01
1400-1600
Renaissance and Northern Europe
Perspective, anatomy, devotional images and new forms of portraiture made the visible world a field of inquiry.
Open the Renaissance paintings guideVisual art history
Art History Through the Evidence of Paintings
Art history is more than a sequence of styles. It asks how images were made, who used them, what viewers expected and why visual conventions changed. Begin with chronology, then inspect the paintings that make each shift visible.
Open the interactive timelineHow to use this guide
Build a chronology, then challenge it
Periods help organize change, but their boundaries are tools rather than natural laws. Artists working at the same date could inherit different traditions, serve different institutions and pursue conflicting ideas.
Use the movement links below as working hypotheses. On each painting page, test the label against visible evidence: composition, color, material, gesture, subject and historical record.
02
1600-1750
Baroque and Rococo
Theatrical light, movement and illusion turned painting into an instrument of persuasion, spectacle and courtly pleasure.
03
1750-1860
Revolution and modern life
Neoclassicism, Romanticism and Realism responded to political upheaval, industrial change and a new public sphere.
04
1860-1900
Light, perception and the modern city
Impressionists and Post-Impressionists tested how color, brushwork and viewpoint could register modern experience.
05
1900 onward
Modern art and new visual systems
Artists increasingly treated form, color and representation as systems that could be dismantled and rebuilt.
Primary evidence
