During this period, oils became the primary paint medium used in easel paintings. Unlike tempera, oil painting allowed much greater detail and realism. This made works by artists like Rubens, Rembrandt and Velazquez possible.
Early Netherlandish painters like Jan van Eyck pioneered the use of oil, opening up new possibilities for naturalism. Their works are known for their remarkable degree of realism and seeming mimesis.
The Renaissance saw a shift away from religious themes in art as artists sought to depict a more humanistic view of the world. This change allowed artists to explore a broader range of subjects, including portraiture, mythology, and scenes from daily life.
The rise of Humanism in the Renaissance also led to new ideas about beauty and the importance of realism. This was particularly evident in the paintings of the great Leonardo da Vinci. His masterpieces, the Virgin of the Rocks and The Last Supper, are both known for their realistic portrayal of the natural world and the complexity of human emotion.
Another major influence on Renaissance art was the invention of the printing press, which enabled knowledge to spread more quickly and widely than ever before. As a result, the ideas of the Renaissance spread from Italy to nations throughout Europe.
Although the Renaissance marked a significant change from the traditional medieval style, it did not mean a complete overhaul of society or culture. Many aspects of Renaissance life remained the same, especially in southern Europe, which was still heavily influenced by religion and the Catholic church. This led to a limited amount of funding for artists and a stifling of creativity.
Despite these limitations, the Renaissance did introduce several groundbreaking techniques that would change the course of European art history. Linear perspective, pioneered by Filippo Brunelleschi, helped create the illusion of depth and three-dimensionality on two-dimensional surfaces. The use of chiaroscuro, the manipulation of light and shadow, also contributed to more realistic depictions in artwork. Artists such as Masaccio, the brothers Pietro and Ambrogio Lorenzetti, Fra Angelico, Sandro Botticelli, and Michelangelo all made significant contributions to Italian Renaissance art.
In the Northern Renaissance, from the 1430s to 1580s, art began to move away from classically Grecian styles towards more sober forms that were inspired by everyday life. This was largely due to the financial support of wealthy merchant families, such as the Medici family of Florence. Artists like Albrecht Durer and Pieter Bruegel the Elder were influential in this period, combining Renaissance naturalism with ideas of balance, proportion, and Humanism.
The Baroque (17th to 18th century) era was characterised by dramatic and exuberant styles of painting, sculpture and architecture. It embraced the emotion and drama of the Catholic Counter-Reformation, its dynamic movement, bold realism and direct emotional appeal were ideally suited to proclaiming the reinvigorated spirit of the church. Although it was largely associated with Catholicism, its techniques were widely adopted across Europe.
The art of the Baroque builds on and expands the naturalistic tradition established during the Renaissance. Human subjects are still the most popular subjects in this period, with religious paintings and allegories as well as landscape and still life paintings being common. The Dutch artists of this period such as Rembrandt, Vermeer and Jacob van Ruysdael, were particularly renowned for their use of chiaroscuro (the lighting of shadows or highlights to emphasise features) and tenebrism, a style that creates illusion-filled effects.
Baroque sculptural works are often imposing, with the figures being physically large, with expressive faces and gestures. The era also saw the introduction of three-dimensionality and movement in a picture through the use of perspective. This gave the appearance of depth and distance to an image, which complemented the sense of physical presence of the figure.
There are a number of different strands of baroque painting, from the dramatic realism of Caravaggio to the more restrained approach of Cortona and the naturalism of Dutch painters such as Claude Lorrain, Jan Vermeer and Salomon van Ruysdael. All of these approaches approach emotive dynamism in a slightly different way, but they all share a sense of grandeur and exuberance that is often seen as the defining feature of the Baroque period.
In Italy, the dynamism of Baroque can be seen in the work of Annibale Carracci, Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio and Gian Lorenzo Bernini, who is perhaps best known for his Ecstasy of Saint Teresa at the Vatican. These are not the only famous pieces of Italian Baroque art, though, and the era was characterized by an overwhelming abundance of artworks from every corner of the country.
The heyday of the Baroque came to an end about 1720, as it seemed increasingly out of step with the mood that was emerging in Europe at this time. There was a shift away from emotion, drama and illusion in favour of a more refined classical style that was championed by France, the new European power.
The Rococo (pronounced koh-koo) art movement was all about flamboyance, wealth, fun, and romance. It followed the Baroque style, adding more drama through more diagonal lines and contrasts of light and dark. It also used more fluid brush strokes and a lighter color palette, with pastels and frothy shapes.
The Rococo artists were inspired by the theater and stage, infusing their paintings with a sense of drama and fluidity. They incorporated a lot of curving and swirling shapes, based on shells and other natural forms, with asymmetrical layouts.
Painters such as Antoine Watteau (1708-1721) created new genre scenes in their works. These were usually painted in a Rococo style, capturing aristocratic leisure-time activities such as secluded outdoor picnics and excursions to romantic places.
Another painter of note was Boucher (1684-1721), who used Rococo to capture aristocratic personalities, social celebrities and historical figures. His paintings are infused with sensual themes, and his depictions of women’s curves have become the hallmark of the Rococo era. The King’s mistress Madame de Pompadour (1745-1751) is credited with introducing the Rococo style to Paris and spreading it throughout Europe through her patronage of furniture designers, sculptors, and artists.
Rococo flourished in other parts of Europe too, especially in Italy. Venetian painters such as Tiepolo (1725-1795) embraced the style, applying its principles to ceiling paintings and using brighter colors.
The Rococo style continued to dominate in France until a change in leadership prompted the rise of a more sober art movement called Neoclassicism, in around 1770.
Neoclassical paintings emphasized order and classical antiquity, with subjects such as battles and landscapes. In its final phase, Neoclassicism merged with the baroque style, resulting in neo-baroque.
The Rococo period’s legacy is seen in modern architecture, jewelry and clothing, as well as cinematic settings such as Marie Antoinette and The Favorite. Its influence can be felt in the rocaille curves of furniture, and the fluttering pastel hues of haute couture. Its adaptation to other art movements also helped it become subtly ingrained in modern painting and design. Rococo is still popular today, despite its decline in the 1780s.
With a history as rich and varied as Europe, it is no wonder that artists of the 19th Century were inspired by many different themes. Throughout the century, art movements developed in response to each other and in reaction to current academic thinking. Each new movement aimed to change the status quo and push the boundaries of artistic expression.
The first major artistic movement of the 19th Century was Impressionism. Impressionists such as Claude Monet, Edgar Degas, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, and Camille Pissarro experimented with the colors of light and nature on canvas. Rather than working within the constraints of the Academy’s strict style, Impressionists painted outdoors and with looser brushstrokes. This drew on the natural beauty of their subjects and allowed them to capture the impressions of the world around them.
Neoclassical painting grew out of the Enlightenment, an intellectual movement that sought to understand the world and human behavior through study. As a result, neoclassical paintings were often based on historical and mythological subject matter. They were also characterized by a highly polished technique and the use of classical models in their compositions.
A key shift from Neoclassical art occurred in the late 1800s with Romanticism and Realism. Romanticism’s dramatic and mystical subject matter was a reaction to the more restrained subjects of Neoclassical art. This shift to a more expressive and dramatic style gave rise to the Barbizon School of painters who sought to escape urban centers and rediscover the world of nature. Artists like Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot worked en plein air to connect with their landscape and produce detailed works of the French countryside.
Another movement that emerged from the industrialization of Europe was Symbolism. Dedicated to social reform, the Symbolists believed that paintings could convey emotion and ideas. During this time, Kathe Kollwitz created powerful and emotional works that displayed the suffering of the working class. Often depicting the struggles of women, her paintings evoked sympathy for the hardships and anxieties that many individuals faced in society.
Pablo Picasso, a master of several styles, was heavily influenced by historic paintings. He created a number of works that were based on the works of other artists. This included his version of Eugene Delacroix’s The Women of Algiers. While his interpretation of this work is a departure from Delacroix’s romanticized style, the final painting still retains a sense of history and a nod to the past.