Artists
Renaissance
Jan van Eyck
Born around 1390 in the Low Countries, Van Eyck perfected oil painting technique. The Ghent Altarpie
Albrecht Dürer
Born in Nuremberg in 1471, Durer merged Italian humanism with Northern precision through engravings
Raphael
Born in Urbino in 1483, Raphael perfected High Renaissance ideals in thirty-seven years. His School
Titian
Born around 1488 in the Venetian Republic, Titian led the Venetian color revolution. His free brushw
Leonardo da Vinci
Born in 1452 in Vinci, Leonardo mastered painting, anatomy, and engineering. The Mona Lisa and Last
Michelangelo
Born near Florence in 1475, Michelangelo reached the summit of sculpture, painting, architecture, an
Sandro Botticelli
Born around 1445 in Florence, Botticelli revived ancient mythology in large-scale painting. The Birt
Baroque
Peter Paul Rubens
Born in 1577 in Siegen, Rubens became the supreme Baroque painter and a diplomat fluent in seven lan
Diego Velázquez
Born in Seville in 1599, Velazquez served Philip IV for four decades. Las Meninas has fascinated thi
El Greco
Born in Crete in 1541, El Greco developed an intensely personal Mannerist style of elongated figures
Caravaggio
Born near Milan in 1571, Caravaggio opened the door to Baroque painting through dramatic chiaroscuro
Artemisia Gentileschi
Born in Rome in 1593, Gentileschi was the most important woman painter of the Baroque. Her powerful
Johannes Vermeer
Born in 1632 in Delft, Vermeer secured an enduring place in art with barely three dozen paintings. G
Rembrandt
Born in Leiden in 1606, Rembrandt used light and shadow to probe human psychology. The Night Watch t
Impressionism
Pierre-Auguste Renoir
Born in Limoges in 1841, Renoir earned the title painter of happiness. His Dance at Le Moulin de la
Edgar Degas
Born in Paris in 1834, Degas captured human movement through dancers and racehorses with photographi
Berthe Morisot
Born in Bourges in 1841, Morisot was a founding Impressionist and its most prominent woman painter.
Claude Monet
Born in Paris in 1840, Monet founded Impressionism and gave it its name. He pursued the effects of l
Mary Cassatt
Born in Pennsylvania in 1844, Cassatt was the only American to exhibit with the French Impressionist
Post-Impressionism
Paul Cézanne
Born in Aix-en-Provence in 1839, Cezanne is called the father of modern painting. He reconstructed n
Paul Gauguin
Born in Paris in 1848, Gauguin abandoned finance to paint and sailed to Tahiti seeking a primitive p
Vincent van Gogh
Born in the Netherlands in 1853, Van Gogh produced some two thousand works in ten years before dying
Modern
Gustav Klimt
Born in Vienna in 1862, Klimt co-founded the Vienna Secession and fused symbolism, eroticism, and go
Salvador Dalí
Born in Figueras in 1904, Dali became Surrealism's most famous painter by rendering dreamscapes with
Pablo Picasso
Born in Malaga in 1881, Picasso co-founded Cubism and transformed 20th-century art. He left some fif
Henri Matisse
Born in 1869 in northern France, Matisse led the Fauvist revolution and spent his career liberating
Marcel Duchamp
Born in Normandy in 1887, Duchamp redefined art by declaring a urinal could be sculpture. His readym
Amedeo Modigliani
Born in Livorno in 1884, Modigliani developed an unmistakable style of elongated faces and necks. Hi
Frida Kahlo
Born in Mexico City in 1907, Kahlo transformed personal suffering into universal art through vivid s
Edvard Munch
Born in Norway in 1863, Munch created The Scream, an icon of modern anxiety. His exploration of illn
Wassily Kandinsky
Born in Moscow in 1866, Kandinsky pioneered pure abstraction, arguing that color and form express in
Kazimir Malevich
Born in 1879 in the Russian Empire, Malevich painted Black Square, a radical icon of geometric abstr
Georgia O'Keeffe
Born in Wisconsin in 1887, O'Keeffe is the mother of American modernism. Her magnified flowers and S
Andy Warhol
Born in Pittsburgh in 1928, Warhol turned commercial imagery into fine art and redefined the artist
Sculpture
Auguste Rodin
Born in Paris in 1840, Rodin is regarded as the father of modern sculpture. The Thinker and The Kiss
Camille Claudel
Born in 1864 in northern France, Claudel was a sculptor of fierce originality who studied under Rodi
Gian Lorenzo Bernini
Born in Naples in 1598, Bernini was the supreme Baroque sculptor and shaped Rome's public face. The
Architecture
Japanese Art
Utagawa Hiroshige
Born in Edo in 1797, Hiroshige elevated ukiyo-e landscape art with The Fifty-three Stations of the T
Sesshū Tōyō
Born in Bitchu Province in 1420, Sesshu mastered Chinese ink-wash painting and gave it a uniquely Ja
Kanō Eitoku
Born in Kyoto in 1543, Kano Eitoku led the Kano school and created monumental screen paintings for O
Ogata Kōrin
Born in Kyoto in 1658, Korin perfected the Rinpa school's decorative style. His Irises screens reduc
Yokoyama Taikan
Born in Mito in 1868, Taikan modernized Japanese painting through the hazy morotai technique that di
Katsushika Hokusai
Born in Edo in 1760, Hokusai produced the iconic Great Wave and the Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji,
Takeuchi Seihō
Born in Kyoto in 1864, Takeuchi Seiho modernized the Kyoto painting world by integrating Western rea
Itō Jakuchū
Born in Kyoto in 1716, Jakuchu painted birds, fish, and plants with a hyper-detailed technique that
