Late Gothic
(14th - 15th Century)
   The Late Gothic is the bridge between the Middle Age and the Renaissance. The Crusades and trade that followed from them brought an influx of Byzantine art and artists to western Europeans. This influence appears strongly in the emotionalism of a large wooden crucifixes and icons. Although they are still Byzantine in style, they were becoming more 'Western' in treatment. Through these connections many literary works of classical antiquity were brought to the West. The new age began in the 14th century, where lawyers and notaries imitated ancient Latin style and studied Roman archaeology.
   The novel unification of the characteristic style in art in Europe also took place at the end of the fourteenth century. The new hegemony was the consequence of a multifarious exchange of various artistic ideas and had lasted for several decades. It is difficult to point out the place and the time where the style came into being. That style was named the International Gothic.
   The most significant artists of the period are Cimabue and Giotto. Giotto was trained in the Byzantine tradition. The art characterize rediscovery of the third dimension, of real and measurable space and architectural vocabulary based on the study of Classical structures.

Italian Late Gothic:
Neroccio
Duccio di Buoninsegna
Cappo di Marcovaldo
Simone Martini
Pietro Lorenzetti
Ambrogio Lorenzetti
Cenni di Pepi - Cimabue
Giotto di Bondone
Cennino Cennini
Francesco Traini - Pisan

 

Early Renaissance
(Early 1400s)
   Renaissance marks the period of European history at the close of the Middle Ages and the rise of the Modern world. It represents a cultural rebirth from the 14th through the middle of the 17th centuries. Early Renaissance, mostly in Italy, bridges the art period during the fifteenth century, between the Middle Ages and the High Renaissance in Italy. It is generally known that Renaissance matured in Northen Europe later, in 16th century.
   The term renaissance means rebirth and is used to mark an era of broad cultural achievement as a result of renewed interest in the classical art and ideas of Ancient Greece and Rome. The main idea of rebirth lies at the belief that through the study of the intellectual and artistic treasures of the Greco-Roman antiquity, inspired by Humanism, can be reached the artistic greatness, wisdom and enlightenment.
   The rediscovery of classical world radically altered the art of painting. By the year 1500, the Renaissance revived ancient forms and content. The spiritual content of painting changed - subjects from Roman history and mythology were borrowed. Devotional art of Christian orientation became classically humanized. Classical artistic principles, including harmonious proportion, realistic expression, and rational postures were emulated.
   During this artistic period two regions of Western Europe were particularly active: Flanders and Italy. Most of the Early Renaissance works in northern Europe were produced between 1420 and 1550.

Italian Painters :
Masaccio
Fra Angelico
Sandro Botticelli
Giovanni Bellini
Domenico Veneziano
Filippo Lippi
Andrea del Castagno
Piero di Cosimo
Paolo Uccello
Antonello da Massina
Antonio Pisanello
Andrea Mantegna
Suca Signorelli
Baldovinetti
Piero della Francesca
Masolino
Andrea del Verrocchio
Domenico Ghirlandaio
Benozzo Gozzoli
Carlo Crivelli
Sebastiano Mainardi

Italian Sculptors and Architects:
Donatello
Lorenzo Ghiberti
Fillipo Brunelleschi
Flemish Painters:
Hieronymous Bosch
Pieter Bruegel the Elder
Jan van Eyck
Pieter Aertsen
Hubert van Eyck
Robert Campin
Joos van Cleve
Petrus Christus
Gerard David
Hugo van der Goes
Hans Memling
Joachim Patinir
Roger van der Weyden

German Painters:
Albrecht Altdorfer
Albrecht Dürer
Hans Baldung
Lucas Cranach the Elder
Lucas Cranach the Younger
Matthias Grünewald
Tilmann Riemenschneider
Thomas Struth
Limbourg brothers: Paul, Hermann and Jean

   The 'birth' of new interest in Classical Greco-Latin world, that artistic revolution of the Early Renaissance matured to what is now known as the High Renaissance. There has never been growth as lovely as that of painting in Florence and Rome, of the end of 15th and early 16th centuries. High Renaissance in Italy is the climax of Renaissance art, from 1500-1525. It is also considered as a sort of natural evolution of Italian Humanism (Umanesimo.

   It has been characterized by explosion of creative genius. Painting especially reached its peak of technical competence, rich artistic imagination and heroic composition. The main characteristics of High Renaissance painting are harmony and balance in construction.

   Italian High Renaissance artists achieved ideal of harmony and balance comparable with the works of ancient Greece or Rome. Renaissance Classicism was a form of art that removed the extraneous detail and showed the world as it was. Forms, colors and proportions, light and shade effects, spatial harmony, composition, perspective, anatomy - all are handled with total control and a level of accomplishment for which there are no real precedents.

   We find it in the works of the greatest artists ever known: the mighty Florentines, Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo; the Umbrian, Raffaello Sanzio; along with the great Venetian masters Titian, Tintoretto and Veronese.

Italian Painters :
Leonardo da Vinci
Michelangelo Buonarroti
Raphael
Titian
Tintoretto
Veronese

Manerism

Baroque
(1600-1750)
   Baroque was born in Italy, and later adopted in France, Germany, Netherlands, and Spain. The word "baroque" was first applied to the art of period from the late 1500s to the late 1700s, by critics in the late nineteen century. Baroque covers a wide range of styles and artists.
   In painting and sculpture we recognize three main forms of Baroque:

   Baroque that was primarily associated with the religious tensions within Western Christianity: division on Roman Catholicism and Protestantism. In response to the Protestant Reformation of the early sixteen century, the Roman Catholic Church had embarked in the 1550s on a program of renewal known as the Counter - Reformation. As part of the program, the Catholic Church used art of the magnificent display for the campaign. It was intended to be both doctrinally correct and visually and emotionally appealing so that it could influence the largest possible audience. But as the century progressed the style made inroads into the Protestant countries. Main representatives of this form of Baroque were Bernini and Rubens.
   Baroque that use revolutionary technique of dramatic, selective illumination of figures out of deep shadow - a hallmark of Baroque painting. Contrary to the traditional idealized interpretation of religious subjects, Baroque realistically presents models from the streets. Caravaggio is key painter of this form of Baroque.
   Baroque that was developed mainly in Flemish countries emphasis realism of everyday life. It has been seen in works of Rembrandt and Vermeer.

   At the same time, scientific advances and exploration with the development of the press, forced Europeans to change the view of the world. New knowledge in astronomy was of great importance. In the eighteen century scientific literature became so plenteous, that the period has gotten the name - Age of Enlightenment. Economic growth in most European countries and Colonial America, both North and South, helped create a large, prosperous middle class ardent to invest in fine houses and even palaces. The art produced in the American colonies was closely related to that of Europe.
   The new Baroque style is a dynamic art which reflects the growth of absolutist monarchies and is suitable to manifest power. It is also known as "the style of absolutism". Baroque is a style in which painters, sculptors, and architects rummaged emotion, movement, and variety in their works. Baroque favors higher volumes, exaggerates decorations, adds colossal sculptures, huge furniture etc. Sense of movement, energy, and tension are dominant impressions. Strong contrasts of light and shadow often enhance dramatic effects. In architecture, there was a special attention given to animation and grandeur achieved through scale, the dramatic use of light and shadow.



Italian Painters:
Michelangelo Merisi-Caravaggio
Annibale Carracci
Agostino Carracci
Guido Reni
Pietro da Cotona
Baciaccia

Artemisia Gentilesci

French Painters and Miniatursts:
Claude Lorrain
Nicolas Poussin
Georges de La Tour
Antoine Le Nain
Hyacinthe Rigaud

Jean Clonet

Spanish Painters:
Diego Rodriguez de Silva y Velazquez
Francisco de Zurbaran
Sanchez Cotan
Jusepe de Ribera

German Painters:
Georg Flegel
Hans Holbein the Younger

Flemish Painters:
Sir Anthony Van Dyck
Peter Paul Rubens
Jan Brueghel
Clara Peeters

Dutch Painters:
Rembrandt van Rijn
Gerard Ter Borch
Jan Vermeer
Frans Hals
Judith Leyster
Aelbert Cuyp
Jacob van Ruisdael
Meindert Hobbema
Jan Steen
Wilhelm Kalf
Anna Maria Sibylla Merian
Rachel Ruysch

English Painters and Miniaturists:
Jeremiah Meyer

Nicolas Hilliards
Isaac Oliver
Samuel Cooper
Richard Cosway
Oziris Humphrey
John Smart
 

http://www.huntfor.com/arthistory/c17th-mid19th/baroque.htm

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