This still life by William Henry Fox Talbot exemplifies a psychological principle known as “grouping.” To hear Dr. Pietro Perona, Professor of Electrical Engineering and of Computation and Neural Systems at the California Institute of Technology, describe the phenomenon of grouping in connection to visual perception, aesthetic response, and Talbot’s photograph, press the play button below.

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English artists active in the Georgian era (1714-1830) created the elegant array of objects in this gallery. Upon entering, you’re immediately faced with an enormous carved relief depicting a story from classical mythology. The scene is harmonious and balanced, with idealized, beautiful bodies and faces. Looking at other objects in this gallery, you see a similar interest in simplicity and ornamental balance, which directly references the ancient Greco-Roman aesthetic. This is the artistic style known as neo-classism.

Look closely at the stone carvings in this gallery. They were made during the Gothic era, whose distinctive architecture developed through the important churches and cathedrals of the Paris region in the 12th century. The style continued to evolve across Europe for the next 400 years. Notice how elements such as pointed arches, thin columns, lacy open stonework called tracery, and crockets (abstract leaves, buds or flowers bursting forth at regular intervals), are found in many of the works.

Impressionism and Post-Impressionism were artistic styles that rose to prominence in the latter half of the 19th century. For capturing light and color, the use of brushstroke was a fundamental element to both artistic schools. The Impressionists favored short, choppy brushstrokes, which you can see in the works of Claude Monet and Edgar Degas. The later Post-Impressionists painted with bold, broad gestures evoking more emotional expression as seen in the work of Paul Cézanne. 

This is a special gallery in the museum: it is much larger than the rest of our European galleries, and brings together both 17th century Italian art and ancient Roman marble sculpture. Some of the paintings you see once hung in private palaces, or palazzos, of wealthy Italian aristocrats. The rooms would have been large in scale, just like this one, to show off the owner’s magnificent wealth and taste.The museum’s curators have included ancient sculpture in this gallery of paintings because 17th century Italian artists were deeply influenced by ancient Greece and Rome.

This room is often the first encountered by visitors to our Modern Art galleries. It is unusual for a museum to begin its presentation of Modern Art with German Expressionism, as we have done here, but this is an area where the museum’s collection is exceptionally rich. German Expressionism developed from the period around 1905 up through the 1930s. Take a look around. You’ll notice that the colors in the Expressionist paintings often seem discordant, and the figures often appear exaggerated or distorted.

All around you are treasured objects made of precious materials: porcelain, silver, fine textiles and furniture, all of it from the 17th and 18th centuries. Most of the artists and craftspeople who made these remain anonymous, their names lost to history. They were commissioned by the wealthy elite of France and England who sought to decorate town homes and country estates in sumptuous style.The museum has a rich collection of European decorative arts.

The museum has two main galleries that introduce modern European art: this one, emphasizing French art from the early 20th century, and gallery 207, nearby, featuring German Expressionism. Here you’ll find work by some of the best-known modern European artists, including Picasso and Matisse.

This vivid blue gallery houses the museum’s collection of French art from the Rococo period, roughly 1700 to 1750. The blue background color was chosen deliberately; documents from this time indicate that wealthy French aristocrats favored colors like this one. If you visited our galleries of earlier European art, you might notice that this gallery includes relatively few religious subjects.