You will understand these 40 paintings better, and enjoy them more, if you know a little bit about what ideas artists were interested in when they painted these works and what was going on in the world at the time. This section also gives you some tips about features to look for in paintings from particular periods and styles. There are many ways to divide art history into periods of time. We divide the time represented by the paintings discussed in this Track into four art periods: Renaissance, Baroque, Modern, and Twentieth Century. During each of these periods, artists woorked in a number of different styles. We will not try to describe all those styles, but just a few that are represented in the forty paintings in this Track.