Introduction

From Renaissance to Impressionism: Five Hundred Years of European Paintings

In the exhibition “From Renaissance to Impressionism: Five Hundred Years of European Paintings”,  60 European masters’ paintings from the Indianapolis Museum of Art at Newfields were particularly selected. The 60 chosen artworks, with extraordinary techniques and significant artistic value, offer an overview of European paintings from the 14th to the 19th century. Works of the most eminent European masters such as Titian, Rubens, Rembrandt, El Greco, Goya, Turner, Monet, Gauguin, Renoir, etc., are included. Artworks of the exhibition cover different geological regions including Italy, the Netherlands, England and France, and contain principal phases and major schools of European art history including the Renaissance, Baroque, Rococo, Naturalism and Classicism, Neoclassicism, Romanticism, Realism and Impressionism. During this historical period (14th to 19th century), the European economy grew at an unprecedented rate, the society were under radical changes, and the art of painting witnessed major evolution from classics to modernism, with its historical meaning and profound influence lasting till today.