Art periods at a glance

In short: European art history is divided into periods with typical style features: from antiquity and the Middle Ages through the Renaissance and Baroque to modernism.

In more detail: Periods are aids to order; transitions are fluid.

In detail

• Antiquity: Idealised bodies, proportions, temples (Greece, Rome).
• Romanesque and Gothic: Church building, round arch and pointed arch respectively, stained glass.
• Renaissance: Rebirth of antiquity, perspective, Leonardo, Michelangelo, Raphael.
• Baroque: Drama, movement, splendour (Caravaggio, Rubens).
• Neoclassicism and Romanticism: Order versus feeling, landscape.
• Impressionism: Light and the moment (Monet, Renoir).
• Expressionism, Cubism: Feeling and new forms (Munch, Picasso).
• Modernism and contemporary: Abstraction, pop art, conceptual art (farbenlehre-grundlagen).