J.M.W. Turner

(1775-1851) English

Romantic painter Turner developed an almost abstract style. His use of pure light and color prefigured the work of the Impressionists.

* Steamer in a Snowstorm

Jan van Eyck

(1390-1441) Flemish

Early Renaissance painter van Eyck was the first to demonstrate technical prowess with oil paint. His works show fine detail and rich colors.

* The Arnolfini Marriage

Vincent van Gogh

(1853-90) Dutch

Postimpressionist van Gogh strove to convey his inner vision through swirling colors and brushwork. His style laid the foundations of Expressionism. * Cornfield and Cypress Trees; Sunflowers

Diego Velazquez

(1599-1660) Spanish

Baroque court portraitist Velazquez eliminated props and allegory to concentrate on his sitters. His techniques influenced later painters such as Goya and Manet. *Maids of Honor

Jan Vermeer

(1632-75) Dutch

Vermeer became the leading Dutch genre painter through his expert compositional skills and use of light and shade in domestic scenes.

*Girl Reading; The Kitchen Maid

Andy Warhol

(1928-87) American

From his "Factory" studio, Warhol produced emotionless, graphic likenesses that became part of American iconography.

*Gold Marilyn Monroe

Western art 1500-1700 ►High Renaissance to 17th-century Dutch painting

In the 16th century, a rejection of the Greek ideals of balance and naturalism resulted in Mannerism, characterized by crowded scenes, overdramatic gestures and poor perspective. Balance and elegance survived into the 17th century in Baroque and Classicism, and soon, Dutch artists turned away from the human form to a new subject - landscape.

High Renaissance Two centuries of experiments with ways of depicting the human figure, perspective and oil paints culminated in the High Renaissance, which is conventionally dated 1500-20. The major figures were Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo and Raphael. All produced large-scale, ambitious, complex works. Most painting was done on wooden panels or directly onto walls and ceilings, but Giorgione and Titian introduced the practice of painting on canvas. Italian Renaissance ideas began to influence German and Dutch artists, including Durer.

In Italy, some artists began to depart from the established Renaissance ideas of balance and naturalism, striving instead for dramatic effects. This "Mannerist" style also extended to the work of sculptors such as Bellini.

Baroque In the early 17th century, artists turned away from the exaggerations of Mannerism to more realistic representations of the world. The style can be seen in the "living" feel and dramatic movement in sculptural figures by Bernini. In painting, Baroque is represented by grand unity - overall balance rather than focusing on a particular aspect of a scene - and thestrong diagonals, curves and tonal contrasts exemplified by the work of Caravaggio. The uncluttered, elegant portraits of the period by Rubens, Van Dyck and Velazquez influenced later portrait artists such as Gainsborough.

Classicism In the 16th and early 17th centuries, a family of three Bolognese painters called the Carracci looked to Michelangelo and Raphael in an attempt to revive the harmony and balance of the High Renaissance style. They influenced two French painters in 17th-century Rome, Nicolas Poussin and Claude Lorraine (usually known as Claude). Poussin founded French Classicism with austere, geometrically planned versions of classical myths. Claude painted subjects from ancient mythology set in idealized landscapes.

17th-century Dutch painting Painting in the Protestant Dutch Republic of the 17th century developed chiefly from the earlier Flemish realism, but was also influenced by Caravaggio's Baroque style. The Republic had no royal courts or churches to provide patronage for grand works of art – its artists painted ordinary people and everyday life.

Rembrandt, who became Amsterdam's leading portrait painter, also recorded the progress of his own life with great perception in a series of self-portraits. Frans Hals portrayed Dutch dignitaries, Vermeer created calm interiors, and Ruisdael, Cuyp and Hobbema pioneered a new art form: unadorned landscape.

Western art 1700-1850 – Rococo to Pre-Raphaelites

Rococo and Romanticism moved art away from the mythological, historical and religious themes of earlier centuries. Though a strain of Greek influence still remained among the Neoclassicists, other artists began looking to contemporary literature and poetry - and to "real life" - for their inspiration, rejecting the idealism of earlier artistic movements.

Rococo Early 18th-century high society grew bored with the historical and noble themes of Baroque. Wealthy patrons began to welcome the intimate, pleasure-loving art of Watteau, who painted scenes of people in contemporary dress enjoying themselves. The new Rococo style - elegant, sensual and ornamental - soon spread throughout Europe. Only the serious and dignified genre scenes of Chardin stood apart from the new style.

Neoclassicism From the 1760s, Europe began discovering what ancient Greek and Roman art had really looked like. Information came from the excavations at Pompeii and from travelers' tales of Greece. This led to the rejection of Rococo in favor of a simple but grand style, again modeled on Classical sculpture. French painters such as David and his followers Gerard, Gros and Ingres produced works glorifying the French Revolution. Italian artist Canova, whose works include the tomb of Pope Clement XIV, was the leading Neoclassical sculptor.

Romanticism The Romanticsrejected Neoclassicism’s intellectual approach in favor of the direct expression of feelings and individual experience. German artist Friedrich believed that landscape should express the artist's spiritual state, and Romantic landscapes often contained symbolic features such as ruins and twisted trees. Delacroix produced huge canvases often inspired by literature. Romantic painters also experimented with looser brushwork and more varied ways of applying paint. For Turner as for Constable, Dutch landscapes offered early models, but Turner soon outstripped earlier artists to pioneer an almost abstract treatment of light, color and space.

Realism The rejection of both Neoclassicism and Romanticism in favor of the direct observation of real life was the key aim of Realism. Courbet believed that "painting is essentially a concrete art and must be applied to real things." His canvases portrayed everyday scenes, often on an epic scale. Burial at Ornans, showing ordinary villagers at a graveside, shocked the established art world with its "vulgarity." There was no recognized Realist school, but Courbet's determined rejection of established authority had a powerful influence on later art movements, from Impressionism to Cubism and beyond.

Pre-Raphaelites and Symbolism The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood was formed of young painters obsessed with Romantic poetry who wanted to return to what they saw as art's simplicity before Raphael. They included Rossetti, Millais and Holman Hunt. The romantic medieval style of Burne-Jones became associated with the movement through its similarity to Rossetti's later work, In the 1880s, the Symbolists also drew on literary sources. Inspired by poets Baudelaire and Mallarme, Moreau, Puvis de Chavannes and Redon chose their subjects from mythology and fantasy. Symbolists used light and distortion to produce a psychological impact.

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