A concise history of modern painting, offering a necessary reference to the complexities and characteristics of this medium. Academic and artist Simon Morley places the foundations of modern art much earlier than Herbert Read's classic 1959 study, at the emergence of Romanticism and the dawn of the industrial age. Loosely structured chronologically by periods, the focus is equally on individual artists and movements, with the works discussed within a broader context - stylistic, historical, geographical, as well as on themes of gender and ethnicity that recur throughout the narrative. Generously illustrated, the global and diverse range of artists includes William Blake, Édouard Manet, Hilma af Klint, Kazimir Malevich, Willem de Kooning, Amrita Sher-Gil, Faith Ringgold, and Kehinde Wiley. This guide also includes an Appendix with questions a reader might pose concerning the artists and ideas discussed, in order to revolutionize the works from a contemporary perspective.