Baroque

The seventeenth century, when painting set out to move and persuade. In Rome Caravaggio pushed figures out of near-black shadows into hard light; Rubens in Antwerp painted bodies in a whirl of flesh and drapery; Bernini made marble fly. The Catholic Church used this theatre to win back the faithful, kings used it to show their power, and Velázquez at the Spanish court turned it inward, into some of the most searching portraits ever made. In the Dutch Republic, with no Church or court to commission it, painting went to the market: Rembrandt's portraits and Vermeer's quiet rooms, and thousands of still lifes, landscapes and tavern scenes for merchants' walls.

What to look for: strong diagonals, dramatic light against deep shadow (tenebrism), movement caught at its peak; in Holland, everyday subjects painted with calm exactness.

13,244 works in the quiz. Play a round on Baroque.

Artists

Caravaggio · Rembrandt · Johannes Vermeer · Peter Paul Rubens · Artemisia Gentileschi · Gian Lorenzo Bernini · Diego Velázquez · El Greco · Prince Rupert of the Rhine · William Hogarth · Anthony van Dyck · Nicolas Poussin · Frans Hals · Sofonisba Anguissola · Guido Reni · Claude Lorrain · Jusepe de Ribera · Francisco de Zurbarán · Bartolomé Esteban Murillo · Jan Brueghel the Elder · Carel Fabritius · Annibale Carracci · Georges de La Tour · Pieter Brueghel the Younger · Gerard van Honthorst · Agostino Tassi · Charles Le Brun · Godfrey Kneller · Juan Carreño de Miranda · Philippe de Champaigne

Best-known works

“Girl with a Pearl Earring” — Johannes Vermeer, 1665
“Las Meninas” — Diego Velázquez, 1656
“The Night Watch” — Rembrandt, 1642
“The Milkmaid” — Johannes Vermeer, 1660
“The Goldfinch” — Carel Fabritius, 1654
“The Rape of the Daughters of Leucippus” — Peter Paul Rubens, 1618
“The Surrender of Brea” — Diego Velázquez, 1634
“The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicolaes Tulp” — Rembrandt, 1632
“View of Delft” — Johannes Vermeer, 1661
“The Calling of Saint Matthew” — Caravaggio, 1609
“Return of the Prodigal Son” — Rembrandt, 1668
“Rokeby Venus” — Diego Velázquez, 1644
“Amor Vincit Omnia” — Caravaggio, 1601
“Charles I in Three Positions” — Anthony van Dyck, 1635
“Laughing Cavalier” — Frans Hals, 1624
“The Astronomer” — Johannes Vermeer, 1664
“Irises screen” — Ogata Kōrin
“Danaë” — Rembrandt, 1636
“The Procuress” — Johannes Vermeer, 1656
“Magdalena Ventura with Her Husband and Son” — Jusepe de Ribera, 1631
“The Threatened Swan” — Jan Asselijn, 1650
“Ecstasy of Saint Teresa” — Gian Lorenzo Bernini, 1647
“Winter landscape with skaters” — Hendrick Avercamp, 1608
“The Windmill at Wijk bij Duurstede” — Jacob van Ruisdael, 1670
“Saturn” — Peter Paul Rubens, 1637
“The Jewish Bride” — Rembrandt, 1667
“The Art of Painting” — Johannes Vermeer, 1667
“The Cheat with the Ace of Diamonds” — Georges de La Tour, 1635
“Belshazzar's Feast” — Rembrandt, 1636
“Portrait of Innocent X” — Diego Velázquez, 1649–1650