting en plein air, outside, and depict the natural light. They needed to
paint fast and chose as their subject every day people. The invention of photography in 1839 with its
ability to snap a fleeting moment had a huge impact on these artists.
POST-IMPRESSIONISM
This is a relatively vague term applied to a group of
artists like Gauguin, van Gogh and Seurat who immediately followed the
Impressionists. Simplified and not
necessarily natural colors were being applied in thick brushstrokes by Vincent
van Gogh. Seurat painted with tiny dots
and Gauguin traveled to Tahiti to paint exotic scenes. They all had different visions but had in
common the quest to break with the ideas of their predecessors.
TURN OF THE 19th
to 20th CENTURY
VIENNA SECESSION
At this time Vienna was the epicenter of intellectuals,
artists, designers, philosophers, economists, writers, and scientists, including
the famed founder of modern psychoanalysis Sigmund Freud. In the fine arts Klimt’s Symbolism reveals a
new interpretation of Byzantine and Japanese art. A group of artists founded the Vienna
Secession housed in a beautiful building in Vienna. They wanted to get away from the prevailing
images of historic events.
EXPRESSIONISM
Edvard Munch’s painting called “The Scream” is permanently
etched in our memories. His intense
pictures express psychological trauma. His work had a great impact on the German
Expressionists.
