Rembrandt van Rijn was one of the great masters of the Dutch Golden Age of painting during the seventeenth century. His style was notable for featuring bold colors and dramatic lighting in "everyday scenes" of commonfolk, as well as portraits and scenes out of the Bible. Almost all of Rembrandt's paintings featured people, and he almost never drew landscapes.

The term neoclassicism can be broken down into two parts: "Neo" and "Classic." This refers to the fact that is a new ("neo") interpretation of classic architectural and artistic concepts pioneered by the ancient Greeks and Romans. Art Deco and Art Nouveau are movements firmly planted in the twentieth century, and Mannerism and the Renaissance are much too far in the past to even be considered for a question that is about an eighteenth-through-twenty-first-century artistic movement.

Joseph Wright of Derby painted A Philosopher Giving a Lecture on the Orrery. It was painted between 1763 and 1765 CE. He was later considered the unofficial artist of the Enlightenment as a result of his paintings that largely had to do with scientific topics.

Image is in the public domain, accessed through Wikipedia Media Commons: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Wright_of_Derby,_The_Orrery.jpg

Goya created these etchings as a series of criticisms leveled at the frivolity of Spanish society at the time. This fits with Goya's other work, in which social commentary was a frequent presence. Rembrandt and Velasquez were 17th century painters, while Tiepolo and Guardi were not quite contemporaries of Goya, both being from a previous generation and dying before these etchings were made.

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Los Caprichos is Goya's series created from 1797-1798, and it is notable for its recurring portraits of asses, bats, and other figures. The Disasters of War is a later series of etchings Goya made between 1810 and 1820 as a war protest. The Sleep of Reason... is perhaps the most famous etching from Los Caprichos, and Witches' Sabbath and The Madhouse are unrelated Goya works.

Image is in the public domain, accessed through WikiArt: http://www.wikiart.org/en/francisco-goya/what-will-he-die-1799

This image is recognizably Rembrandt. Rembrandt is famous for portraits and self-portraits with stark lighting on the subject's face and a dark background behind. In addition, he often had his subjects pose in elaborate costumes like this, which depicts an old man in a turban.

Image is in the public domain, accessed through WikiArt: http://www.wikiart.org/en/rembrandt/old-man-with-turban

Jacques-Louis David was the foremost Neoclassical painter of late eighteenth century France, who was especially well known for his history paintings, such as The Oath of the Horatii shown here. Neoclassicism was a response to the excesses and embellishments of Rococo art, finding a clarity and precision in adopting classical themes from Ancient Greece and Rome. The Oath of the Horatii is based on a story from the Roman author Livy, and David presents the work in a highly composed format which reflects on the theme of loyalty to country and family.

Artwork from Wikimedia Commons: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Jacques-Louis_David,_Le_Serment_des_Horaces.jpg

The Medicis were a banking family who gained power in Florence during the fifteenth century and held sway for over two hundred years in the Northern Italian city state. While controlling the wheels of state, the Medicis were also important patrons of important Renaissance artists, making great strides in art possible in the sixteenth century. In particular, artists like Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, and Botticelli were only able to make the works they did because of the protections of the Medicis.

Caravaggio (1571-1610) built on earlier Renaissance paintings that used naturalistic poses and deep use of contrast and color, but pushed them into almost new forms. Caravaggio focused on emotional themes through natural pose and extremely sharp contrasts between dark and light elements in his paintings. These refinements were key to the development of the Baroque style of the seventeenth century.

These paintings are two classic examples of Dutch painting from the seventeenth century: Figure 3 presents The Night Watch by Rembrandt van Rijn (1642), and Figure 4 shows The Astronomer by Johannes Vermeer (1668). Both exhibit typical features of Dutch golden age painting, including strong contrasts and vivid colors, which are used to portray important Dutchmen of the day.

Figure 3: The Night Watch by Rembrandt van Rijn (1642)

Figure 4: The Astronomer by Johannes Vermeer (1668)