Renaissance, modernity and contemporary painting

500 years of painting in 100 artists: the great illustrated chronology

From Van Eyck, Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Caravaggio, Rembrandt and Vermeer to Monet, Van Gogh, Picasso, Matisse, Kandinsky, Pollock, Warhol, Basquiat, Richter, Mehretu and Kehinde Wiley, here is a visual journey through five centuries of painting.

This timeline isn't just a list of big names. It tells how painting changes function: religious image, portrait of power, landscape, daily scene, political manifesto, color laboratory, abstraction, popular image, historical memory or contemporary space.

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Léonard de Vinci, repère majeur de 500 ans de peinture

Before the frieze

Read five centuries without getting lost

Western and world painting does not progress like a straight line. The Renaissance rediscovered space, the Baroque dramatized the light, the Rococo lightened the scene, romanticism opened up interiority, realism looked at the social world, impressionism captured perception, and the avant-gardes of the 20th century changed the rules of the painting.

From 1900, ruptures accelerated: cubism, abstraction, Dada, surrealism, abstract expressionism, Pop art, minimalism, neo-expressionism and global contemporary painting. Each artist chosen here serves as a visual reference to understand a seesaw.

1400-1540

Flemish primitives, Renaissance and first mannerisms

Van Eyck, Bosch, Leonardo, Dürer, Michelangelo, Raphael, Giorgione, Titian, Holbein and Parmigianino installed the great tools of European painting: oil, perspective, portrait, color and ideal body.

1540-1620

Mannerism, Late Renaissance and birth of Baroque

Tintoretto, El Greco, Bruegel, Veronese, Caravaggio, Rubens, Artemisia, Poussin, Hals and Velazquez take painting from Renaissance balance to the dramatic tension of the Baroque.

1600-1730

Golden Ages, chiaroscuro and classical landscape

Van Dyck, La Tour, Leyster, Rembrandt, Claude Lorrain, Vermeer, Ruisdael, Murillo, Canaletto and Gainsborough explore portrait, domestic light, landscape and urban scene.

1730-1825

Rococo, neoclassicism and emerging romanticism

Fragonard, Kauffman, David, Goya, Vigée Le Brun, Friedrich, Turner, Constable, Ingres and Géricault move painting between grace, revolution, sublime and modern drama.

1830-1885

Realism, modernity and impressionism

Delacroix, Millet, Courbet, Bonheur, Manet, Degas, Monet, Renoir, Morisot and Cézanne open modern painting: social reality, light, touch, series and perception.

1885-1910

Post-impressionism, symbolism and emerging abstraction

Cassatt, Van Gogh, Seurat, Gauguin, Toulouse-Lautrec, Klimt, Munch, Matisse, Mondrian and Kandinsky change the color, the line and the very function of the painting.

1907-1930

Cubism, expressionism and early avant-gardes

Picasso, Braque, Malevitch, Modigliani, De Chirico, Schiele, Klee, Chagall, Sonia Delaunay and O'Keeffe show that the 20th century will no longer speak a single pictorial language.

1915-1945

Dada, surrealism, Art Deco and national modernities

Duchamp, Miro, Magritte, Dalí, Kahlo, Lempicka, Hopper, Wood, Léger and Lam move painting towards idea, dream, identity, machine and popular modernity.

1945-1970

Abstract Expressionism, Color Field, Minimalism and Op Art

Pollock, Rothko, Bacon, de Kooning, Krasner, Frankenthaler, Martin, Kusama, Riley and Mitchell explode gesture, color, pictorial field and perception.

1960-present

Pop art, street, neo-expressionism and contemporary painting

Warhol, Lichtenstein, Hockney, Basquiat, Haring, Richter, Kiefer, Dumas, Mehretu and Wiley open the image to popular culture, historical memory, the body politic and the global world.

Method

How the 100 artists were chosen

The selection favors artists who serve as historical benchmarks: technical invention, change of outlook, influence on a movement, pictorial power, role in a rupture or ability to summarize an era. The ranking follows the general chronological order, not an absolute order of merit.

It is not a question of saying that these hundred names are enough to tell the whole painting. A chronology involves choices. The objective is to offer a clear map: to understand how we move from Flemish portraiture to the Renaissance, from baroque to impressionism, from cubism to abstraction, then from post-war painting to contemporary globalized scenes.

Where to start?

Three journeys in the chronology

For classical foundations, start with Van Eyck, Leonard, Michelangelo, Raphael, Titian, Caravaggio, Rubens, Velazquez, Rembrandt and Vermeer. For the birth of modernity, look at Turner, Courbet, Manet, Monet, Cézanne, Van Gogh, Gauguin, Matisse, Mondrian and Kandinsky.

For the 20th century and today, continue with Picasso, Duchamp, Miro, Magritte, Kahlo, Pollock, Rothko, Bacon, Warhol, Hockney, Basquiat, Richter, Kiefer, Dumas, Mehretu and Wiley.

Five centuries, the same question: what else can painting do?

This chronology shows a simple thing: painting never ceases to die and be reborn. Each era believes it to be exhausted; each era finds a new function for it.

From Flemish light to Pop art, from chiaroscuro to colorful field, from romantic landscape to abstract cartography, these hundred artists form a great visual conversation. Painting changes its face, but it retains its power: to make the world more visible, stranger and more memorable.

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