Uta Hasekamp

Painting from 1200 to 1500 is a mirror of its time, marked by deep religiousness as well as progressive tendencies, by economic prosperity as well as devastating wars and epidemics. A religious perspective is joined by secular themes and efforts to achieve a realistic way of representation. These developments take place in book illumination, which is accessible to rather few people, as well as in the public medium of frescoes and, since 1300, also in panel paintings. With nearly 500 works, Gothic 1200-1500 gives an overview of the visual art of the time.

In the late Middle Ages and in the Renaissance, Florence was a capital of the arts, in the 15th century (Quattrocento) the greatest art metropolis of all. Here the wishes of rich merchants and bankers met with the skills of artists such as Brunelleschi, Masaccio or Donatello. Even in Florence today, the past is present through art, from the Cathedral, whose dome rises above the city, to the squares, churches and palaces, to the sculptures in public space.

In the 1860s, a style of painting emerged in Paris which fundamentally called into question the artistic concepts that had been prevalent in academies up to that time. Impressionist artists such as Monet, Renoir, and Degas now focused on their impression of the moment, which was captured in paintings depicting moods and light at certain times of the day and of the season, as well as in snapshots of modern life. This new kind of artistic worldview spread to other countries in Europe and the United States, which in turn produced numerous Impressionist painters. With more than 450 works, Impressionism 1860-1910 presents an overview of the most important Impressionist paintings.

The fresco - a painting on fresh plaster - is a technique of wall painting used since antiquity. Frescoes serve a wide variety of purposes: In churches as a Bible in pictures and for the representation of the life of saints or the truths of faith; in town halls they depict the ideals of a city government, in castles and palaces the appreciation of art and the sovereign virtues of the sponsors. This volume is devoted to frescoes and other impressive wall and ceiling paintings from the Romanesque period to the 19th century.

The National Gallery in London has been showing paintings owned by the British nation since 1824. Among the focal points of the collection are paintings from the late Middle Ages, the Italian Renaissance, and the Dutch Baroque, which, like British painting from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, are represented with top works in one of the world's most important galleries.

Even though it was a time of near financial ruin in Flanders, Baroque art flourished during this period thanks to the patronage of an arts-minded aristocracy. Meanwhile, the Dutch had become rich from trade and the desire for art found its way into almost every social class in the Netherlands. The naturalistic traditions shared by the two halves of the Low Countries experienced a renaissance of their own at this time.