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.

Art Nouveau was a phenomenon with many faces. Between 1890 and 1910, artists developed a variety of styles from the plant-like forms of the Belgian-French Art Nouveau to the ornamentation of the Viennese Secession. They were all striving to create a new, modern style and pursued a comprehensive renewal of art and, in some countries, also a renewed national identity.

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.

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.

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.