Events from the year 1585 in art.

• Approximate start date of Flemish Baroque painting.
• March 3 - The Teatro Olimpico, Vicenza, designed by Palladio, and completed by Vincenzo Scamozzi, is opened, with trompe-l'œil scenery in one-point perspective.
• The Eclectic Academy of painting, also called the Accademia degli Incamminati, is founded in Bologna by Ludovico Carracci and others.
• French cardinal Matthieu Cointrel (Contarelli in Italian) dies, leaving an endowment and instructions for the decoration of the Contarelli Chapel in Rome.

• Pietro Francavilla – Saturn Devouring one of his Sons (sculpture)
• El Greco
  • St. Dominic in Prayer
  • The Virgin of the Immaculate Conception and St. John
• Nicholas Hilliard - Portrait miniature of Sir Walter Ralegh
• Taddeo Landini - Statue of Pope Sixtus V (now destroyed)
• Paolo Veronese - Lucretia
• John White – Indian Village of Secoton
  • The Ermine Portrait

• January - Hendrick Avercamp, Dutch painter (died 1634)
• May 17 (bapt.) - Esaias van de Velde, Dutch landscape painter (died 1630)
• June 28 - Sisto Badalocchio, Italian painter and engraver of the Bolognese School (died 1647)
• July 7 - Thomas Howard, 21st Earl of Arundel, English art collector (died 1646)
• August 25 - Giovanni Biliverti, Italian Mannerist painter (died 1644)
• date unknown
  • Arent Arentsz, Dutch painter (died 1631)
  • Sir Nathaniel Bacon, English landowner and painter of kitchen and market scenes with large vegetables, fruit, and buxom maids (died 1627)
  • Boetius à Bolswert, Dutch engraver (died 1633)
  • Isaac Briot, French engraver and draughtsman (died 1670)
  • Angelo Caroselli, Italian painter of the Baroque period (died 1652)
  • Huang Daozhou, Chinese calligrapher, scholar and official of the Ming Dynasty (died 1646)
  • Lan Ying, Chinese painter of landscapes, human figures, flowers and birds during the Ming Dynasty (died 1664)
  • John Taylor, English portrait painter (died 1651)
  • Jacob van Geel, Dutch Golden Age painter (died 1648)
  • Ottavio Vannini, Italian painter of altarpieces and churches, active mainly in Florence (died 1643)
  • Giuseppe Vermiglio, Caravaggisti painter from Northern Italy (died 1635)
  • Wen Zhenheng, Chinese Ming dynasty scholar, painter, and landscape garden designer (died 1645)

• September 6 - Luca Cambiasi, Italian painter (born 1527)
• December 19 - Wenzel Jamnitzer, Northern Mannerist goldsmith, artist, and printmaker in etching (born 1507/1508)
• date unknown
  • Giuseppe Marullo, Italian painter (date of birth unknown)
  • Adamo Scultori, Italian engraver (born 1530)
  • Francisco de Holanda, Portuguese humanist and painter (born 1517)
• probable - Jacob de Backer, Flemish Mannerist painter and draughtsman (born 1555)