Development of Painting

 Pre-historic Painting
 Painting in Egyptian Tombs
 Greek Painting
 Etruscan and Roman Paintings
 Medieval Painting
 Renaissance
 Neo-Classical Paintings
 Romantic Era
 Modern Period
 Postmodernism in Paintings
Pre-historic painting
 Includes the Aurignacian Period (60,000
BC to 40,000 BC) and the Magdaleniian
Period (30,000 BC to 10,000 BC)

 Aurignacian art is seen in the thousand

of animal paintings in caves and rock
shelters in the south western France
and in the Cantabrian mountains in
Northern Spain
 Magdalenian art is also seen in the
cave paintings at Altamira in Spain
and in the glacier rocks in
Scandinavia.

 Natural colors were used, red ocher,

yellow ocher, and lampblack made
from animal fat burned in lamps
A bison from the Altamira cave (Spain) ceiling,
one of the cave's most famous paintings.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Altamira,_bison.jpg
Cave painting of a dun horse (equine) at
Lascaux, France
These paintings are estimated to be
17,000 years old. They primarily consist
of realistic images of large animals,
most of which are known from fossil
evidence to have lived in the area at
the time.

The cave contains nearly 2,000 figures,

which can be grouped into three main
categories — animals, human figures
and abstract signs.
http://www.frenchfriends.info/gallery/Aquitaine/Lascaux_Cave/lascaux_Great_Hall_of
_the_Bulls_2.jpg.html
http://ursispaltenstein.ch/blog/images/uploads_img/lascaux_2.jpg
Ancient Egyptian Art
 the style of painting, sculpture, crafts and
architecture developed by the civilization
in the lower Nile Valley from 5000 BC to
300 AD

 Much of the surviving ancient Egyptian art

comes from tombs and monuments and
thus there is an emphasis on life after
death and the preservation of knowledge
of the past.
 Microsoft ® Encarta ® 2008. ©
1993-2007 Microsoft Corporation. All
Tomb of Tutankhamun rights reserved.
Paintings of Tutankhamun in the
afterlife cover the walls of his tomb
chamber. The pharaoh’s mummified
body was placed inside three
mummy cases. The innermost
mummy case, seen here, is of solid
gold embedded with jewels.
Wall painting of
Nefertari
 Egyptian paintings are painted in such a
way to show a profile view and a side
view of the animal or person. For
example, the painting of Nefertari shows
the head from a profile view and the
body from a frontal view. Their main
colors were red, blue, black, gold, and
green.
 Many ancient Egyptian paintings have
survived due to Egypt's extremely dry
climate. The paintings were often made
with the intent of making a pleasant
afterlife for the deceased.

 The themes included journey through

the after world or protective deities
introducing the deceased to the gods of
the underworld (such as Osiris).
 Art in Ancient Greece
 The art of Ancient Greece is usually divided
stylistically into four periods: the Geometric,
Archaic, Classical, and Hellenistic.

 The onset of the Persian Wars (480 BC to

448 BC) is usually taken as the dividing line
between the Archaic and the Classical periods,
and the reign of Alexander the Great (336 BC to
323 BC) is taken as separating the Classical
from the Hellenistic period.
 Geometric art

is a phase of Greek art, characterised largely by

geometric motifs in vase painting, that
flourished towards the end of the
Greek Dark Ages, circa 900 BCE to 700 BCE.

Its centre was in Athens

Linear designs were the principal motif used in

this period.
Vases in the Geometric style are
characterized by several horizontal bands
about the circumference covering the entire
vase. Between these lines the geometric
artist used a number of other decorative
motifs such as the zigzag, the triangle, the
meander and the swastika.

Besides abstract elements, painters of this

era introduced stylized depictions of humans
and animals.
Many of the surviving objects of this period
are funerary objects, a particularly
important class of which are the amphorae
that acted as grave markers for aristocratic
graves, principally the Dipylon Amphora by
the Dipylon Master.
Dipylon Vase of the late Geometric period, or
the beginning of the Archaic period, ca. 750
BC.
Archaic period in Greece (800 BCE –
480 BCE)

is a period of Ancient Greek history

Archaic period followed the Greek Dark Ages

The end of archaism is conventionally defined

as Xerxes' invasion of Greece in 480 BC.
The period takes its name from what, in
art history, was considered the archaic
or old-fashioned style of sculpture and
other works of art/craft that were
characteristic of this time, as opposed to
the more natural look of work made in
the following Classical period
Traditionally, classical Greek history
begins with the first Olympiad, which
occurred in 776 BC, although Greek
culture did not truly flourish until later.

the period generally referred to as the 5th

century BC encroaches slightly on the 4th
century BC
This century is essentially studied from
the Athenian outlook because Athens has
left us more narratives, plays, and other
written works than the other Greek
states.

the purpose of classical art was the

glorification of man
Hellenistic Art
 Hellenistic art is the art of the
Hellenistic period and dating from 323 BC
to 146 BC.

 A number of the best-known works of

Greek sculpture belong to this period,
Laocoön and his Sons, Venus de Milo,
and the Winged Victory of Samothrace.
Laocoön Group, Vatican Museums,
Rome
The Hellenistic period describes the era which
followed the conquests of Alexander the
Great.

It is often considered a period of transition,

sometimes even of decline or decadence,
between the brilliance of the Greek Classical
Era and the emergence of the Roman Empire.

Usually taken to begin with the death of

Alexander in 323 BC.
Certain mosaics, however, provide a
pretty good idea of the "grand painting"
of the period: these are copies of
frescoes. An example is the
Alexander Mosaic, showing the
confrontation of the young conqueror
and the Grand King Darius III at the
Battle of Issus, a mosaic from a floor in
the House of the Faun at Pompeii (now
in Naples).
Greek art is divided into four periods:

1. Pre-Greek period – 20th – 11th century

BC
2. First Greek Period – 1000 BC – 5th
century BC
3. Golden Age – 480 – 400 BC
4. Hellenistic Period – 4th to 1st century BC
Pre-Greek period
 Art started to flourish on the island of
Crete; Minoan civilization

 Painting flourished, decorating the halls

of the palaces and made vases for
decorative purposes
 surviving examples of Minoan art are
Minoan pottery, the palace architecture
with its frescos that include landscapes,
stone carvings, and intricately carved
seal stones
 A fresco found at the Minoan site of
Knossos, indicating a sport or ritual of
"bull leaping", the red skinned figure is a
man and the two light skinned figures
are women

SOURCE: (picture and caption)

Microsoft ® Encarta ® 2008. © 1993-2007 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minoan_civilization#Painting
First Greek Period
 The extensive trade between Greece
and Egypt during the 7th century brought
great Egyptian influence on Greek art
Golden Age
 Also known as the Age Pericles
 Greek artists achieved complete
mastery of anatomical (ideal body
proportions), technical, and aesthetic
aspects of life, which were manifested in
their paintings and sculpture
 The ideal types of human body evolved:
poised, healthy, and strong, but with a
detached facial expression
Hellenistic Period
 Vase painting was popularized by even
great Greek painters of the day
Red-figure vase painting is one of the most
important styles of figural
Greek vase painting. It developed in Athens
around 530 BC and remained in use until the
late 3rd century BC. It replaced the
previously dominant style of
Black-figure vase painting within a few
decades.

The first red-figure vases were produced

around 530 BC. The invention of the
technique normally is accredited to the
Andokides Painter.
The wedding of
Thetis, pyxis by
the
Wedding Painter,
circa 470/460 BC.
Paris: Louvre
Red-figure depictions were generally more lively
and realistic than the black-figure silhouettes.

They were also more clearly contrasted against

the black backgrounds.

The red-figure technique permitted the

indication of a third dimension on the figures.
However, it also had disadvantages. For
example, the distinction of sex by using black
slip for male skin and white paint for female skin
was now impossible. The ongoing trend to
depict heroes and deities naked and of youthful
age also made it harder to distinguish the sexes
through garments or hairstyles.
The black background did not permit the
depiction of space with any depth, so that
the use of spatial perspective almost
never was attempted.
Black Figure Vase
Heracles and Geryon on an Attic black-figured
amphora with a thick layer of transparent
gloss, c. 540 BC, now in the
Munich State Collection of Antiquities
Black-figure pottery painting, also
known as the black-figure style or
black-figure ceramic is one of the
foremost techniques and styles for
adorning antique Greek vases.

Black-figure painting on vases was the

first art style to give rise to a significant
number of identifiable artists.
Black figure vase painting had been
developed in Corinth in the 7th century
BC and quickly became the dominant
style of pottery decoration throughout
the Greek world and beyond.

Red- as well as black-figure vases are

one of the most important sources of
mythology and iconography, and
sometimes also for researching day-to-
day ancient Greek life.
Scene from a black-figure amphora from
Athens, 6th century BC, now in the Louvre
, Paris
Etruscan and Roman Paintings
 Etruscans believed in the after life; thus
they considered the tomb as the eternal
home of the soul, which survived after
death

 Their paintings show scenes of daily life

feasts, and dances in which the dead
participates.

 Tomb paintings
Etruscan art
 was the form of figurative art produced by
the Etruscan civilization in northern Italy
between the 9th and 2nd centuries BC

 The Etruscan paintings that have survived

to modern times are mostly wall frescoes
from graves, and mainly from Tarquinia.
These are incredibly important as the most
important example of pre-Roman figurative
art in Italy known to scholars.
Etruscan wall-
painting
Roman Paintings and mosaics
 The Roman style shows command and
ease in figure drawing with the effective
use of the light and shade, and the slight
use of shadows for better visual effect.

 Major forms of Roman art are

architecture, painting, sculpture and
mosaic work.
 Of the paintings which survive from the
Roman classical world, many are frescoes
from the area of Campania around Naples.
Campania includes Pompeii, Herculaneum,
and other towns whose buildings,
paintings, and sculptures were preserved
by the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius in AD 79.

 The Romans painted directly on the walls

of their rooms, and also on portable panels.
 There is evidence from mosaics and a
few inscriptions that some Roman
paintings were adaptations or copies of
earlier Greek works.
Pompeian
painter with
painted
statue and
framed painting
Pompeii
Early Christian Art Microsoft ® Encarta ® 2008. © 1993-2007 Microsoft
Corporation. All rights reserved.
Galla Placidia Interior
The richly decorated interior of the 5th-century
Galla Placidia mausoleum in Ravenna, Italy,
contrasts with the plain brick exterior. This
contrast is typical of Early Christian architecture.
The mosaic from the entrance wall features Jesus
Christ as the good shepherd.
Byzantine Art (Eastern Roman Empire)

 the term commonly used to describe the

artistic products of the Byzantine Empire
from about the 4th century until the Fall
of Constantinople in 1453
The most famous of the surviving
Byzantine mosaics of the Hagia Sophia
in Constantinople - the image of Christ
Pantocrator on the walls of the upper
southern gallery. Christ is flanked by
the Virgin Mary and John the Baptist.
The mosaics were made in the 12th
century.
 Microsoft ® Encarta ® 2008. © 1993-2007 Microsoft Corporation.

Romanesque Art All rights reserved.

arts and architecture of western Europe from about

ad 1000 to the rise of the Gothic style

This early-12th-century illuminated

manuscript illustration depicts Moses
expounding the law. The piece is
divided into two scenes, the upper
showing Moses and Aaron delivering
the law to the Israelites, and the lower
showing Moses distinguishing between
the clean and unclean beasts. The
illustration serves as the frontispiece for
a Bible from the Abbey of Bury Saint
Edmunds in England.

Moses Expounding the Law

 Gothic art began to be produced in France
about 1140, spreading to the rest of Europe
Gothic Painting during the following century. The Gothic Age
ended with the advent of the Renaissance in
Duccio’s Maestà Italy

The most celebrated work by Italian artist Duccio di Buoninsegna was the Maestà
(1308-1311), a huge altarpiece for the cathedral of Siena. The Madonna enthroned and
surrounded by angels, saints, and apostles appears on the front of the altarpiece, shown
here. The passion of Christ was illustrated on the back.
Simone Martini’s Annunciation

Italian painter Simone

Martini introduced the fresco
technique to the Sienese
school during the 14th
century. In his masterpiece
Annunciation (1333),
Martini depicts the angel
Gabriel's visit to the Virgin
Mary. The painting hangs in
the Uffizi Gallery in
Florence, Italy.
 describes the cultural
revolution of the 15th and
Renaissance 16th centuries
a revival of the classical
Early Renaissance forms originally developed by
the ancient Greeks and
Romans
interest in humanism and
assertion of the importance of
the individual

Expulsion from Paradise (about 1427) is one

of six frescoes painted by Masaccio for the
Brancacci Chapel in Santa Maria del
Carmine, Florence, Italy. The fresco was
influential for its realism, especially the
simplicity and three-dimensionality of the
figures, and for the dramatic depiction of the
plight of Adam and Eve.

Masaccio’s Expulsion from Paradise

Early Renaissance
Madonna with Saints

Madonna with Saints (1505, San

Zaccaria, Venice), by Renaissance
artist Giovanni Bellini, is an oil
painting on wood transferred to
canvas. The altarpiece was done
late in the artist’s life, when his
sense of composition and ability
to render perspective were at their
peak. It is a large painting,
measuring 4.92 m by 2.32 m (16
ft 5 in by 7 ft 9 in).
High Renaissance
Leonardo da Vinci
Leonardo was the quintessential Renaissance man

Mona Lisa (1503-1506, Louvre, Paris), Leonardo

da Vinci’s world-famous portrait, was the artist’s
favorite painting; in fact, it went everywhere with
him. Although there have been many theories about
the origin of the inexplicable smile on the woman’s
face, it was probably just the result of Leonardo’s
interest in natural chiaroscuro (the effect of light
and shadow on the subject).

Mona Lisa
Raphael’s La Belle Jardinière

Completed in 1508 in Florence, La Belle

Jardinière is one of the most famous
Madonna portraits of Italian Renaissance
painter Raphael. Raphael studied the
works of Leonardo da Vinci while in
Florence and applied some of Leonardo’s
techniques to his own painting. Raphael’s
use of contrasting lights and darks, and the
relaxed, informal pose of the Madonna
illustrate Leonardo’s influence on La Belle
Jardinière.
Mannerism-Late Renaissance Art
Mannerism, heralding a shift away from the High Renaissance

Active mainly in Venice, Italian

painter Tintoretto is noted for his
dramatically lit works with
dynamic compositions. This
painting depicts the Old
Testament story of Susanna, a
woman unjustly accused of
adultery by her scorned admirers.
Created after 1560, Susanna
Bathing is in the Kunsthistorisches
Museum in Vienna, Austria.

Susanna Bathing
 style in art and architecture of the 16th century
ris m In many Mannerist paintings proportions appear stretched, so that
n ne figures have elongated torsos, necks, or other features, and the illusion
Ma of space is unrealistic, with sharp jumps from foreground to
background rather than gradual transitions.

With its stylized, twisted

pose and ambiguous
use of space, Italian
painter Agnolo
Bronzino’s painting
Saint John the Baptist
demonstrates the
Mannerist style popular
in the mid-16th
century. This work is in
the Borghese Gallery in
Rome, Italy.

Saint John the

Baroque Painting
the style dominating the art and architecture of Europe and certain European
colonies in the Americas throughout the 1600s, and in some places, until 1750

Italian baroque painter Caravaggio painted

scenes of realism and drama, often
selecting lofty, religious themes and
depicting them with lower-class characters
and settings with dramatic spotlighting.
With its unidealized characters and focus
on the horse’s body, his Conversion of
Saint Paul seems to record a stable
accident, not a miraculous conversion by
God. This work was painted in 1601 and is
in the Cerasi Chapel, Santa Maria del
Popolo, Rome, Italy.

Conversion of Saint Paul

 Writers such as the 19th-century Swiss cultural
Baroque historian Jakob Burckhardt considered this style the
decadent end of the Renaissance

Rembrandt (1606-
1669), Dutch baroque artist

Painted in 1659, Moses Smashing the

Commandments is a late work by
Rembrandt. It demonstrates his ability to
create a sense of drama through the
skillful use of chiaroscuro (contrasts of
light and dark). Light seems to be
radiating from Moses and the tablets.

Moses Smashing the Commandments

Rococo art 
flourished in France and Germany in the early 18th century, was in many
respects a continuation of the baroque, particularly in the use of light and
shadow and compositional movement

The Asam Brothers, Egid and

Cosmas, were masters of
illusionistic rococo architecture
and sculpture. They designed the
Church of the Ascension (1717-
1725) in Rohr, Germany. The
church’s altarpiece shows the
Virgin Mary ascending to heaven.

Asam Brothers’ Interior,

 Rococo  
The rococo period corresponded roughly to the
reign (1715-74) of King Louis XV of France

Jean-Antoine Watteau’s The

Embarkation for the Island of
Cythera, (1717) is one of the best
surviving examples of French
rococo painting. Watteau’s
delicate, ethereal style, influenced
by Peter Paul Rubens and the
Venetian school, was well suited
for paintings of fêtes galantes at
which the French upper classes
socialized in the open air.

The Embarkation for the Island of Cythera

Neo-Classical Painting
art produced in Europe and North America from about 1750 through the
early 1800s, marked by the emulation of Greco-Roman forms

French painter Jacques-Louis David

was a leading proponent of
neoclassicism. Sympathetic to the
aims of the French Revolution, he
painted many images of its heroes.
Death of Marat is a portrait of a
revolutionary martyr who was killed
in his bathtub by a political enemy.
Painted in 1793, it is in the Musées
Royaux des Beaux-Arts, Brussels,
Belgium.

Death of Marat
Neo-Classical
neoclassicism was linked to contemporary political
events

English painter William Hogarth

became famous with a series of
paintings entitled A Rake's
Progress. The painting shown here,
The Rake at the Rose Tavern, is
part of that series and was painted
in 1735. It is in the Sir John Soane
Museum in London, England.

The Rake at the Rose Tavern

Romantic Painting

Romanticism, in art, European and American
movement extending from about 1800 to 1850

romantic painting is generally characterized by

a highly imaginative and subjective approach,
emotional intensity, and a dreamlike or visionary
quality

romantic art characteristically strives to express

by suggestion states of feeling too intense,
mystical, or elusive to be clearly defined.
 Romantic Painting

French romantic painter Théodore

Géricault painted Raft of the Medusa
(1818-1819, Musée du Louvre, Paris,
France), a realistic portrayal of men
suffering at sea on a makeshift life
raft. Géricault modeled the painting
after a tragic incident in which a
French government ship, the Medusa,
foundered off the coast of West
Africa with hundreds of men on
board.

Raft of the Medusa

 Romantic Painting

French romantic painter Eugène

Delacroix was inspired to paint
Liberty Leading the People after the
Revolution of 1830, when Parisians
took up arms in hope of restoring
the republic created after the French
Revolution of 1789 to 1799.
Although the Revolution of 1830
failed to restore the republic, it
ended France's absolute monarchy
and brought in a parliamentary
monarchy.

Liberty Leading the People

Barbizon School

group of French painters, who from about 1830 to

1870 lived in or near the town of Barbizon, France

they painted the animals, landscapes, and people

of the region

distinguished by painting outdoors instead of in

studios

The Barbizon painters were the precursors of

impressionism in their informality and insistence on
naturalness.
 Barbizon Art

French artist Jean François Millet

focused on painting scenes of rural
life, a famous example being The
Gleaners (1857). His work has ties to
the Barbizon school of artists, who
aimed to naturalistically depict
landscapes. Millet is also considered
a member of the 19th-century realism
movement because his works
generally depict unidealized subjects.

The Gleaners
Source: