Great paintings of the western world Author:Alison Gallup From the Publisher Great Paintings of the Western World opens with the Paleolithic cave paintings of Spain and France, rough images of animals, humans, and intriguing symbols that mark the birth of Western art and moves to the majestic paintings on the temples, tombs, and sarcophagi of ancient Egypt. Exquisite vases with pictorial renditions of ... more »the adventures of gods, goddesses, and heroes, all depicted in realistic, human form, preserve forever the humanist spirit of classical Greece, while the wall paintings, mosaics, and other works of art of the Roman Empire display an unmatched breadth, incorporating a wealth of styles from far-flung lands. Readers will discover the creations of such immortal artists as Michelangelo, Leonardo, Botticelli, and Titian, as well as the remarkable paintings of Jan van Eyck, Hieronymus Bosch, Albrecht Durer, and other masters of the Northern Renaissance. The complex, often extravagant art of the Baroque and Rococo periods is represented in works by Caravaggio, Boucher, Rembrandt, and Vermeer, among others. The paintings of Neoclassicists like Jacques-Louis David mirror the renewed interest in the aesthetic and philosophical legacy of the Classical period, an influence apparent not only in the orderly composition of the works, but in the very subject matter. The romantic fascination with the interior landscape and in nature at its most primal shaped the works of artists from Goya and Delacroix on the continent to John Constable and John Turner in England, to Americans like Thomas Cole, Frederick Church, and Albert Bierstadt, who sought to capture the richness of an American landscape already disappearing in the wake of industrialization and westward expansion. The Impressionists and Post-Impressionists, rebelling against Romanticism toward the end of the century and beyond, focused on reality: Courbet shocked the public with paintings that competed with photographic images; Monet, Renoir, and Van Gogh« less