Seven Centuries of Art: Survey and Index (1970) by H.W. Janson et al.

Seven Centuries of Art: Survey and Index, the capstone volume of the classic Time-Life Library of Art, is best understood as a grand connective tissue – an effort to show how Western art evolved not as a sequence of isolated geniuses, but as a long conversation across time. Rather than focusing on the twenty-eight individual artists profiled in the series, Seven Centuries of Art traces the major movements from the Renaissance through the twentieth century, emphasizing how each style emerged in dialogue with what came before it.

The story begins with the Renaissance (1400-1527), which the volume presents as a decisive break from medieval abstraction. The artists profiled in the series include Giotto, Leonardo, Dürer, and Titian. Renaissance artists rediscovered classical antiquity and placed human experience at the center of artistic inquiry. Perspective, anatomical realism, and proportion became tools for rendering a rational, ordered world. Art was no longer primarily symbolic or didactic; it aspired to describe reality as it appeared and as it was intellectually understood. This commitment to harmony and balance laid the foundation upon which later movements would either refine or rebel.

The Baroque (1600-1720) – profiling Bernini, Rembrandt, and Vermeer – emerges as both an extension and a reaction to Renaissance restraint. Where Renaissance art prized equilibrium and clarity, Baroque artists embraced movement, drama, and emotional intensity. Light became theatrical, compositions more dynamic, and religious art more persuasive and immersive – especially in the context of the Counter-Reformation. The volume underscores how Baroque art retained Renaissance realism while pushing it toward heightened sensation and psychological engagement.

Rococo (1720-1780), by contrast, is portrayed as a narrowing and softening of Baroque energy. Represented best by Watteau, its decorative elegance, pastel palettes, and playful subject matter reflect aristocratic tastes rather than grand religious or civic purpose. While technically accomplished, Rococo art marks a turn inward – toward pleasure, intimacy, and ornament – setting the stage for a backlash.

That backlash arrives with Neoclassicism (1750-1830), which consciously rejected Rococo frivolity in favor of moral seriousness, clarity, and classical virtue. Drawing again on antiquity, Neoclassical artists emphasized order, discipline, and public meaning, mirroring Enlightenment ideals and revolutionary politics. The volume highlights how Neoclassicism sought not merely to imitate classical form, but to restore art’s ethical and civic function. The movement is perhaps best represented by Jacques Louis David, but the French revolutionary artist is not profiled in the Time Life series.

Romanticism (1800-1850) then fractured the rational order of Neoclassicism. Romantic artists –  exemplified by Turner, Goya and Delacroix, all of whom are profiled in the series – turned away from universal rules toward emotion, imagination, and the sublime. Nature became overwhelming rather than harmonious; history became tragic rather than exemplary. Individual experience – especially passion, terror, and longing – took precedence over reason. In this sense, Romanticism represents a decisive shift toward subjectivity that would define much of modern art.

With Impressionism (1865-1885), the focus shifts again – from emotional intensity to perception itself. The Impressionists and post-Impressionist, such as Manet and Van Gogh, rejected academic finish and historical themes, instead capturing fleeting moments of light, color, and modern life. The volume emphasizes how Impressionism dissolved solid form and stable composition, opening the door to art that prioritized sensation over structure.

The twentieth century’s many “isms” – Post-Impressionism, Cubism, Fauvism, Futurism, Expressionism, Surrealism, and beyond – are presented as an accelerating fragmentation of artistic consensus. Artists no longer agreed on what art should depict or how it should function. Form was broken apart, perspective abandoned, and the unconscious mined for meaning. Each movement pushed further away from representation, culminating in abstraction and conceptual art. Rather than a single narrative, modern art becomes a field of competing experiments.

Seven Centuries of Art succeeds not by offering deep analysis of any one movement, but by showing how each arose from the tensions left unresolved by its predecessors. Its great summary of the Time Life series and shows that Western art history is not a linear march toward improvement, but rather a series of arguments – about reality, emotion, reason, and meaning – played out on canvas, stone, and space across seven turbulent centuries.