History of art: Modern Age and contemporary art
Domain 4 - History of art: Modern Age and contemporary art
This domain covers the Renaissance to the present. The exam tests movement recognition, formal change, patronage and the shifting status of the artist. You need a working chronology and the ability to explain why a style emerged, not just list its traits.
Core rules and concepts
- Renaissance (15th–16th c.): linear perspective, Alberti’s istoria, anatomical study, classical orders, patronage. Brunelleschi, Leonardo, Michelangelo, Raphael. Mannerism follows with elongation, artificial colour and unstable space.
- Baroque (17th c.): theatrical light, diagonal composition, tenebrism, viewer involvement; Caravaggio, Bernini, Velázquez. National variants: Dutch genre and still life, Flemish altarpieces.
- 18th–19th c.: Neoclassicism (reason, outline, archaeological subject); Romanticism (sublime, emotion, landscape); Realism (ordinary labour, contemporary life); Impressionism (optical light, broken brushwork, plein air); Post-Impressionism (structure, symbol, expressive colour).
- 20th c. avant-gardes: Cubism (multiple viewpoints), Expressionism (distortion for feeling), Futurism (speed), Dada (anti-art, photomontage), Surrealism (dream, automatism), abstraction, Abstract Expressionism, Pop (mass media), Conceptual art (idea over object).
- Contemporary: installation, performance, video, relational and digital practices; institutions, biennales and the art market shape visibility.
Worked example
Compare a tenebrist Baroque painting with a Neoclassical history painting. The Baroque work uses a single strong light source, dark ground and diagonal bodies to pull the viewer into a dramatic instant. The Neoclassical work uses even light, stable triangular composition, clear contours and a morally exemplary ancient subject. Reasoning: both are constructed, but they address different publics-Baroque persuasion through sensory immersion; Neoclassicism through reasoned exemplum. A strong answer links light, composition and subject to period values, and avoids calling one ‘more realistic.’
Traps
- Using ‘modern’ for everything after 1900 and ‘contemporary’ for the Renaissance.
- Confusing Impressionism with Post-Impressionism, or Cubism with abstraction.
- Describing a movement by one artist only.
- Ignoring patronage, exhibition and technology.
- Treating avant-garde chronology as a single linear progression.