Oil painting is a series of progressions which evolved as society evolved, and help to bring new ideas to the forefront of people's imaginations. Art brought to life the ideas of great thinkers and passionate individuals who grew to see life in a different light that most of the people during their time.
Chiaroscuro
Oil paint was invented in 1410 by Jan van Eyck (1390 to 1441). One of the first artists to master this new medium was Leonardo Da Vinci (1452 to 1519). Leonardo used oil paint to capture the effect of light and shadow in a painting. He called this effect chiaroscuro, and he used it in the "Mona Lisa" as well as in other works to capture a truly realistic image. Michaelangelo (1475 to 1564) was a contemporary of Da Vinci's and use this chiaroscuro'in his work. Later, Carravagio (1571 to 1610) used this effect of light and shadow to create dramatic scenes of real life street models in religious scenes, a practice which was not accepted at the time. Vermeer (1632 to 1675) was another artist who similarly sought to capture realistic images. He used the play of light and shadow in a subtle, delicate way.
Class Mixing
Velasquez (1599 to 1660) was an artist who understood human life. He painted everything from kings to street urchins and knew them both. He lived with King Philip IV of Spain and painted royal portraits, as well as a portrait of Pope Innocent X. His images of street life were popular during his time, however, his work lost popularity after his death.
Impressionism
In the late 1800s came Impressionism. Manet (1832 to 1883) was one of the first impressionists. Manet's work was controversial at the time. He painted realistic nudes, people dead or dying, and situations that created sides. His work was impressionist, meaning, it was less realistic, and more of a close approximation of actual reality. Impressionists used paint to describe reality. It altered the appearance of a situation by using the nature of the paint. They are described as being painterly, or responding to the physical nature of the paint itself. After Manet came Monet (1840 to 1926), who took impressionism to another level with his use of subdued neutral color, to create radiantly lit scenes. Cezanne (1839 to 1906) was an impressionist who began to break the mold of traditional realistic imagery with his landscape scenes. Cezanne understood the nature of paint. He applied the paint the way he felt, which was an innovation.
Van Gogh
Van Gogh (1853 to 1890), along with other impressionists, helped revolutionize the art world. Van Gogh spoke out with a loaded brush. He used globs of paint and stacked them on the surface of the canvas, giving a translucent effect.
Modern Painting
Picasso (1881 to 1973) was an artist who was well known as the town painter in his hometown of Malaga, Spain when he was 18. His work evolves from realistic, to a sad beauty, to breaking all boundaries of art with cubism. Picasso and Braque (1882 to 1963) created abstract art with cubism. Kandinsky (1866 to 1944) took Picasso's idea, and made this entirely new branch of art, which led to Abstract Expressionism which strives to capture emotions with paint. Futurism grew out of cubism and was practiced by Marcel Duchamp (1887 to 1968), who invented Dadaism. Dadaists rely on the power of spontaneity (improvisation) and human psychological associations. Dadaism led to surrealism when Andre Breton (1896 to 1966) wrote the surrealist manifesto. This led artists like Dali (1904 to 89) and Yves Tanguy (1900 to 55), who created new worlds with paint.
