Between the mid-15th and the mid-19th centuries, the materials of painting remained unchanged, but innovations in their use flourished. Technical discoveries facilitated new visual effects, political conditions prompted innovations, and economic changes shaped artists' strategies, especially as trade became global. In this illustrated jaunt through art history, Marcia Hall explores how Michelangelo radically broke with his contemporaries' harmonizing use of color, then crisscrosses Europe to examine how such artists as Botticelli, Titian, Van Gogh, and Kandinsky found ever-greater expressive possibilities in painting.