The history of Western painting represents a Western art tradition from antiquity until the present time.Cole, Bruce Art of the Western World: From Ancient Greece to Post Modernism. Simon and Schuster, 1981, Simonsays.com accessed 27 October 2007 Until the mid-19th century it was primarily concerned with representational and traditional modes of production, after which time more modern, abstract and conceptual forms gained favor.
Initially serving imperial, private, civic, and religious patronage, Western painting later found audiences in the aristocracy and the middle class. From the Middle Ages through the Renaissance painters worked for the church and a wealthy aristocracy.Discussion of the role of patrons in the Renaissance, retrieved 11 November 2008 Beginning with the Baroque era artists received private commissions from a more educated and prosperous middle class.History 1450–1789: Artistic Patronage , retrieved 11 November 2008 The idea of "art for art's sake"Britannica.com , retrieved 11 November 2008 began to find expression in the work of the Romantic painters.Victorianweb.org , Aesthetes, Decadents, and the Idea of Art for Art's Sake; George P. Landow, Professor of English and the History of Art, Brown University, retrieved 11 November 2008 During the 19th century commercial galleries became established and continued to provide patronage in the 20th century.
Western painting reached its zenith in Europe during the Renaissance, in conjunction with the refinement of drawing, use of perspective, ambitious architecture, tapestry, stained glass, sculpture, and the period before and after the advent of the printing press.Meggs, Philip B. A History of Graphic Design. John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 1998; (pp. 58–69) Following the depth of discovery and the complexity of innovations of the Renaissance, Western painting continued from the Baroque period to Contemporary art.Cole, Bruce & Gealt, Adelheid M. Art of the Western World: from Ancient Greece to Post-Modernism , retrieved 11 November 2008
Pre-history
The history of Western painting traces back to cave paintings in France and northern Spain from pre-historic artists in the Stone Age, with the oldest dated to some 30,000 years old. They are engraved and painted using red ochre and black pigment, including dots and stenciled hands, as well as various animals, human-animal hybrids, and people involved in hunting scenes.
Greece and Rome
Bronze Age Aegean Civilizations Minoan
Minoan painting was produced by the ancient Bronze Age Aegean Minoan civilization from about 3000 to 1100 BC. The best-preserved examples are on its pottery, and palace walls, with frescos displaying "the earliest pure landscapes anywhere",Honour & Fleming, 53 such as at Knossos and Akrotiri, buried by the Theran eruption (c. 1600 BC).
Minoan painting was influenced by the neighboring painters of Ancient Egypt and the ancient Near East, which had long produced sophisticated urban art, but the mysterious character of the small, yet wealthy, mercantile Minoan cities seems very different, with little evidence of large temple-based religion, monarchs, or warfare, and "all the imaginative power and childlike freshness of a very young culture".Castleden, 4 Sinclair Hood described an "essential quality of the finest Minoan art, the ability to create an atmosphere of movement and life although following a set of highly formal conventions".Hood, 56
Mycenaean
The Minoans clearly dominated Mycenaean art and Cycladic art of the same periods,Hood, 17–18, 23–24 even after Crete was occupied by the Mycenaeans, but only some aspects of the tradition survived the Trojan War and Greek Dark Ages, after the collapse of Mycenaean Greece.Hood, 240–241
Classical Antiquity Ancient Greece
After the Greek Dark Ages and legendary Dorian invasion, ancient Greeks in classical antiquity made remarkable contributions to painting, including innovations in perspective derived from scenography,Sinisgalli, R. (2012). Perspective in the Visual Culture of Classical Antiquity. United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press. p. 63-64Small, J.P. Circling Round Vitruvius, Linear Perspective, and the Design of Roman Wall Painting. Arts 2019, 8, 118. https://doi.org/10.3390/arts8030118 contrasting with the composite or "mixed" perspective of ancient Egyptian and Minoan painting — faces and legs presented in profile, while eyes and torsos appear frontally.Gombrich, E. H. (2023). Art and Illusion: A Study in the Psychology of Pictorial Representation - Millennium Edition. United Kingdom: Princeton University Press.Baines, J. (2007). Visual and Written Culture in Ancient Egypt. United Kingdom: OUP Oxford. p. 209
Ancient Greek painting includes polychromy on pagan temples, sculpture, and figurines; as well as wall, panel, and vase painting, on pottery and ceramics, such as black-figure, red-figure, and white-ground, giving glimpses of ancient Greek society. Mosaics also provide insight into ancient painting.Lydakēs, S. (2004). Ancient Greek Painting and Its Echoes in Later Art. United States: J. Paul Getty Museum.
Most ancient Greek painters are known only from texts. There are only few examples of wall paintings, such as those preserved in tombs and funerary art.Wilson, N. G. (2006). Encyclopedia of Ancient Greece. United Kingdom: Routledge. p. 530 Only a single example of ancient Greek panel painting from Greece proper survives, with a few others from Egypt.H. BRECOULAKI, G. VERRI, B. BOURGEOIS, F. P. ROMANO, A. G. KARYDAS, C. CALIRI, E. MATIN-GONZALEZ, G. KAVVADIAS, “The lost art of Archaic Greek painting: revealing new evidence on the Pitsa pinakes through MA-XRF and imaging techniques”, Techné 48, 2019, 35-54”.
5th century BC Greek painters include skiagraphia innovator Apollodorus, Micon, Panaenus, and Polygnotus. According to Plutarch, Polygnotos was the lover of Elpinice, and regularly worked for free.Life of Cimon, Plutarch He was more a draughtsman than the following generation of colorists.Reinach, S., Simmonds, F. (1904). The Story of Art Throughout the Ages: An Illustrated Record. United Kingdom: C. Scribner's Sons. p. 52
Apollodorus influenced Zeuxis, who took his advances to new heights.Tarbell, F. B. (1896). A history of Greek art, with an introductory chapter on art in egypt and Mesopotamia. United Kingdom: Macmillan. p. 278Keuls, E. C. (2011). Painter and Poet in Ancient Greece: Iconography and the Literary Arts. Germany: De Gruyter. p. 121, 143A Companion to Greek Art. (2018). United Kingdom: Wiley. p. 175 According to Pliny the Elder, birds pecked at Zeuxis's realistically painted grapes. Parrhasius in turn painted a realistic curtain, which Zeuxis asked to be lifted to see the image, only to discover it was the image.Darab, Ágnes. “NATURA, ARS, HISTORIA ANECDOTIC HISTORY OF ART IN PLINY THE ELDER’S ‘NATURALIS HISTORIA’ PART I: Natura and Ars: The Place of Art History in ‘Naturalis Historia.’” Hermes, vol. 142, no. 2, 2014, pp. 206–24. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/43652920. Accessed 2 Oct. 2026.
The painter Pamphilus taught Apelles (fl. 4th century BC), described as the greatest painter of antiquity, noted for perfect technique in all aspects of painting, and especially perspective.The Edinburgh Encyclopædia Conducted by David Brewster, with the Assistance of Gentlemen Eminent in Science and Literature. (1832). United States: J. and E. Parker. p. 282 Pyrrhonist philosopher Sextus Empiricus (fl. 2nd century AD) likened ataraxia to Apelles's attempt to paint a horse foaming at the mouth. Apelles was at first so unsuccessful that he gave up, and, in a rage, threw the sponge he was using to clean his paintbrushes; and its mark on the panel produced the desired effect of foam.Sextus Empiricus, Outlines of Pyrrhonism, Trans. R.G. Bury, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1933, p. 19.,
More examples of ancient Greek vase painting survive, including artists such as Exekias, Douris, and several unidentified artists given "notnames", like the Amasis Painter, Berlin Painter, Brygos Painter, and Niobid Painter.Bundrick, S. (2005). Music and image in classical Athens. United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press.Osborne, R. (2018). The Transformation of Athens: Painted Pottery and the Creation of Classical Greece. United Kingdom: Princeton University Press.
Etruscans
The Etruscans were heavily influenced by the Greeks, painting colorful polychromy, wall, and vase paintings. Almost all surviving Etruscan wall paintings are in tombs, mainly located in Tarquinia.Steingräber, Stephan, Abundance of Life: Etruscan Wall Painting, 2006, J. Paul Getty Museum, Getty Publications, , google books
Ancient Rome
Roman painting was influenced by Etruscan and Greek painting, shown in both frescoes and mosaics, but with its own unique characteristics, containing some of the first examples of trompe-l'œil, and more realistic landscapes.Swindler, M. H. (1929). Ancient Painting: From the Earliest Times to the Period of Christian Art. United Kingdom: Yale University Press. p. 430 Gaius Fabius Pictor (fl. 304 BC) is traditionally the first Roman painter. The Romans conquered the Etruscans (c. 265 BC), and conquered Greece after the Achaean War (146 BC).
Surviving examples are divided into four styles and include wall, panel, and vase paintings, many from villas, especially those in Campania, in Southern Italy, at sites buried by the 79 AD eruption of Mount Vesuvius, such as Boscoreale, Herculaneum, and Pompeii.
Some of the few surviving, ancient, painted portraits are several coffin-portraits found in the Egyptian cemetery of Al-Fayum.Berman, Lawrence; Freed, Rita E.; and Doxey, Denise. Arts of Ancient Egypt. p. 193. Museum of Fine Arts Boston. 2003. Few miniatures from Late Antique illustrated books survive; more copies of them are found from the early medieval period.Rome Across Time and Space: Cultural Transmission and the Exchange of Ideas, C.500-1400. (2011). Italy: Cambridge University Press. p. 54
Middle Ages
Byzantine art
The fall of Rome and rise of Christianity imparted a different spirit and aim to medieval painting. Byzantine art, established by the 6th century, emphasized traditional iconography and style, spanning the whole era of the Byzantine Empire (330–1453). Medieval Greek and Russian Orthodox icon-painting such as by Andrei Rublev (c. 1360–c. 1430) is seen as representative of divine revelation up to the present day.
There were many frescos, but fewer have survived than mosaics. Byzantine art is known for its flatness and highly stylised depictions of figures and landscape. However, some periods of Byzantine art are more flexible, especially 10th-century Macedonian art.Dalton, O. M. (1961). Byzantine Art and Archaeology. United Kingdom: Dover Publications. p. 16Hutter, I. (1971). Early Christian and Byzantine Art. United Kingdom: Universe Books. p. 114 Some frescoes survive from the final period of Byzantine art, known as the Palaeologan Renaissance.
Insular, Carolingian, and Ottonian painting
In medieval, Catholic Europe, the first distinctive, painting style was the Insular art of the British Isles, surviving only in miniatures from Illuminated manuscripts.Putnam A.M., Geo. Haven. Books and Their Makers During The Middle Ages. Vol. 1. New York: Hillary House, 1962. Print. Best known for their abstract decoration, figures, and sometimes scenes, were also depicted, especially in Evangelist portraits.