From the early sixteenth through the late seventeenth centuries, elongated forms characterize the subjects of many French paintings. Graceful subjects and overall composition conveyed visual metaphor, often with mythological subjects, as in the painting, "Diane the Huntress," which portrays the Roman goddess of the hunt.
The French Baroque period took place in the seventeenth century, after which the Classicist movement became predominant. While Baroque art was characterized by a vibrant color palette and rounded lines, French Classicist art contained generalized subjects, lighting and effects, and focused more on form and composition.
Around the middle of the eighteenth century, French painters increasingly turned to Greek and Roman forms and subjects, signaling the beginning of Neoclassicism. Jacques-Louis David was one such painter, whose themes are evidenced in works such as "The Death of Socrates."
French Impressionist painters, such as Paul Cézanne and Paul Gaugin, experimented with color, lighting effects and brush strokes in the 1860s. The Post-Impressionist era that followed extended into the early twentieth century and was characterized by distortion of form, sometimes unnatural color and geometric shapes.
The twentieth century saw an explosion of experimental art. Cubism, Dada, Surrealism, Abstract Expressionism and Pop Art comprised a vast departure from prior schools of thought and practice. Surrealist painters, for example, depicted non-sequitur subjects and altered recognizable forms.