As a drawing, painting has documented origins in caves and on rocks. The finest examples, believed by some to be 32,000 years old, are in the Chauvet and Lascaux caves in southern France. In shades of red, brown, yellow and black on the walls and ceilings are bison, cattle, horses and deer.

Paintings of human figures can be found in the tombs of ancient Egypt. In the great temple of Ramses II, Nefertari, his queen, is depicted headed by Isis. The Greeks contributed painting, but much of their work has been lost. One of the best remaining representations is the Hellenistic portraits of the mummy of Fayum. Another example is the mosaic of the Battle of Issus at Pompeii, which was probably based on Greek painting. Greek and Roman art contributed to Byzantine art in the fourth century B.C., which began the tradition of iconography.

Renaissance:
In addition to the illuminated manuscripts created by monks during the Middle Ages, the next significant contribution to European art was made by Italian Renaissance artists. From Giotto in the 13th century to Leonardo da Vinci and Raphael in the early 16th century, this was the richest period in Italian art, as light and shadow techniques were used to create the illusion of three-dimensional space.

The Italian school was influenced by artists in northern Europe. Jan van Eyck of Belgium, Pieter Bruegel the Elder of the Netherlands, and Hans Holbein the Younger of Germany were among the most successful artists of the time. They used the technique of glazing with oils to achieve depth and vividness.

Dutch Masters:
The 17th century saw the emergence of great Dutch masters, such as the versatile Rembrandt, who is especially remembered for his portraits and biblical scenes, and Vermeer, who specialized in interior scenes of Dutch life.

Baroque:
The Baroque began after the Renaissance, from the late 16th century to the late 17th century. Major Baroque painters included Caravaggio, who made strong use of shadowbrism. Peter Paul Rubens was a skilled painter who studied in Italy, worked in local churches in Antwerp, and painted a series for Marie de Medici. Annibale Carracci took influence from the Sistine Chapel and created the genre of illusory ceiling painting. Much of the development that occurred in the Baroque was caused by the Protestant Reformation and the resulting Counter-Reformation. Much of what defines the Baroque is dramatic lighting and general visual effects.

Impressionism:
Impressionism began in nineteenth-century France with a relaxed association of artists, including Claude Monet, Pierre-Auguste Renoir and Paul Cézanne, who brought a new freely brushed style of painting, often choosing to paint realistic scenes of contemporary life outside rather than in the studio , This was achieved through a new expression of aesthetic features manifested by brushstrokes and impressions of reality. They achieved an intense color vibe using pure, unmixed colors and short brush strokes. Movement influenced art as dynamic, moving through time and adapting to new found methods and perceptions of art. Attention to detail became less of a priority in achievement, exploring a biased view of landscapes and nature to the eye of artists.

Post Impressionism:
By the end of the 19th century, several young painters took Impressionism even further, using geometric forms and unnatural color to portray emotion while striving for a deeper symbolism. Of particular note are Paul Gauguin, who was heavily influenced by Asian, African and Japanese art, the Dutch Vincent van Gogh, who moved to France, where he painted strong sunlight in the south, and Toulouse-Lautrec, who recalled his vivid paintings of night life in the Montmartre district of Paris.

Symbolism, Expressionism and Cubism:
Edvard Munch, a Norwegian painter, developed his symbolist approach in the late 19th century, inspired by the French Impressionist Manet. Scream (1893), his most famous work, is widely interpreted as representing the universal anxiety of modern man. Partly as a result of Munch’s influence, the German Expressionist movement emerged in Germany in the early 20th century, when artists such as Ernst Kirchner and Erich Haeckel began to distort reality for emotional effect. In parallel, a style known as Cubism developed in France as artists focused on the volume and space of sharp structures within a composition. Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque were leading proponents of the movement. Objects are broken down, analyzed and reassembled in abstract form. By the 1920s, the style had evolved into Surrealism with Dali and Magritte.