Renaissance & Mannerism

The Renaissance began in Italy around 1400, as painters rediscovered the art of ancient Greece and Rome and set out to depict the world as the eye sees it: with linear perspective, careful study of anatomy and light, and figures that occupy real space. In the Low Countries, Jan van Eyck and his successors perfected oil painting, capturing textures and reflections with astonishing precision.

The High Renaissance of Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael and Titian brought balance and harmony to their peak, while Albrecht Dürer carried the new ideas north of the Alps. From the 1520s, Mannerist painters such as Rosso Fiorentino deliberately stretched proportions and heightened colour and emotion, and Pieter Bruegel the Elder turned to the landscapes and village life of Flanders.