Key Stage 3 art and design · History of art, craft, design and architecture

KS3 art history: Baroque to Impressionism

The Key Stage 3 art curriculum asks pupils to study periods, styles and major movements in the history of art from ancient times to the present day. The centuries from about 1600 to 1900 are often taught as a run of movements, each reacting to the one before: the drama of the Baroque, the feeling of the Romantics, then the quick, light-filled painting of the Impressionists and the personal styles of the Post-Impressionists.

Baroque to Impressionism, explained

As the national curriculum names no movements, artists or dates, schools decide what to include and how to divide the story into periods. The grouping used here is common but not required. A typical unit starts with the Baroque, which flourished in seventeenth-century Europe and is known for strong drama, movement and contrasts of light and dark. Caravaggio used a spotlight effect called chiaroscuro. Rembrandt painted warm, searching portraits. Rubens painted energetic crowds, and Bernini carved marble that seems to move. In the Dutch Republic, painters such as Vermeer made quiet scenes of ordinary rooms.

In the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, Romantic artists such as Turner and Constable painted landscape and weather to express feeling, and Delacroix used colour and action to show political and human drama. Realist painters such as Courbet then chose to show ordinary working people honestly. Some schools also mention Neoclassicism, a calmer, more orderly style of the later eighteenth century that borrowed from ancient Greece and Rome, and which the Romantics partly reacted against. These movements show pupils that artists often react against what came before.

Impressionism began in France in the 1860s and 1870s. The name came from a critic’s response to Claude Monet’s painting Impression, Sunrise (1872), and the group held its first exhibition in 1874. Painters such as Monet, Renoir, Pissarro, Morisot and Degas wanted to capture a moment, and especially the changing effects of light. They often painted outdoors, helped by paint in portable tubes, using short, visible brushstrokes and pure colour laid side by side. Many were also influenced by Japanese woodblock prints and by the arrival of photography.

Post-Impressionism is a label for artists who took inspiration from Impressionism and then went in their own directions. Van Gogh used thick paint and bold colour to show feeling. Cézanne built forms from patches of colour and looked at objects from more than one viewpoint. Seurat painted with tiny dots of colour, an approach called pointillism, and Gauguin used flat areas of strong colour. Pupils usually try these techniques practically, for example with a limited palette of broken colour, impasto (thick paint), or pointillist dots, while also writing about the work using the vocabulary of art.

Words your child will hear

Baroque: A dramatic, energetic style of the seventeenth century, with rich colour and strong contrasts of light and dark.
Chiaroscuro: An Italian word for the strong contrast of light and dark used to create drama and the look of solid form.
Plein air: A French phrase meaning “open air”, used for painting outdoors rather than in a studio.
Impressionism: A movement that aimed to capture the fleeting effects of light and the feel of a moment, using quick brushwork.
Impasto: Paint applied thickly, so brushstrokes or knife marks stand out from the surface.
Pointillism: Painting with small separate dots of pure colour that mix in the viewer’s eye.
Palette: The range of colours an artist chooses to use in a work.

What the National Curriculum says

The programme of study for Key Stage 3 says:

Pupils should be taught about the history of art, craft, design and architecture, including periods, styles and major movements from ancient times up to the present day
Pupils should develop a critical understanding of artists, architects and designers, expressing reasoned judgements that can inform their own work.
Aim: pupils know about great artists, craft makers and designers, and understand the historical and cultural development of their art forms.

Objectives from the National Curriculum in England, © Crown copyright, used under the Open Government Licence v3.0.

Try it: comparing light in two paintings

How is light shown differently in a Baroque painting by Caravaggio and an Impressionist painting such as Monet’s Impression, Sunrise (1872)?

Describe the Baroque work. In Caravaggio’s paintings, figures emerge from a very dark background and a strong beam of light falls from one side, picking out faces, hands and drapery. The edges between light and dark are sharp.
Describe the Impressionist work. Monet’s harbour scene is made of loose, quick strokes of misty grey-blue, with a small orange sun and its reflection on the water. The ships are suggested rather than drawn, and few edges are sharp.
Compare how light is used. Caravaggio’s light is a spotlight, controlled and dramatic, used to direct attention and to create tension. Monet’s light is the whole atmosphere of a misty morning. The orange sun is close in tone to the grey around it, so colour does the work, not strong contrast.
Compare method and purpose. Caravaggio painted in a studio, often working from live models, and his pictures often told religious or classical stories. Monet worked fast, directly from what he saw, to record a moment. Both are making choices about what to leave out as well as what to include.
Make a judgement. “Caravaggio’s light is more dramatic and tells you where to look, while Monet’s feels more like standing in the scene. For my own work, I will try a dark background with one bright light for drama, then a version with loose, light strokes and see which suits my subject.”

Baroque light is controlled and dramatic, with deep darks and sharp edges that direct the viewer. Impressionist light is the changing atmosphere of a moment, built from separate strokes of colour with soft edges. A good answer describes both, gives a reason for the difference and supports its opinion with details from the paintings.

Common mistakes and how to help

Thinking Impressionist paintings are unfinished or careless

Up close, the brushwork looks rough and the details are missing, and a sketch-like look is easy to mistake for lack of skill.

What helps: Look at a reproduction from a distance and then close up. The strokes come together to create shimmering light. Those choices were deliberate, and the critic who popularised the name “Impressionists” meant it as mockery, not praise.

Treating the movements as neat boxes with sharp start and end dates

Timelines and labels make each style look like a separate chapter. Many artists changed style during their lives or did not fit any label.

What helps: Remember the labels were often invented afterwards by critics and historians. Ask which features a particular painting shares with its movement and which it doesn’t.

Mixing up Impressionism and Post-Impressionism

The names are similar and both involve visible brushwork and bright colour, so they blur together.

What helps: Impressionists aimed to record light and the moment. Post-Impressionists used colour and form for structure, symbols and feelings. Compare Monet’s soft, shimmering water with Van Gogh’s thick, swirling lines.

Believing that bright colours in shadows or odd colours in skin are mistakes

Pupils often assume shadows are simply grey or brown, so blue or violet in an Impressionist shadow looks wrong to them.

What helps: Look at a real shadow outdoors on a sunny day and notice that it picks up colour from the sky and surroundings. The Impressionists painted what they saw rather than what they expected.

How to help at home

Paint one view at different times. Choose a window view or a spot in the garden. Make quick sketches or paintings at breakfast, midday and evening. Compare how the colour and mood change, as Monet did with haystacks and cathedrals.
Spotlight game. In a darkened room, shine a single torch or desk lamp on a piece of fruit or a toy from one side. Draw it on grey paper using white and black pencil, and notice the strong shadows that give a Baroque look. Supervise any lamp use.
Try pointillism. Make a simple picture using only dots of felt-tip or cotton buds dipped in paint. Fill an area with closely packed red and yellow dots, then stand back: from a distance the eye starts to read it as orange.
Thick and thin paint. If you have paint, try a picture with thick paint on card, using a stiff brush or a spoon to make texture, and then another with thin, watery washes. Talk about how each looks and feels. Van Gogh is known for the thick, textured paint of the first kind.
Look at the weather. Take a walk on a grey, windy or misty day and describe the colours you see in the sky and ground. Romantic painters like Turner were fascinated by such moments.

Builds on

Key Stage 2: Great artists in history
Key Stage 2: Great architects in history
Key Stage 2: Great designers in history