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Following the Renaissance, European art progressed into the Baroque period which began in the late 1500s and lasted roughly a century. The word Baroque comes from a Portuguese word meaning "irregularly shaped pearl." This translation shows that the Baroque movement placed less emphasis on the classical ideals than did the Renaissance artists. In other words, the Baroque movement relaxed--if not ignored--the strict rules such as proportionality. Proportionality means having different parts the right size. In other words, an artist using porportionality would not paint a man with eyes as big as his hands.

Like the Ancient Romans, the Baroque artists focused on real people as subjects rather than idealized, perfectly-proportioned models. Also, the Baroque painters showed the things in the paintings as close to how they really look as they could. During the Baroque period, artists first began using the modern pencil, named from the Latin word "pencillus" which means "little tail."

Also popular during the Baroque period was genre (zhan-ra) painting. In the Netherlands, painters commonly created paintings highlighting daily life and the ideas that have to do with common life. Even with such a focus on real life and common subjects, Baroque artists used different colors, making brights brighter and darks darker to dramatize the paintings by making them more emotional.