A Guide to the Most Significant Art Movements of the Past 500 Years
Renaissance
The Renaissance (meaning rebirth) was a cultural movement that started in Italy in the fourteenth century, and spread throughout Europe. In art, the style of painting became highly realistic, and attempted to mimic nature as closely as possible.
What to look for: a rich three-dimensional perspective, human subjects in proportion (usually wearing robes and making grand gestures), and convincing representation of spaces.
Baroque
The term Baroque is often applied to art of the whole of the seventeenth century, and first half of the eighteenth century. Painters expanded on the naturalistic tradition established during the Renaissance, and extended their subjects to include landscapes, and still life. Baroque painters often set their subjects in vast landscapes, or interiors with extended views through doors, windows, or mirrors.
What to look for: melodramatic spaces, fat cherubs, light rays and fruit bowls.
Rococo
Rococo was a decorative art that originated in France in the early eighteenth century and is marked by elaborate ornamentation, with a profusion of scrolls, foliage, and shell-like forms.
What to look for: paintings of the aristocracy at play, asymmetry to composition, many small-scale ornamental details, and pastel colours.
Neo-Classicism
During the Neoclassical period (mid eighteenth century), the work of the Greeks and Romans (pre- Renaissance) became popular again, and paintings depicted historical subjects.
What to look for: paintings with