15th Century
Art made between 1400 and 1499: the early Renaissance in Italy and Flanders, early printmaking, and courts from Herat to Kyoto.
No works indexed yet · 10 related artists
No open-access works for 15th Century are in the index yet. They will appear here as more collections are indexed.
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In Europe the 15th century is the age of the early Renaissance. Painters in Flanders, building up layered oil glazes, recorded light on metal, fur and skin with uncanny precision: Jan van Eyck's Arnolfini Portrait (1434) and Rogier van der Weyden's Descent from the Cross (about 1435) set the standard. In Italy, artists rebuilt painting and sculpture around measured space, anatomy and ancient models, a course that ran from Fra Angelico's calm frescoes at San Marco to Sandro Botticelli's mythologies and Leonardo da Vinci's Last Supper (about 1495–98). Gutenberg's press, from around 1450, and the rise of engraving, as in Martin Schongauer's prints, sent images across the continent.
Beyond Europe, Bihzad refined Persian manuscript painting in Herat. Sesshū Tōyō transformed Japanese ink landscape after visiting China, and in Korea An Gyeon painted Dream Journey to the Peach Blossom Land (1447). The Aztec and Inca empires raised their greatest monuments.
