Masterpieces of World Art

Bust of Queen Nefertiti

Thutmose c. 1350 BCE

Neues Museum, Berlin

Nefertiti is missing her left eye, and a CT scan found a second face beneath the plaster — wrinkles the sculptor hid.

Bust of Queen Nefertiti shows how Thutmose turns the language of ancient world into a coherent plastic form.

Winged Victory of Samothrace

Pythokritos c. 175 BCE

Louvre, Paris

Headless and armless, found in hundreds of pieces — the goddess stands on a warship's prow, marble seeming to meet the sea wind.

The Winged Victory of Samothrace, or the Nike of Samothrace, is a votive monument originally discovered on the island of Samothrace in the northeastern Aegean Sea. It is a masterpiece of Greek sculpture from the Hellenistic era, dating from the beginning of the 2nd century BC.

Intro source: Wikipedia (EN)

Adam and Eve

Albrecht Dürer 1507

Museo del Prado, Madrid

The first life-size nudes in German painting — before Dürer, no one north of the Alps dared.

Adam and Eve condenses the core ideas of renaissance into a memorable painted image.

Ghent Altarpiece

Jan van Eyck 1432

St Bavo's Cathedral, Ghent

The most-stolen artwork in history — a panel taken in 1934 is still missing, and the Nazis nearly blew it up in a salt mine.

The Ghent Altarpiece, also called the Adoration of the Mystic Lamb, is a very large and complex 15th-century polyptych altarpiece in St Bavo's Cathedral, Ghent, Belgium. It was begun around the mid-1420s and completed by 1432, and it is attributed to the Early Netherlandish painters and brothers Hubert and Jan van Eyck.

Intro source: Wikipedia (EN)

Holy Trinity

Masaccio 1420

Santa Maria Novella, Florence

For three centuries it was walled up behind an altar — its perspective so convincing that viewers took the wall for a real carved niche.

Holy Trinity shows how Masaccio turns the language of renaissance into a coherent monumental image.

Isenheim Altarpiece

Matthias Grünewald 1512

Unterlinden Museum, Colmar

Painted for a hospital treating gangrenous ergotism — Christ's sores deliberately mirror the wounds of the dying patients who prayed before it.

The Isenheim Altarpiece is an altarpiece sculpted and painted by, respectively, the Germans Nikolaus Hagenauer and Matthias Grünewald in 1512–1516. It is on display at the Unterlinden Museum at Colmar, Alsace, in France.

Intro source: Wikipedia (EN)

Lady with an Ermine

Leonardo da Vinci 1490

Czartoryski Museum, Krakow

X-rays reveal there was no ermine at first — Leonardo added it later — and the black background hides a door behind her.

The Lady with an Ermine is a portrait painting by the Italian Renaissance artist Leonardo da Vinci. Dated to c. 1489–1491, the work is painted in oils on a panel of walnut wood. Its subject is Cecilia Gallerani, a mistress of Ludovico Sforza, Duke of Milan; Leonardo was painter to the Sforza court in Milan at the time of its execution.

Intro source: Wikipedia (EN)

Primavera

Sandro Botticelli 1480

Uffizi Gallery, Florence

Botanists count some 200 plant species all blooming at once — and scholars still can't agree what the picture means.

Primavera reads as one of the anchor works of renaissance, where Sandro Botticelli's visual voice becomes unmistakable.

The Ambassadors

Hans Holbein the Younger 1533

National Gallery, London

That smear along the bottom is a skull in anamorphosis — it snaps into focus only when you look along the canvas from the side.

The Ambassadors shows how Hans Holbein the Younger turns the language of renaissance into a coherent painted image.

The Creation of Adam

Michelangelo 1511

Sistine Chapel, Vatican City

Many doctors see a cross-section of the human brain outlined around God — and the fingers of God and Adam never actually touch.

The Creation of Adam, also known as The Creation of Man, is a fresco painting by Italian artist Michelangelo, which forms part of the Sistine Chapel's ceiling, painted 1508–1512. It illustrates the Biblical creation narrative from the Book of Genesis in which God gives life to Adam, the first man.

Intro source: Wikipedia (EN)

The Garden of Earthly Delights

Hieronymus Bosch 1490

Museo del Prado, Madrid

One damned soul has musical notes inked across his backside — fans have since transcribed and played the 'song from hell'.

The Garden of Earthly Delights is the modern title given to a five-panel triptych by the Early Netherlandish master Hieronymus Bosch, between 1490 and 1510, when Bosch was between 40 and 60 years old. Because of Bosch's religious beliefs, interpretations of the work typically assume it is a warning against the perils of temptation.

Intro source: Wikipedia (EN)

The Harvesters

Pieter Brueghel the Elder 1565

Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

One of the first paintings where the season itself, not a Bible story, is the subject — and a peasant sleeps under the tree, mouth open, trousers undone.

The Harvesters reads as one of the anchor works of renaissance, where Pieter Brueghel the Elder's visual voice becomes unmistakable.

The Hunters in the Snow

Pieter Brueghel the Elder 1565

Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

One of art's first snow landscapes, painted during the Little Ice Age — Tarkovsky and von Trier both quoted it on film.

The Hunters in the Snow shows how Pieter Brueghel the Elder turns the language of renaissance into a coherent painted image.

The Last Judgment

Michelangelo 1600

Sistine Chapel, Vatican City

The church had another painter add loincloths ('the breeches-maker') — while Michelangelo put a critic in hell and hid his own face on a flayed skin.

In The Last Judgment, Michelangelo makes the structure, scale, and logic of renaissance especially legible.

The Last Supper

Leonardo da Vinci 1490

Santa Maria delle Grazie, Milan

It's not a fresco — Leonardo used experimental paint on a dry wall, and it began flaking within 20 years; monks later cut a door through Christ's feet.

The Last Supper condenses the core ideas of renaissance into a memorable monumental image.

The Marriage of the Virgin

Raphael 1504

Pinacoteca di Brera, Milan

Raphael was 21 — and signed the temple in giant letters, announcing a new master who had just outdone his own teacher.

The Marriage of the Virgin reads as one of the anchor works of renaissance, where Raphael's visual voice becomes unmistakable.

The School of Athens

Raphael 1512

Apostolic Palace, Vatican City

The philosophers wear his contemporaries' faces — Plato is Leonardo, the brooding Heraclitus is Michelangelo — and Raphael was just 26.

The School of Athens is a fresco by the Italian Renaissance artist Raphael. It was painted between 1509 and 1511 as part of a commission by Pope Julius II to decorate the rooms now called the Stanze di Raffaello in the Apostolic Palace in Vatican City.

Intro source: Wikipedia (EN)

The Tempest

Giorgione 1506

Gallerie dell'Accademia, Venice

No one agrees what it shows (over 500 readings) — and X-rays reveal a second nude woman first stood where the man now is.

In The Tempest, Giorgione makes the structure, scale, and logic of renaissance especially legible.

Venus of Urbino

Titian 1538

Uffizi Gallery, Florence

Mark Twain called it 'the foulest, the vilest, the obscenest picture the world possesses' — undone by her frank, unashamed stare.

The Venus of Urbino is an oil painting by Italian painter Titian, depicting a nude young woman, traditionally identified with the goddess Venus, reclining on a couch or bed in the sumptuous surroundings of a Renaissance palace.

Intro source: Wikipedia (EN)

Apollo and Daphne

Gian Lorenzo Bernini 1622

Galleria Borghese, Rome

Daphne's fingers sprout laurel from a single marble block — the leaves so thin they chime when flicked.

Apollo and Daphne reads as one of the anchor works of baroque, where Gian Lorenzo Bernini's visual voice becomes unmistakable.

Ecstasy of Saint Teresa

Gian Lorenzo Bernini 1647

Santa Maria della Vittoria, Rome

Bernini staged the whole chapel like a theater — light pours from a hidden window while marble spectators watch from opera boxes.

The Ecstasy of Saint Teresa is a sculptural altarpiece group in white marble set in an elevated aedicule in the Cornaro Chapel of the church of Santa Maria della Vittoria in Rome. It was designed and carved by Gian Lorenzo Bernini, the leading sculptor of his day, who also designed the setting of the chapel in marble, stucco and paint.

Intro source: Wikipedia (EN)

Judith Slaying Holofernes

Artemisia Gentileschi 1613

Uffizi Gallery, Florence

Gentileschi painted this soon after her rapist's trial — many see her attacker in Holofernes and the artist herself in Judith.

The beheading of Holofernes by Judith is recounted in the deuterocanonical Book of Judith, and is the subject of many paintings and sculptures from the Renaissance and Baroque periods.

Intro source: Wikipedia (EN)

Las Hilanderas

Diego Velazquez 1655

Museo del Prado, Madrid

For ages it read as a mere tapestry workshop — until scholars spotted the myth of Arachne, who dared challenge a goddess.

Las Hilanderas is a painting by the Spanish painter Diego Velázquez, in the Museo del Prado of Madrid, Spain. It is also known by the title The Fable of Arachne. Most scholars regard it as a late work by the artist, dating from 1657 to 1658, but some argue that it was done c.

Intro source: Wikipedia (EN)

The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicolaes Tulp

Rembrandt 1632

Mauritshuis, The Hague

Rembrandt was 26 — the corpse is a thief hanged that morning, and the dissected arm is 'wrong', copied from a textbook rather than the body.

The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicolaes Tulp is a 1632 oil painting on canvas by Rembrandt housed in the Mauritshuis museum in The Hague, Netherlands. It was originally created to be displayed by the Surgeons Guild in their meeting room.

Intro source: Wikipedia (EN)

The Art of Painting

Johannes Vermeer 1667

Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

Vermeer refused to sell it even while drowning in debt — and Hitler later seized it for a museum he never built.

The Art of Painting, also known as The Allegory of Painting, or Painter in his Studio, is a 17th-century oil on canvas painting by Dutch painter Johannes Vermeer. It is owned by the Austrian Republic and is on display in the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna.

Intro source: Wikipedia (EN)

The Calling of Saint Matthew

Caravaggio 1609

San Luigi dei Francesi, Rome

The shaft of light traces Christ's hand — which in turn quotes Adam's from Michelangelo's ceiling.

The Calling of Saint Matthew is an oil painting by the Italian Baroque master Caravaggio that depicts the moment Jesus Christ calls on the tax collector Matthew to follow him. It was completed in 1599–1600 for the Contarelli Chapel in the church of the French congregation, San Luigi dei Francesi in Rome, where it remains.

Intro source: Wikipedia (EN)

The Conversion of Saint Paul

Caravaggio 1600

Santa Maria del Popolo, Rome

A horse fills the center, and the blinding light is Paul's alone to see — the first version was rejected as too undignified.

The Conversion of Saint Paul condenses the core ideas of baroque into a memorable painted image.

The Entombment of Christ

Caravaggio 1602

Vatican Museums, Vatican City

The stone slab juts toward you, as if Christ is lowered into your own grave — Rubens, Cézanne and Géricault all copied it.

The Entombment of Christ reads as one of the anchor works of baroque, where Caravaggio's visual voice becomes unmistakable.

The Milkmaid

Johannes Vermeer 1660

Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

It's tiny (45×41 cm) — and that thin stream of milk is dozens of dots of light, while a foot-warmer and a Cupid tile hide a quiet erotic hint.

The Milkmaid shows how Johannes Vermeer turns the language of baroque into a coherent painted image.

The Night Watch

Rembrandt 1642

Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

It isn't a night scene at all — the varnish darkened — and in 1715 it was trimmed to fit a doorway, cutting two figures off the left.

Militia Company of District II under the Command of Captain Frans Banninck Cocq, also known as The Shooting Company of Frans Banning Cocq and Willem van Ruytenburch, but commonly referred to as The Night Watch, is a 1642 painting by Rembrandt van Rijn.

Intro source: Wikipedia (EN)

View of Delft

Johannes Vermeer 1661

Mauritshuis, The Hague

Proust called it the most beautiful painting in the world — and, gravely ill, dragged himself from his sickbed to see it, collapsing afterward.

View of Delft is an oil painting by Johannes Vermeer, painted c. 1659–1661. The painting of the Dutch artist's hometown is among his best known. It is one of three known paintings of Delft by Vermeer, along with The Little Street and the lost painting House Standing in Delft, and his only cityscape.

Intro source: Wikipedia (EN)

The Swing

Jean-Honoré Fragonard 1767

Wallace Collection, London

A lover hides in the bushes peeking up her skirt while her unwitting husband pushes the swing — and her flying shoe hints at lost innocence.

The Swing may refer to:The Swing (Fragonard), oil painting by Jean-Honoré Fragonard, 1767 The Swing (Renoir), oil painting by Pierre-Auguste Renoir, 1876 The Swing (Goya), a tapestry cartoon designed by Francisco de Goya The Swing, 1984, also its title track, 1984 "The Swing" (song), a song recorded by James Bonamy, 1997 "The Swing", a…

Intro source: Wikipedia (EN)

The Death of Marat

Jacques-Louis David 1793

Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium, Brussels

David knew Marat personally and turned the murder into a political icon within months — posing the dying man like a dead Christ.

The Death of Marat is a 1793 painting by Jacques-Louis David depicting the artist's friend and murdered French revolutionary leader, Jean-Paul Marat.

Intro source: Wikipedia (EN)

The Oath of the Horatii

Jacques-Louis David 1784

Louvre, Paris

A royal commission that turned into a republican rallying cry — the king had essentially funded his own propaganda nightmare.

Oath of the Horatii is a large painting by the French artist Jacques-Louis David painted in 1784 and 1785 and now on display in the Louvre in Paris. The painting immediately became a huge success with critics and the public and remains one of the best-known paintings in the Neoclassical style.

Intro source: Wikipedia (EN)

Charles IV of Spain and His Family

Francisco Goya 1800

Museo del Prado, Madrid

It's the queen, not the king, at the center — many think she really ruled — while Goya lurks in shadow, echoing Velázquez.

Charles IV of Spain and His Family is an oil-on-canvas group portrait painting by the Spanish artist Francisco Goya. He began work on the painting in 1800, shortly after he became First Chamber Painter to the royal family, and completed it in the summer of 1801.

Intro source: Wikipedia (EN)

La maja desnuda

Francisco Goya 1800

Museo del Prado, Madrid

One of the first Western nudes with no mythological alibi — it got Goya summoned before the Inquisition.

The Naked Maja or The Nude Maja is an oil-on-canvas painting made around 1797–1800 by the Spanish artist Francisco de Goya, and has been in the Museo del Prado in Madrid since 1901.

Intro source: Wikipedia (EN)

Liberty Leading the People

Eugène Delacroix 1830

Louvre, Paris

Not 1789 but the July Revolution of 1830 — and the new king bought the painting only to hide it away.

Liberty Leading the People is a painting of the Romantic era by the French artist Eugène Delacroix, commemorating the July Revolution of 1830 that toppled King Charles X.

Intro source: Wikipedia (EN)

Rain, Steam and Speed – The Great Western Railway

J. M. W. Turner 1843

National Gallery, London

A tiny hare races just ahead of the engine — and by one account Turner leaned out of a speeding train in a storm to feel the rush himself.

Rain, Steam, and Speed – The Great Western Railway is an oil painting by the 19th-century British painter J. M. W. Turner.

Intro source: Wikipedia (EN)

Saturn Devouring His Son

Francisco Goya 1819

Museo del Prado, Madrid

Goya painted this straight onto the wall of his own house — a private nightmare he never meant anyone to see.

Saturn Devouring His Son is a painting by Spanish artist Francisco Goya. The work is one of the 14 so-called Black Paintings that Goya painted directly on the walls of his house some time between 1820 and 1823. It was transferred to canvas after Goya's death and is now in the Museo del Prado in Madrid.

Intro source: Wikipedia (EN)

The Clothed Maja

Francisco Goya 1800

Museo del Prado, Madrid

By legend it slid over the nude Maja on a mechanism to hide her from guests — and oddly the clothes look racier than the nude.

The Clothed Maja reads as one of the anchor works of romanticism, where Francisco Goya's visual voice becomes unmistakable.

The Fighting Temeraire

J. M. W. Turner 1839

National Gallery, London

Voted Britain's favourite painting — a proud sailing warship towed to the scrapyard by a sooty little steam tug, the old world ending.

The Fighting Temeraire, tugged to her last berth to be broken up, 1838 is an oil-on-canvas painting by the English artist Joseph Mallord William Turner, painted in 1838 and exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1839.

Intro source: Wikipedia (EN)

The Hay Wain

John Constable 1821

National Gallery, London

Ignored in England, it stunned Paris and won gold at the 1824 Salon — where the French mocked its white flecks as 'Constable's snow'.

The Hay Wain – originally titled Landscape: Noon – is a painting by John Constable, completed in 1821, which depicts a rural scene on the River Stour between the English counties of Suffolk and Essex.

Intro source: Wikipedia (EN)

The Nightmare

Henry Fuseli 1781

Detroit Institute of Arts, Detroit

An incubus squats on the sleeper's chest, a pale-eyed mare pushing through the curtain — and Freud reputedly kept a print of it in his office.

The Nightmare is a 1781 oil painting by the Swiss artist Henry Fuseli. It shows a woman with her arms thrown below her, in deep sleep as she undergoes a nightmare as an almost hidden horse looks on as a demonic and ape-like incubus crouches on her chest.

Intro source: Wikipedia (EN)

The Raft of the Medusa

Théodore Géricault 1818

Louvre, Paris

Based on a real wreck where survivors turned to cannibalism — Géricault studied corpses in the morgue and kept severed limbs in his studio for accuracy.

The Raft of the Medusa – originally titled Scène de Naufrage – is an oil painting of 1818–1819 by the French Romantic painter and lithographer Théodore Géricault (1791–1824). Completed when the artist was 27, the work has become an icon of French Romanticism.

Intro source: Wikipedia (EN)

The Slave Ship

J. M. W. Turner 1840

Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

Based on the real Zong atrocity — sick slaves thrown overboard for insurance — the critic Ruskin owned it but sold it, unable to live with the horror.

The Slave Ship, originally titled Slavers Throwing overboard the Dead and Dying—Typhon coming on, is a painting by the British artist J. M. W. Turner, first exhibited at The Royal Academy of Arts in 1840.

Intro source: Wikipedia (EN)

The Third of May 1808

Francisco Goya 1814

Museo del Prado, Madrid

The man in white flings his arms wide like a crucified Christ — a stigmata wound on his palm — while the firing squad is a faceless wall of backs.

The Third of May 1808 in Madrid and also known, in Spanish, as El tres de mayo de 1808 en Madrid or Los fusilamientos de la montaña del Príncipe Pío, or Los fusilamientos del tres de mayo, is a painting completed in 1814 by the Spanish painter Francisco Goya, now in the Museo del Prado, Madrid.

Intro source: Wikipedia (EN)

Wanderer above the Sea of Fog

Caspar David Friedrich 1818

Hamburger Kunsthalle, Hamburg

We never see his face — his back is to us, and you take his place — yet the canvas itself is tiny, just 95×75 cm.

Wanderer above the Sea of Fog is a painting by German Romanticist artist Caspar David Friedrich in 1818.

Intro source: Wikipedia (EN)

A Bar at the Folies-Bergère Sharon

Édouard Manet 1882

Courtauld Gallery, London

The mirror reflection is optically impossible — the barmaid's back can't be where Manet put it, and the debate is a century old.

A Bar at the Folies-Bergère is a painting by Édouard Manet, considered to be his last major work. It was painted in 1882 and exhibited at the Paris Salon of that year. It depicts a scene in the Folies Bergère nightclub in Paris.

Intro source: Wikipedia (EN)

A Burial at Ornans

Gustave Courbet 1846

Musee d'Orsay, Paris

Courbet gave the scale reserved for coronations and battles to an ordinary village funeral — the Salon took it as an insult.

A Burial at Ornans is a painting of 1849–50 by Gustave Courbet. It is widely regarded as a major turning point in 19th-century French art. The painting records a funeral in Courbet's birthplace, the small town of Ornans.

Intro source: Wikipedia (EN)

Luncheon on the Grass

Édouard Manet 1863

Musee d'Orsay, Paris

Rejected by the Salon, it became the scandal of the Salon des Refusés — and its pose is lifted straight from a Raphael engraving.

In Luncheon on the Grass, Édouard Manet makes the structure, scale, and logic of realism especially legible.

Madame X (Virginie Amélie Avegno Gautreau)

John Singer Sargent 1884

Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

A single fallen shoulder strap caused such scandal that Sargent repainted it and fled Paris for London.

Madame X (Virginie Amélie Avegno Gautreau) condenses the core ideas of realism into a memorable painted image.

Olympia

Édouard Manet 1863

Musee d'Orsay, Paris

It was hung near the ceiling so outraged viewers couldn't jab it with umbrellas — she stares straight back, with no mythological alibi.

Olympia reads as one of the anchor works of realism, where Édouard Manet's visual voice becomes unmistakable.

The Angelus

Jean-François Millet 1858

Musee d'Orsay, Paris

Dalí was convinced a child's coffin lay hidden under the potato basket — and a Louvre X-ray really did find a painted-over shape.

The Angelus shows how Jean-François Millet turns the language of realism into a coherent painted image.

The Fif

Édouard Manet 1866

Musee d'Orsay, Paris

The Salon rejected The Fifer in 1866 — the boy stands in a flat grey void 'like a playing-card figure' — and Zola rose to Manet's defense.

The Fifer or Young Flautist is a painting by French painter Édouard Manet, made in 1866. It is usually kept in the Musée d'Orsay, Paris.

Intro source: Wikipedia (EN)

The Gleaners

Jean-François Millet 1857

Musee d'Orsay, Paris

Critics accused Millet of waving 'the red flag of revolution' — for painting poor gleaners as monumental, dignified figures.

The Gleaners is an oil painting by Jean-François Millet completed in 1857. It is held in the Musée d'Orsay, in Paris.

Intro source: Wikipedia (EN)

The Gross Clinic

Thomas Eakins 1875

Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia

The 1876 fair judged it too bloody and banished it to the medical pavilion — Philadelphia later raised $68M to keep it from leaving.

The Gross Clinic or The Clinic of Dr. Gross is an 1875 painting by the American artist Thomas Eakins. It is an oil on canvas and measures 8 feet (240 cm) by 6. 5 feet (200 cm).

Intro source: Wikipedia (EN)

The Horse Fair

Rosa Bonheur 1853

Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Bonheur carried a police permit to wear trousers so she could sketch at the horse market among the men.

The Horse Fair is an oil-on-canvas painting by French artist Rosa Bonheur, begun in 1852 and first exhibited at the Paris Salon of 1853. Bonheur added some finishing touches in 1855. The large work measures 96. 25 in × 199.

Intro source: Wikipedia (EN)

Whistler's Mother

James McNeill Whistler 1871

Musee d'Orsay, Paris

Its real title is 'Arrangement in Grey and Black' — and his mother sat only because, by legend, the booked model failed to show.

Arrangement in Grey and Black No. 1, best known under its colloquial name Whistler's Mother or Portrait of Artist's Mother, is a painting in oils on canvas created by the American-born painter James McNeill Whistler in 1871.

Intro source: Wikipedia (EN)

Bal du moulin de la Galette

Pierre-Auguste Renoir 1876

Musee d'Orsay, Paris

Renoir hauled the huge canvas up Montmartre daily — and critics dismissed his dappled light as sloppiness.

Bal du moulin de la Galette is an 1876 painting by French artist Pierre-Auguste Renoir.

Intro source: Wikipedia (EN)

Gare Saint-Lazare (Monet series)

Claude Monet 1877

Musee d'Orsay, Paris

Monet talked his way into the station in his finest clothes and had trains delayed and extra steam stoked — just for the right puffs of smoke.

Gare Saint-Lazare is a series of oil paintings by the French artist Claude Monet. The paintings depict the smoky interior of the eponymous railway station in varied atmospheric conditions and from various points of view.

Intro source: Wikipedia (EN)

Haystacks

Claude Monet

Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago

Monet painted the same stacks some 25 times — and a young Kandinsky saw one and turned toward abstraction.

Haystacks shows how Claude Monet turns the language of impressionism into a coherent painted image.

L'Absinthe

Edgar Degas 1875

Musee d'Orsay, Paris

The 'drunks' at the table were Degas's friends posing — yet London critics branded the picture a vile warning against absinthe.

L'Absinthe is a painting by Edgar Degas, painted between 1875 and 1876. Its original title was Dans un Café, a name often used today.

Intro source: Wikipedia (EN)

Luncheon of the Boating Party

Pierre-Auguste Renoir 1880

The Phillips Collection, Washington, D.C.

The girl with the little dog is Aline, Renoir's future wife — and nearly every face in the crowd is a named friend.

Luncheon of the Boating Party is an 1881 painting by French impressionist Pierre-Auguste Renoir. Exhibited at the Seventh Impressionist Exhibition in 1882, it was identified as the best painting in the show by three critics.

Intro source: Wikipedia (EN)

Rouen Cathedral Series

Claude Monet 1892

Musee d'Orsay, Paris

One façade, about 30 canvases — Monet rented a room across the square and finished half of them from memory back in Giverny.

Rouen Cathedral Series reads as one of the anchor works of impressionism, where Claude Monet's visual voice becomes unmistakable.

The Ballet Class

Edgar Degas 1871

Musee d'Orsay, Paris

Degas painted the backstage grind, not the glory — yawns, scratches, exhaustion — and the old man is a real Opera ballet master.

The Ballet Class shows how Edgar Degas turns the language of impressionism into a coherent painted image.

Water Lilies

Claude Monet 1914

Musee de l'Orangerie, Paris

Some 250 canvases of his own Giverny pond — Monet painted them nearly blind from cataracts and repainted sections after his eye surgery.

In Water Lilies, Claude Monet makes the structure, scale, and logic of impressionism especially legible.

A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte

Georges Seurat 1884

Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago

The lady at right walks a monkey on a leash — to 1880s Parisians that was a dirty pun, not a fashion note.

A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte was painted from 1884 to 1886 and is Georges Seurat's most famous work. It is recognised as a leading example of pointillist technique and as a founding work of the neo-impressionist movement.

Intro source: Wikipedia (EN)

Bedroom in Arles

Vincent van Gogh 1888

Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam

Van Gogh painted the bedroom three times, two from the asylum — and its lilac walls have since faded to blue.

Bedroom in Arles is the title given to three similar paintings by 19th-century Dutch Post-Impressionist painter Vincent van Gogh.

Intro source: Wikipedia (EN)

Café Terrace at Night

Vincent van Gogh 1888

Kroller-Muller Museum, Otterlo

Van Gogh painted a starry sky here before The Starry Night — and the candle-hat tale is a 1922 legend; he worked by gaslight.

Café Terrace at Night is an 1888 oil painting by the Dutch artist Vincent van Gogh. It is also known as The Cafe Terrace on the Place du Forum, and, when first exhibited in 1891, was entitled Coffeehouse, in the evening.

Intro source: Wikipedia (EN)

Irises

Vincent van Gogh 1889

J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles

Van Gogh painted Irises his first week in the asylum, calling it his 'lightning rod' against madness — one white iris stands among the blue.

In Irises, Vincent van Gogh makes the structure, scale, and logic of post-impressionism especially legible.

Mont Sainte-Victoire

Paul Cézanne 1902

Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia

Cézanne painted the same mountain some 80 times over 30 years — and the late canvases pushed Picasso and Braque toward Cubism.

Mont Sainte-Victoire condenses the core ideas of post-impressionism into a memorable painted image.

Self-Portrait with Bandaged Ear

Vincent van Gogh 1889

Courtauld Gallery, London

Van Gogh painted this only weeks after slicing off part of his own ear with a razor in Arles.

Self-Portrait with Bandaged Ear is an 1889 self-portrait by Dutch Post-Impressionist artist Vincent van Gogh. The painting is in the collection of the Courtauld Institute of Art and on display in the Gallery at Somerset House.

Intro source: Wikipedia (EN)

Starry Night Over the Rhone

Vincent van Gogh 1888

Musee d'Orsay, Paris

Not the swirling Starry Night of the postcards (that's in New York) — here a tiny couple strolls beneath the stars, a quiet love note.

Starry Night, commonly known as Starry Night Over the Rhône, is one of Vincent van Gogh's paintings of Arles at night. It was painted on the bank of the Rhône that was only a one or two-minute walk from the Yellow House on the Place Lamartine, which van Gogh was renting at the time.

Intro source: Wikipedia (EN)

Sunflowers

Vincent van Gogh 1888

National Gallery, London

Van Gogh painted the sunflowers to welcome Gauguin — and their chrome yellows are slowly browning, so museums now keep the lights low.

In Sunflowers, Vincent van Gogh makes the structure, scale, and logic of post-impressionism especially legible.

The Card Players

Paul Cézanne 1893

Musee d'Orsay, Paris

One version sold to Qatar for around $250 million — for a time the most expensive painting ever.

The Card Players is a series of oil paintings by the French Post-Impressionist artist Paul Cézanne. Painted during Cézanne's final period in the early 1890s, there are five paintings in the series. The versions vary in size, the number of players, and the setting in which the game takes place.

Intro source: Wikipedia (EN)

The Night Café

Vincent van Gogh 1888

Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven

Van Gogh painted it over three straight nights — out to show 'a place where you can ruin yourself, go mad, or commit a crime'.

The Night Café is an oil painting created by Dutch artist Vincent van Gogh in September 1888 in Arles. Its title is inscribed lower right beneath the signature. The painting is owned by Yale University and is currently held at the Yale University Art Gallery in New Haven, Connecticut.

Intro source: Wikipedia (EN)

Vision After the Sermon

Paul Gauguin 1888

National Galleries of Scotland, Edinburgh

Gauguin painted the ground bright red to convey the peasant women's vision — and the local priest refused the 'strange' painting as a gift.

Vision after the Sermon (Jacob Wrestling with the Angel) is an oil painting by French artist Paul Gauguin, completed in 1888. It is now in the Scottish National Gallery, Edinburgh. It depicts a scene from the Bible in which Jacob wrestles an angel.

Intro source: Wikipedia (EN)

Wheatfield with Crows

Vincent van Gogh 1890

Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam

Long mythologized as his final painting — three roads run to nowhere, and he wrote of trying to express 'sadness and extreme loneliness'.

Wheatfield with Crows is a July 1890 painting by Vincent van Gogh. It has been cited by several critics as one of his greatest works.

Intro source: Wikipedia (EN)

Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going?

Paul Gauguin 1897

Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

Gauguin's 'testament', painted in a fevered burst on Tahiti — afterward he says he tried to kill himself with arsenic; read it right to left.

Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going? is an 1897–98 painting by French artist Paul Gauguin. The painting was created in Tahiti and is in the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, Massachusetts. Viewed as a masterpiece by Gauguin, the painting is considered "a philosophical work comparable to the themes of the Gospels".

Intro source: Wikipedia (EN)

Le Talisman, l'Aven au Bois d'Amour

Paul Sérusier 1888

Musee d'Orsay, Paris

A tiny 27×21 cm panel — actually a cigar-box lid — painted on the spot to Gauguin's own instructions.

Le Talisman, l'Aven au Bois d'Amour reads as one of the anchor works of symbolism, where Paul Sérusier's visual voice becomes unmistakable.

Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I

Gustav Klimt 1907

Neue Galerie, New York

The Nazis seized it and renamed it 'Woman in Gold' to hide the sitter's Jewish name — it took a landmark lawsuit to win it back.

Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I shows how Gustav Klimt turns the language of symbolism into a coherent painted image.

The Dream

Henri Rousseau 1910

Museum of Modern Art, New York

Rousseau's last big canvas — and he'd never seen a jungle, studying one in the Paris botanical garden instead.

In The Dream, Henri Rousseau makes the structure, scale, and logic of symbolism especially legible.

The Lady of Shalott

John William Waterhouse 1888

Tate Britain, London

The cursed maiden looked straight at Lancelot — and now drifts to Camelot to die; two of the three candles on her boat are already out.

The Lady of Shalott condenses the core ideas of symbolism into a memorable painted image.

The Sleeping Gypsy

Henri Rousseau 1897

Museum of Modern Art, New York

A lion sniffs the sleeper yet doesn't attack — and the self-taught customs clerk, mocked as naive, was later hailed by the Surrealists as their forefather.

The Sleeping Gypsy is an 1897 oil on canvas painting by the French Naïve artist Henri Rousseau (1844–1910). It is a fantastical depiction of a lion musing over a sleeping woman on a moonlit night. It is held by the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, to which it was donated by Olga Guggenheim in 1939.

Intro source: Wikipedia (EN)

Dance

Henri Matisse 1910

Hermitage Museum, Saint Petersburg

The huge Dance runs on just three colors — and its patron Shchukin refused by telegram, then changed his mind on the train home.

Dance shows how Henri Matisse turns the language of modernism into a coherent painted image.

L'Atelier Rouge

Henri Matisse 1911

Museum of Modern Art, New York

The studio was never red — blue-green hides under the cadmium — and the canvas spent about a decade as décor in a London nightclub.

In L'Atelier Rouge, Henri Matisse makes the structure, scale, and logic of modernism especially legible.

The Open Window

Henri Matisse 1905

National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.

Shown in 1905, where a horrified critic dubbed the painters 'wild beasts' (fauves) — Fauvism was born, and here the water can be pink.

The Open Window condenses the core ideas of modernism into a memorable painted image.

Woman with a hat

Henri Matisse 1905

San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco

This is the very picture that earned the 'wild beasts' insult — and asked what color her dress really was, Matisse's wife answered simply: 'black'.

Woman with a hat reads as one of the anchor works of modernism, where Henri Matisse's visual voice becomes unmistakable.

Black Square (1915)

Kazimir Malevich 1915

Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow

Malevich hung it in the icon corner instead of a saint — and X-rays found two paintings hidden beneath the black.

Black Square (1915) shows how Kazimir Malevich turns the language of avant-garde into a coherent painted image.

Broadway Boogie Woogie

Piet Mondrian 1942

Museum of Modern Art, New York

In his last finished work Mondrian dropped the black lines he'd painted all his life, rebuilding them from tiny colored lights.

Broadway Boogie Woogie is an oil on canvas painting by Piet Mondrian, completed in 1943, after he had moved to New York in 1940.

Intro source: Wikipedia (EN)

Composition II in Red, Blue, and Yellow

Piet Mondrian 1930

Kunsthaus Zurich, Zurich

Just three primary colors on a 45-cm square — yet it ended up on Yves Saint Laurent dresses.

Composition II in Red, Blue, and Yellow condenses the core ideas of avant-garde into a memorable painted image.

Suprematist Composition

Kazimir Malevich 1916

Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam

It sold for about $85M — a record for Russian art — and Malevich called his Suprematism the 'zero of form'.

Suprematist Composition (blue rectangle over the red beam) is a 1916 painting by Kazimir Malevich, Russian painter of geometric abstraction.

Intro source: Wikipedia (EN)

Suprematist Composition: White on White

Kazimir Malevich 1918

Museum of Modern Art, New York

A white square on white — painting pushed to its near-absolute edge, decades before minimalism.

Suprematist Composition: White on White shows how Kazimir Malevich turns the language of avant-garde into a coherent painted image.

Bird in Space

Constantin Brâncuși 1923

Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia

US customs taxed it as a kitchen utensil — until a 1928 court ruling recognized abstract sculpture as art.

Bird in Space is a series of sculptures by Romanian sculptor Constantin Brâncuși. The original work was created in 1923 and made of marble. This sculpture is also known for containing seven marble figures and nine bronze casts.

Intro source: Wikipedia (EN)

David

Michelangelo 1500

Galleria dell'Accademia, Florence

Michelangelo carved David from a block two sculptors had abandoned as ruined — enlarging the head and hand for the view from below.

David condenses the core ideas of sculpture and form into a memorable plastic form.

Little Dancer of Fourteen Years

Edgar Degas 1881

National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.

Degas dressed the bronze dancer in a real tutu and ribbon — and the wax original shocked audiences as 'ugly' and vulgar.

The Little Fourteen-Year-Old Dancer is a sculpture begun c. 1880 by Edgar Degas of a young student of the Paris Opera Ballet dance school, a Belgian named Marie van Goethem.

Intro source: Wikipedia (EN)

Moses

Michelangelo 1510

San Pietro in Vincoli, Rome

The horns come from a Bible mistranslation of 'radiant' — and legend says Michelangelo struck the knee, shouting 'Now speak!'

Moses shows how Michelangelo turns the language of sculpture and form into a coherent plastic form.

Pietà (Michelangelo)

Michelangelo 1499

St. Peter's Basilica, Vatican City

Michelangelo's only signed work — he carved his name on Mary's sash after hearing the Pietà credited to another sculptor.

The Pietà is a Carrara marble sculpture of Jesus and Mary at Mount Golgotha representing the "Sixth Sorrow" of the Virgin Mary by Michelangelo Buonarroti, in Saint Peter's Basilica, Vatican City, for which it was made. It is a key work of Italian Renaissance sculpture and often taken as the start of the High Renaissance.

Intro source: Wikipedia (EN)

The Burghers of Calais

Auguste Rodin 1888

Musee Rodin, Paris

Rodin refused a pedestal so the six condemned men stand at eye level — the patrons wanted heroes and got human despair.

The Burghers of Calais condenses the core ideas of sculpture and form into a memorable plastic form.

The Kiss

Auguste Rodin 1880

Musee Rodin, Paris

The couple began as Paolo and Francesca among the damned of the Gates of Hell — until Rodin pulled them out as too happy for hell.

The Kiss reads as one of the anchor works of sculpture and form, where Auguste Rodin's visual voice becomes unmistakable.

The Kiss

Constantin Brâncuși 1909

National Museum of Art of Romania, Bucharest

Brancusi answered Rodin's Kiss with two near-cubic blocks of stone — and one version still stands as a tombstone in Montparnasse cemetery.

The Kiss shows how Constantin Brâncuși turns the language of sculpture and form into a coherent plastic form.

The Thinker

Auguste Rodin 1882

Musee Rodin, Paris

The Thinker began as Dante brooding atop the Gates of Hell — and a Cleveland cast, bombed in 1970, is still shown with its mangled base.

The Thinker, by Auguste Rodin, is a bronze sculpture depicting a nude male figure of heroic size, seated on a large rock, leaning forward, his right elbow placed upon his left thigh, with the back of his right hand supporting his chin in a posture evocative of deep thought and contemplation.

Intro source: Wikipedia (EN)

Unique Forms of Continuity in Space

Umberto Boccioni 1913

Museum of Modern Art, New York

Boccioni never saw it in bronze — he modeled the figure in plaster in 1913 and died in 1916, before a single cast was made.

Unique Forms of Continuity in Space is a 1913 bronze Futurist sculpture by Umberto Boccioni. It is seen as an expression of movement and fluidity. The sculpture is depicted on the obverse of the Italian-issue 20 cent euro coin.

Intro source: Wikipedia (EN)

Fine Wind, Clear Morning

Katsushika Hokusai 1830

Yamanashi Prefectural Museum, Yamanashi

'Red Fuji' isn't a sunset — the slopes really warm to red for just a few late-summer mornings, and Hokusai caught it.

Fine Wind, Clear Morning, also known as Red Fuji, is a woodblock print by Japanese artist Hokusai (1760–1849), part of his Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji series, dating from c. 1830 to 1832. The work has been described as "one of the simplest and at the same time one of the most outstanding of all Japanese prints".

Intro source: Wikipedia (EN)

Marilyn Diptych

Andy Warhol 1962

Tate, London

Warhol silkscreened a single Monroe publicity still — the right half fading to black-and-white, life dissolving into death.

Andy Warhol's Marilyn Diptych turns a movie star's face into an endlessly reproduced product — a pop-art icon about fame, death and mass culture.

Source: Wikipedia

The Son of Man

René Magritte 1964

Private collection

A self-portrait whose face we never see — hidden behind a floating green apple.

René Magritte's The Son of Man — a man in a bowler hat whose face is hidden by a floating green apple: a self-portrait about how the visible always conceals something else.

Source: Wikipedia

The Descent from the Cross

Peter Paul Rubens 1612-1614

Cathedral of Our Lady, Antwerp

Christ's body slides down a stark diagonal on a white shroud — a single beam that holds the whole crowded scene together.

Rubens's The Descent from the Cross — the central panel of an altarpiece where Christ's body slides down a white shroud along a single diagonal: the summit of Flemish Baroque.

Source: Wikipedia

View of Toledo

El Greco c. 1599-1600

Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

One of only two landscapes El Greco ever made — its electric storm-sky reads like Expressionism 300 years too early.

El Greco's View of Toledo — one of the first great landscapes in Western painting: a city under a stormy, electrified sky, painted as a vision rather than a map.

Source: Wikipedia

Whaam!

Roy Lichtenstein 1963

Tate, London

Lichtenstein blew up a 1962 DC war-comic panel to two metres wide — Ben-Day printing dots and all, done by hand.

Roy Lichtenstein's Whaam! — an explosion from a war comic blown up across two huge canvases: high art speaking the language of mass printing.

Source: Wikipedia

Autumn Rhythm (Number 30)

Jackson Pollock 1950

Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Pollock never touched the canvas with a brush — he poured and dripped, and cigarette butts got stuck in the paint.

Jackson Pollock's Autumn Rhythm — a canvas he splashed and poured with his whole body: pure energy of movement with no image at all.

Source: Wikipedia

Girl with Balloon

Banksy 2002

Street mural / private versions

In 2018 it shredded itself in the frame right after selling at Sotheby's — then resold for £18.5 million, many times more.

Banksy's Girl with Balloon — a figure reaching for an escaping red heart-balloon: the most famous image in street art, which once self-destructed live at auction.

Source: Wikipedia

A Bigger Splash

David Hockney 1967

Tate, London

Hockney spent about two weeks with tiny brushes on a splash that lasts a second — and the diver is already gone.

David Hockney's A Bigger Splash — a Californian pool, flat sunlight and a single moment of motion: the splash of a dive we never see.

Source: Wikipedia

Venus de Milo

Alexandros of Antioch ок. 130-100 до н.э.

Louvre, Paris

A farmer dug her up on Milos in 1820 — her lost arms have never been found, and her sculptor's name came from a base fragment that was later lost too.

The Venus de Milo is a Hellenistic statue of the goddess of love, found on the Greek island of Milos in 1820, already missing its arms. Now in the Louvre.

Intro source: Wikipedia (EN)

Trinity

Andrei Rublev ок. 1425-1427

Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow

Three angels form a single circle of divine unity — and the icon lay hidden under darkened varnish for centuries, uncovered only in the early 1900s.

Andrei Rublev's Trinity shows three angels seated at one table — the summit of medieval Russian icon painting and one of Orthodoxy's central treasures.

Intro source: Wikipedia (EN)

Barge Haulers on the Volga

Ilya Repin 1870-1873

Russian Museum, St Petersburg

Repin studied real barge haulers over three summers — and it made him famous across Russia at 26.

Barge Haulers on the Volga shows eleven exhausted men dragging a barge against the current — the most recognisable image of labour in Russian painting.

Intro source: Wikipedia (EN)

The Ninth Wave

Ivan Aivazovsky 1850

Russian Museum, St Petersburg

Aivazovsky painted the sea entirely from memory, with no studies from life — and deliberately left his shipwrecked survivors clinging to a mast, still hoping.

The Ninth Wave shows shipwreck survivors clinging to a broken mast amid a sunlit storm.

Intro source: Wikipedia (EN)

Man, Controller of the Universe

Diego Rivera 1934

Palacio de Bellas Artes, Mexico City

Rivera repainted it from memory after the Rockefellers destroyed the original over a portrait of Lenin he refused to remove.

A monumental fresco about technology, science and class struggle, recreated by Rivera in Mexico City after the original was destroyed in New York.

Intro source: Wikipedia (EN)

Pumpkin

Yayoi Kusama 1990-е — наст. время

various sites and collections

For Kusama the pumpkin is a self-portrait and a comfort against lifelong hallucinations — she has lived by choice in a psychiatric hospital since 1977.

Pumpkin is Yayoi Kusama's sculptural self-portrait, covered in her signature polka dots — one of contemporary art's most recognisable images.

Intro source: Wikipedia (EN)